Sunday, February 16, 2014

Personal Testimony

As part of my exam for Tuesday's class, I have to submit my personal testimony. While writing it out tonight, I was compelled to blog about it! This is the basic "how I came to know Jesus" story. But either way, it's my story! 

As a young child, I attended church as part of family heritage and tradition. I was involved in the Methodist church and participated in all things church related. I was 11 years old when I went on my first missions trip to Mexico.
At the age of 12, my mother was invited to attend “Heavens Gates and Hell’s flames” at a local Assemblies of God church. It was during that dramatization I learned there is a heaven and a hell. Up until then I had no knowledge of hell. I gave my heart to Jesus that night in 1992, mostly in fear of going to Hell. The church where we visited had a substantial youth group, so my mother decided to leave the Methodist church and we started attending the Assemblies of God church.
I spent the next few years trying to be “good” and do what would be pleasing to my mother and the church. I attended youth group and Sunday school faithfully, sang the songs, went on all the trips, (including three AIM trips) and played the part. Somehow after sitting through hundreds of sermons over the course of five years, I missed that there was a relationship to be had. I had religion, and fear of hell.
I was hoping to attend an Assemblies of God college, when my plans were re-directed. Birmingham Metro Masters Commission of Alabaster, AL presented the Gospel during youth convention my senior year. I had never seen young people on fire for God, full of the Holy Spirit until then.  It was exciting to me. I filled out an application and several months later I was on my way to live in Alabama. Upon entering this ministry program, I had to work through several layers of personal pain and heartache. I had to discover Jesus Christ as my personal Savior. It was a long journey, but over the course of the next two years I fell passionately in love with Jesus. I was truly his child and he was my King! I begin to love prayer, and worship and reading his Word. Up until then, I only read my bible during church, now I was reading it daily and could not get enough! I was baptized during our graduation service of my first year. I begin to pray that God would help me live a life that would please Him.

Fast forward 16 years, and here we are today. I am still following Jesus with my heart, soul, mind and strength. I have never looked back or regretted the moment when I decided that I would follow Jesus. I am thankful for my Christian heritage within my family, but more so, I’m thankful for strangers who passionately followed Jesus and were not ashamed of him! Being from the South, it is common to be a church-goer, it was an easy role to follow. I wanted more than that. I wanted to be sold out and radical for Jesus Christ. And I still do today!

No comments:

Post a Comment