I grew up in Houston, Texas, and when I was around two years old my Mom and Dad divorced. So I spent most of my childhood with my Mom. She took me to church nearly every Sunday, where I would hear the message that Jesus died for you, and that you should believe in Him if you want to go to heaven. For some reason, I never could understand how I was supposed to make myself believe? It's not something you can make yourself do right, either you believe or you don't? One day, my cousin went down the aisle after the service and told the Pastor that he wanted to accept Christ and be baptized. Just a short time after that, so did I. The only problem was I didn't fully understand what I was doing. I believed what the Pastor was saying, I just didn’t know what it meant to put my faith in Christ.
Just before my eighth grade year we moved out to a suburb on the outskirts of town. We also started attending a different church, with a Pastor and Youth Pastor who preached like I had never heard before. They made this 2,000 year old “story book” relevant and meaningful to my life and struggles. It was during my second youth camp with the new church that I figured out what it meant to really believe in Jesus. It wasn’t enough for me to know who Jesus was, and that He died and rose from the dead to pay for my sins. I had to put my faith and trust in Him. How did I do that? Well, if you really believe in something you follow up your words with actions. Saying “I believe” doesn’t cut it, you have to prove it by stepping out and following Jesus. You have to make Him the most important person in your life. You can’t say you believe in someone and then ignore what they say?
At that camp, God claimed me as His child. I started to hate sin and care more about lifting up Christ than myself. I grew closer to my youth group and started leaning on God for direction and guidance. Some of my friends who were bad influences had to go, and others had to start going to church with me. I wish I could say that I’ve never looked back since that day, but there were times when I strayed. In my last two years of high school and my college career I stopped trying to grow closer to Christ, and I began to do whatever I wanted. My own desires and plans for my life got me in more trouble than I care to remember, but God never gave up on me. He kept calling me back to Him, reminding me that I was His possession.
Thankfully, God sent me an awesome wife who was also a Christian. After Jennifer and I were married and the responsibility of leading a family hit me, I was broken before the Lord. I couldn’t do this on my own, I needed Him guide me. So, I re-committed my life to Him, and began to pour myself into the Bible, and the church. God speaks to us in many ways, but the most powerful method He uses today is the Bible. He spoke to me by making passages stick out, and by giving me the exact words I needed at just the right time. After a year and a half of pursuing God, I began to feel that He wanted me to serve His people full-time, which meant He wanted me to be a Minister of the Gospel. My wife and I have been serving God’s people since 2001, and we’ve never looked back or regretted our decision to give God everything we’ve got. Our lives aren’t perfect, but no matter how rough our road gets we are perfectly content to serve our Savior! If you are like I was, and you’ve never “made yourself believe”, I would love to talk to you about Christ, and help you come to the point where you can put your trust in Him. Please feel free to email me so that we can talk.
No comments:
Post a Comment