By God’s sovereign placement, I grew up in a Christian family, and by His grace, I believed from an early age that He existed and that the Bible was true. However, even though I outwardly acted like a “good Christian girl,” my heart still rebelled against the Lord. I loved my pride, the praise of others, and the carefully crafted illusion of control over my life too much to submit my life to Him. I arrogantly thought that if I followed the rules, got good grades in school, obeyed my parents, and appeared morally better than the people around me, then I wouldn’t have to submit my life to God. I pridefully believed that on my own strength, if I were moral enough to meet God’s standard, then He would be forced to just leave me alone so I could live however I wanted to live. In Jeremiah 17:5, God himself has something to say about the kind of person I used to be: “…Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart turns away from the Lord.” I was cursed – blind, ignorant, and willfully rebellious to the truth. I wanted control over my own life, and despite my frequent lip service, I wanted nothing to do with God. Because it was convenient, I wanted Jesus as my “Savior,” but I despised Jesus as my Master.
My precious illusion, that I was in control of my life and had no need for God, shattered during my senior year of high school. Shortly before the year ended, I started justifying sinful actions in my life, until finally I had spiraled so deeply into sin, I couldn’t see a way out. It felt like I was drowning in quicksand; the more I struggled, the deeper and deeper I sank. I was still able to put on my Sunday mask in front of my church friends and my family, but inside, I despaired because despite all of my efforts to dig myself out of sin, I would eagerly leap right back in at the next opportunity. I loved sinning and craved it. The prideful delusion, that I had my life and my sin under control, crumbled as the truth became increasingly apparent. I was helpless in my sin. I was a slave to it. I had no control over anything.
One night that summer, my mom and I had an argument over the way I was living my life. That night, she laid the gospel out for me, and even though I’d heard the good news thousands of times before, God moved my heart and broke me so that I could finally understand. My mom was bold enough to point out what I’d always tried to ignore before: I was a sinner. She called me out and rebuked me, saying that I was just being prideful because I didn’t want to give up control of my life to God. I didn’t love God; I hated Him. But even though I was His enemy and a wretched sinner, He sent Jesus to die for me and to free me from my sin. In retrospect, my mom’s words echoed Paul’s writings in Romans 5:6-8, “For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
Shortly after my argument with my mom, at a church retreat, and purely by God’s grace and calling, I offered my life up to Christ. I admitted that apart from Him, I could do nothing that was good or pleasing to Him. I had done a proper job of messing up my life. He needed to help me; he needed to change me; his death was needed so that I could be reconciled to God. So may all of the praise and glory belong to Jesus Christ. I was purchased by the blood of another – and not just a man, but the very God that I had so despised and rejected my entire life. Praise God, that I can speak these words now: I no longer try in futility to be my own master; Christ is master over my life and I’m not ashamed to say that my all belongs to Him. Given, I still struggle with sin, still struggle to be content, still struggle to humble myself before Him, but through Jesus, God has been infinitely more gracious to me than I could ever hope to understand. In all, my testimony can be summed up by Psalm 116:5-6, “Gracious is the LORD, and righteous; Yes, our God is compassionate. The LORD preserves the simple; I was brought low, and He saved me.”
My precious illusion, that I was in control of my life and had no need for God, shattered during my senior year of high school. Shortly before the year ended, I started justifying sinful actions in my life, until finally I had spiraled so deeply into sin, I couldn’t see a way out. It felt like I was drowning in quicksand; the more I struggled, the deeper and deeper I sank. I was still able to put on my Sunday mask in front of my church friends and my family, but inside, I despaired because despite all of my efforts to dig myself out of sin, I would eagerly leap right back in at the next opportunity. I loved sinning and craved it. The prideful delusion, that I had my life and my sin under control, crumbled as the truth became increasingly apparent. I was helpless in my sin. I was a slave to it. I had no control over anything.
One night that summer, my mom and I had an argument over the way I was living my life. That night, she laid the gospel out for me, and even though I’d heard the good news thousands of times before, God moved my heart and broke me so that I could finally understand. My mom was bold enough to point out what I’d always tried to ignore before: I was a sinner. She called me out and rebuked me, saying that I was just being prideful because I didn’t want to give up control of my life to God. I didn’t love God; I hated Him. But even though I was His enemy and a wretched sinner, He sent Jesus to die for me and to free me from my sin. In retrospect, my mom’s words echoed Paul’s writings in Romans 5:6-8, “For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
Shortly after my argument with my mom, at a church retreat, and purely by God’s grace and calling, I offered my life up to Christ. I admitted that apart from Him, I could do nothing that was good or pleasing to Him. I had done a proper job of messing up my life. He needed to help me; he needed to change me; his death was needed so that I could be reconciled to God. So may all of the praise and glory belong to Jesus Christ. I was purchased by the blood of another – and not just a man, but the very God that I had so despised and rejected my entire life. Praise God, that I can speak these words now: I no longer try in futility to be my own master; Christ is master over my life and I’m not ashamed to say that my all belongs to Him. Given, I still struggle with sin, still struggle to be content, still struggle to humble myself before Him, but through Jesus, God has been infinitely more gracious to me than I could ever hope to understand. In all, my testimony can be summed up by Psalm 116:5-6, “Gracious is the LORD, and righteous; Yes, our God is compassionate. The LORD preserves the simple; I was brought low, and He saved me.”