My Testimony

Mine is not the story of a dissolute pagan, a profligate sinner, wrested from a life of wanton pleasure and iniquity, drugs and crime, to Christianity. (I was, by worldly standards, "a pretty good person" before coming to Christ.) But it is no less the story of the triumph of grace over a rebel heart, over one hostile to God (Rom. 8:7; Col. 1:21) and unable to please Him (Heb. 11:16), and "called... out of darkness into His marvelous light" (1 Pet. 2:9).

I was a very moral person growing up—even a religious one. But I had, as it were, a form of godliness having denied its power (2 Tim. 3:5). I believed I was a Christian on the basis of a prayer I apparently prayed at the age of five; but, as Paul wrote the Corinthians, "the kingdom of God does not consist in words but in power" (1 Cor. 4:20), and the power of the Holy Spirit, to "convict... concerning righteousness and sin and judgment" (John 16:8), was conspicuously absent from my life.

My religion was primarily a tool for self-exaltation, to make me feel like I was better than other people. I was surely among those whom Paul said commend themselves by measuring themselves by themselves and compare themselves with themselves, without understanding (2 Cor. 2:12).

In my early twenties, amidst serious trials that deprived me of my usual crutches in life, I was for the first time profoundly confronted with my own sin, my great pride and self-righteousness, and I began to think of myself biblically. I was not a good person at all. As Jesus said, "No one is good except God alone." (Luke 18:19) I wasn't even well-intentioned, for, "There is none righteous, not even one; there is none who understands, there is none who seeks for God" (Rom. 3:10-11). Neither was there commendation for me when the Scripture said that "everyone who hates his brother is a murderer" (1 John 3:15) and "everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart" (Matt. 5:28). And "whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all. For He who said, 'Do not commit adultery,' also said, 'Do not commit murder.'" (James 2:11) James even said "to the one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, to him it is sin" (James 4:17). Finally, Paul, "whatever is not from faith is sin" (Rom. 14:23), and Isaiah, "all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment" (Isa. 64:6). All this in comparison to God's Holy standard: "you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect." I realized I needed a Savior.

It's hard for me to say exactly when, because, as I said before, I already thought I was a Christian, but at some time around my twenty-second year I believed the gospel: I was a wicked sinner, separated from God, at enmity with Him. But Jesus bore God's just wrath against me on the Cross, atoning for my sins and propitiating the Father. So, by the faith that He gave me (Eph. 2:8-9) I believed on Him for salvation and repented of my sins. From that time on I have been growing in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ (2 Pet. 3:18). On Sunday, May 28, 2006, I was baptized at Omaha Bible Church (OBC)—not for salvation but because of it—as a commemoration of the baptism which Peter said does save, "not the removal of dirt from the flesh, but an appeal to God for a good conscience—through the resurrection of Jesus Christ" (1 Pet. 3:21). I was immersed in water and raised back up to show that "[I] have been buried with [Christ] through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so [I] too might walk in newness of life" (Rom. 6:4).

Thus the Scripture says that "if anyone is in Christ he is a new creature; the old things have passed away; behold new things have come" (2 Cor. 5:17), and it is my testimony that in Christ I am not what I was before. But I am being sanctified to this end, that "those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren" (Rom. 8:29). And "He who began a good work in [me] will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus" (Phil. 1:6). Today I am passionate about the Truth, God's Word, and about spreading it until some from every nation and tribe and tongue and people can give such a testimony as mine to the goodness of God, with whom I will give glory to Him in eternity (Rev. 14:6-7).