My story is a pretty standard one I would say in the “Christian circle”, I grew up attending church with my family and so have always had the knowledge of what my faith entails… however it was never personal to me at until I was about 11/12. I had increasing concerns about life in general, the looming certainty of death at the end, and what, if anything, would come after this. I remember praying… a lot. Praying about what purpose there was in this life, and what my purpose was. I knew I believed what I had learnt at church and through the Bible but I didn’t know what to do with this belief. I prayed for a sign about what to do next. And then one day my mum came home and said that a good friend of mine at church was going to be baptised, I distinctly remember never being so sure of anything in my life, that this was the “sign”, this was what I also needed to do. At the time it was that simple, the belief what I knew was true, the acceptance that Christ died for my sins and that I needed to be baptised. From there my faith has grown; the full understanding of the magnitude of what Jesus did for me… that nothing I do can ever be enough to be reconciled with God… that all fall short of the Glory of God, and that that is why Jesus died, in my place, and took God’s wrath and judgement instead of me.
Am glad to read your story ending is what we need to always think about, yes Jesus Christ dead for us so that we can be saved and inherit the kingdom of God.
Very glad you choose the right path, may the Lord help us day in day out to grow in faith and gives us grace to make it to him.. so we could dwell with him.
Perhaps my testimony is not as in depth as you would like. But I can assure you I did not "just" do what my friend did without much thinking about it. I agonised for weeks over what I should do, if i was saved, whether I was ready to be baptised. I felt that my friend being baptised was my sign. But you're right prayer isn't 100% accurate, I may have misjudged but that does not mean that my action of being baptised was the wrong one, or that my path as a christian now is wrong. I know and believe that Jesus was the son of God and He lived and died for me, I trust in Him as my saviour and choose to lived a life dedicated to him.
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All I can speak of is my truth as I remember it... I knew that baptism was the way forward upon accepting Christ as my saviour, but at that time I was not able to articulate the depth of the decision which is why I did not write about it for that point.
I was 12 when I was baptised, so at the time my understanding was very simple, I had knowledge of what I believed, and I prayed for a sign, specifically for a sign that I would recognise as "the" sign. And then on hearing that a friend was being baptised I felt absolutely sure that that was my next course of action, not because my friend was doing it but because it is what is asked of us and I believed it to be my answer to prayer.
I already stated what Jesus did for me, he died for MY sins, to accept MY punishment on himself in MY place, so no. Nobody could do that now. Jesus lived a perfect life, fully man and fully God so that I may be reconciled with a perfect God despite my failings.
@yogidarshan it pains me to see that based on your responses, you clearly have no understanding of the gospel or trinity whatsoever. So allow me to enlighten you:
John 3 : 16 states "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." Christ is the mediator between mankind and God. Christ took mankind's punishment on our behalf when he was nailed to the cross, so that anyone who trusts and believes in him will be saved.
All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Because of all the sin in the world God could have just abandoned us to be damned with no hope or chance of salvation. But despite the sin and horror in the world, God sent his only son to walk among us, to take our burden of sin and to take the punishment of our sin on our behalf so that we can be born again and reconciled with God. This was only possible through Christ dying for our sins.
This is not a matter of obtaining "personal gratification". It is a matter of the understanding that through the tremendous love and grace of God we have been reconciled with God through the Lord Jesus Christ, and recognising that as the ultimate truth.