I grew up believing in God but never understood the Gospel. I knew the right answer was, "Jesus is God and he died for sins" but I had no concept of what that meant. 

 

As I got older I began to question whether God was real and what Christianity really was. As my life was filled more and more with Idols, immortality, and the pleasures of the world, I began to care less and less about the truths of God's existence and the Christian religion. 

 

I lived that way through high school and into college, then, in 2017, my brother was saved by the grace of God and began to preach the gospel to me. At first it made me furiated, and I labeled him as a judgmental extremist. But as he continued to show such a drastic change in his life, I began to take the Christian truths more seriously. 

 

I remember sitting down to google, "Why did Jesus have to die?". I searched through website after website but it never made sense, until I came across one where the Gospel was written, and all the sudden I understood. It didn't really hit me in a completely life changing way, but I did see that I was not living like, or believing how, a genuine believer does. 

 

So, I spent the next weeks diving into the truths of the bible and investigating it. I grew an extremely deep desire to have a relationship with God, and to be one of his people. But I still faced a lot of doubts and was still living an immoral lifestyle. But I started feeling conviction. 

 

I cannot pin-point the exact moment I was saved, I know it was sometime between understanding the Gospel on that website and the following months. But there was one night, where I saw my shortcomings before God, and crying and pleading with Him all night to give me a new heart. I just prayed Ezekiel 36:26 over and over and over. "Lord remove my heart of stone and give me a heart of flesh". I knew my works and sin deserved separation from God, and I knew Christ was the only one who could make me right before Him.

 

My life has not been the same since, and it has actually been harder than ever as I have faced multiple trials and still fighting the flesh in me. But God has been with me, and showed me such grace. It is so worth it to have a relationship with Him, and please Him, and cling to Jesus for my rest as the one who lived the perfect life I could not. And because of the immense grace God has poured on me, I confess my God given faith in Jesus and my desire to join a local body that I can serve and be served by.