I tried to start a Testimony section every week a while ago but it didn't work out. However, I have managed to persuade a few friends & Christian family to kindly give their time to write theirs and here is the first one.
The guy writing this week is one of my closest friends, he is a really friendly, fun and has a strong faith. We share many interests as you can see above, but our biggest shared interest is the impact of Jesus Christ on our lives and here is his testimony which we wrote for his upcoming mission trip to Malawi, but has kindly agreed to let me share on here :)
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I want to tell you a little bit about my life and how it was I came to call myself a Christian.
I was born into a Christian family and my dad is a pastor of a church. So therefore as a child I was taken to church every week and the idea of attending church was very normal for me. When I was young I assumed this is what everyone did! However, despite being brought up in the faith I had little understanding of what it meant to be a Christian. I didn’t even think about it until I was much older. To me Christianity was about going to church and being friendly to our friends and family. By the age of around 10 I started to think there was no longer any need to go church as I thought I already knew what it was all about. Thankfully my parents wouldn’t let me stay home by myself and I continued going church – albeit reluctantly.
A couple of years later however, my attitude started to change. A friend of mine invited me to a summer Christian camp and this was the week that I started to realise that Christianity wasn’t just about going to church and being friendly (although these are good things) but it primarily about having a relationship with a living and loving God. It was at this camp that I first prayed for this relationship.
My understanding of what Christianity was about had grown that year but I still had so much more to learn. The process of learning about who God is has been a slow one for me but I believe it has changed my life. Although there has never been a sudden change of behaviour or attitude in my life I believe learning about God from the Bible has been the main force behind who I am today. Without God I would have little motivation to want to do right things and I can’t imagine how my life would have been without the Bible and God’s love.
Looking back at my life I can see that my understanding of what Christianity was sometimes quite wrong. For example I remember a friend asking me if I thought I was going to heaven and I replied no. Although I had given my life to Christ and asked for forgiveness I still thought that I had to earn my way to heaven; that I had to do good deeds and appease God. However, as I got older I learnt that we don’t earn our way to God but Jesus died to take away our sins so when we enter into a relationship and ask for forgiveness then we can be 100% sure of our salvation. This process of learning about who God is and what he has done will never end and I know that I still have a lot to learn.
Despite not always understanding the nature of Christianity I have for a long time known one thing: The God who created the universe and all of us loves us more than we can ever imagine. This love is why Jesus came and died so we could have a relationship with God. It is this love that motivates me to come here today and tell you about my life and what God has done, in the hope that you too can experience his great love :)
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