Baptism Testimony - July 2019

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This is a testimony of God's grace that I was able to read at my baptism in July 2019.
A longer version can be found here.

I grew up in a Christian family. From a young age, I knew I was a sinner and that Jesus died for my sins and rose from the dead. At four years old, I “asked Jesus into my heart.” That was when I first understood that only Jesus could take me to heaven, but I don’t think I saw my sin before God and need of forgiveness at that time. It’s been a gradual process of God applying those truths to my heart.
As a preteen and teenager, I enjoyed Bible studies and looked up to godly people. However, I also struggled with a critical attitude towards others, a longing for approval, a lack of openness with my parents, and a selfish focus on my outward appearance, which for a time was harmful to myself.
In my early twenties, I started asking for help. Although I wasn’t always open about my heart, I do remember asking for prayer because I didn’t trust God. I didn’t see how He could be good. Through Scripture, God showed me that because of His great love in giving His Son to die for me, I could trust Him even if I didn’t understand and could obey Him.
Eventually God helped me understand some of my struggles as sinful, to seek forgiveness from some people, and to learn to talk with and reach out to others.
Later in Bible college, God helped me understand that Christ died as my substitute for sin. Then, when Justin and I were dating, Justin talked a lot about repentance and dying to self—concepts that were not very familiar to me at the time.
This past year, I had been struggling with various things. Through this time, God has given me a fuller understanding of repentance and helped me to see that He has saved me to be a servant and worshipper of Christ! There were a lot of things about sanctification that I hadn’t understood or applied, but God is graciously revealing those things to me through His word. He’s shown me more of the depth of my sin but also the joy of forgiveness in Christ.
Today I want to be baptized in obedience to Christ and publicly profess that I desire to live for Him as my Savior and Lord.

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