What Is Your Story?

[hldude]

"What Is Your Story?"
By Zach Wood
2 Corinthians 5:17

I would encourage each of you to consider what your story is. How did you come to know Christ? Do you have an experience that could be shared with someone else that would speak volumes into their life of how Christ can change a life? Think for a while about how you came to know Christ and how you became a new creation. The old is gone and the new has come. What has happened in that time?

Everyone has a story. Some people think because they don’t have a dramatic story of events from how horrible their life was before Christ to now knowing Christ, that their story isn’t important. Everyone’s story is important.

You have a life you once lived that was once lived in sin against God. You had your own ways of doing things. You had your own idea of what life should be like. You didn’t know any better because you didn’t realize all that God had in store for you. But now you live for Christ and you look back and see a life that was once all yours, but is now led by Christ alone.

There comes a time when we must make our faith our own. We must come to terms with who we believe Christ is. We cannot live by our parent’s faith. We cannot live by our grandparent’s faith. We cannot live by our friend’s faith. These people have had great influences in our lives, yes. But there comes a time when we must make the decision for ourselves why we have chosen to follow Jesus Christ.

What is your story? How has Christ changed your life? He asked Peter and the other disciples, “Who do you say that I am?†Jesus didn’t want to hear answers of what other people thought. Jesus wanted to know from their own heart and mind who they thought Jesus was. This is vital for us to come to terms with. Who do we think Christ is? Who do we say He is? Don’t just give an answer because of what someone else has told you about Christ. What do you believe?

 

[Pard]

A direct copy and paste from my assignment in class which required me to write my testimony out.

I have always believed in some higher power. In fact, I have always believed in a singular, supreme, all-awesome being who took at least a mild interest in the affairs of the world. As a child I went to a Unitarian Universalist church, as this is where my father came from, but I must admit I hated it terribly and often fought going. My mother’s parents are both evangelical, born-again, Bible-based, super-conservative Christians. So, both sides of my family at least agreed that there was a God. My entire school life, at least from the onset of science classes that addressed matters of creation, I internally and sometimes externally fought against the notion of evolution and “big bangsâ€. It always seemed silly to me, that we all started as nothing at all and ended up being wicked talented life-forms that far surpassed any other life-form on Earth.
After the 2008 presidential elections I began to take interest in politics and quickly began blogging and connecting with other conservative youth. I ran a mildly-successful blog for about a year, averaging about two thousand unique readers a week. I also helped found a conservative youth organization and I wrote for the Daily Caller. Through all of this I became exposed to Christians and I quickly desired whatever it was they had. I read the Bible and began to watch the 700 Club each night at 11pm. For maybe two weeks I prayed along with Pat Robertson, begging God for salvation. It was probably mid-December, not yet Christmas, and I was crying because I was worried God had given up on me, I had just read about blaspheming the Holy Spirit, when I remember something, not exactly a voice, more like a perfectly formed and articulate thought, informing me that I had received God’s grace and that I ought to rejoice! I laughed for a good ten minutes because of this revelation.
God has healed this temple of His immensely since I recieved His grace. By the spring of 2010 I weighed in at roughly 320 pounds. I remember how embarrassed I was because I could never fit into the school desks and going to the second floor caused me a great exertion. I prayed to God and asked for help and then began a diet, in a summer I dropped sixty pounds and through the next year I dropped a total of 110 pounds. I also took up running and finished my first race in October of 2011, followed by a second in November. My resting heart rate went from being dangerously high to a very healthy 55BPM. My blood pressure went from being so high that my doctor required me to go to the nurse everyday to check it to 118/78, and though I have not looked to see what it is lately I am pretty sure it’s down further. I am so grateful to God for this transformation and testimony to His glory!
When I received grace I was deep in the sin of lust. I was into pornography and masturbation and would do this multiple times per day. With it came depression about myself and anxiety about never having dated and dying alone. After God gave me grace I began to despise pornography and masturbation, although I didn’t outright quit it. I began a two year battle with this. I went through some real low valleys and some high hills. At my worst I felt like God was gone, and for the first time in my life I began to question the existence of God. I became so sick of how I felt that I sought relief at any cost. I finally came to an understanding that my past attempts had all been for selfish reasons. I wanted to be “clean†and without guilt or shame. I didn’t care that lust hurt God, I only cared that it hurt me. When I learned that I needed to do all things in life in order to glorify God I realized that I had the key to stopping my addiction. Literally the day I understood that it was about God’s glory and not my guilt I stopped looking at pornography, I stopped maturbating, and I have not gone back. It also began the process of seeing women has God’s creation and not objects for my fantasies.
The hardest thing that I did was give up my best friends, one of whom I had known since 1st grade. I had to do this because when I was with them I was in sin. I lusted, I swore, and I broke people down. I trusted God and just stopped seeing them all together. I figured I’d be friendless until I started up at Liberty, but God gave me some amazing friends to take their place and I would never go back.
I also remembered that a few months after receiving His grace He laid it upon me heart that I was to become a pastor. I rode that spiritual high of knowing your calling for nearly an entire year, until I realized that for the first time in my life I was at a place physically where I could do the two things I have always dreamed about: join the military and become a police officer. I attempted to join the military but God gave me a number of food allergies, which I believe He did because He knew I’d try to stray and He kept me away from my own desires. I began to pursue the police route with vigor. In the Spring of 2012 I interned at a local police department and despite legally being to young to be hired their police chief pled my case to the town and state officials. But God had an answer to this too. The people he replaced my old friends with refilled me in a spiritual way and I quickly had my memory jogged of what God wanted for my life and I threw away that desire as well and am now pursuing His desires with vigor. And He has blessed me greatly for this, with friends, growth, and opportunities

 

[Gordon]

That's a cool testimony. I notice your topics hldude don't get a lot of replies which is a shame cause they are so good. It's cool what you try to do and that you don't give up.

 

[for_his_glory]

I love hearing others testimonies as it shows Gods glory in every area of our lives. I hear so many Christians say they could never speak to others about Jesus because they didn't know His word very well. To me that is a selfish cop-out for it's the witness of our own testimony that opens the word of God to others to show God grace and mercy and how He can love us inspite of our own stupid ways.

My story is one of the school of hard knocks like a roller-coaster ride with all it's up hills and down hills. For many of us it is usually in the lowest valley of our lives that we finally get ourselves so low that all we can do is look up and there is when we will seek the face of God. We all have a story no matter who we are and it is in the testimony of our story that will touch someones life as through our story will always bring someone into Gods grace.

(BTW, you can read my full testimony on my website as it is to lengthy to post)