Testimonies From People Like YOU

Geekgirl531

So when I was five, I decided I wanted to accept Christ. I was so young, I don't know if I really knew what it meant or not. For years, I didn't think twice, just told people I was a Christian, smiled, sang the songs, went to church, the whole nine yards.
Except my life didn't exactly say 'I'm a Child of God'. I was legalistic, I was jealous, I was stuck-up, and I thought I was better than most people. And I was constantly making excuses in my head for my behavior.

And I didn't hang out with people who made me feel like a Christian. I think that was most of it. They had no problem watching inappropriate YouTube videos, thought cussing was cool, and they fought pretty much daily. But I just sort of cling to them as friends, thinking they were all I had.

Then after COVID, it was sort of like a wake-up call. I started hanging out more with my now best friend, a girl I knew from church, and started hanging out with the other friends less and less.
Then my first year at Falls Creek, I spent the week analyzing myself, wondering if I was actually saved. I looked at my previous behavior, how bad I had acted, all of that. When they called people who wanted to accept Christ down to the front, we had over 800 kids go. I wasn't one of them.

I desperately wanted to get closer to God, though I was still questioning my salvation.

At my church's DiscipleNOW weekend, we had a speaker. And he said that there were two kinds of Christians. The prodigal sons and the Pharisees. The prodigal sons were the Christians that God brought out of the shadows. The people with the bold, inspiring testimonies. The Pharisees were the Christians that looked perfect on the outside, and thought they were fine, but weren't on the inside. They were the legalistic, judgmental Christians. The Christians like I used to be. But he said that, nonetheless, their salvation was as real as the prodigal sons' salvation. They just had different struggles in their faith.

But it was actually something a family friend of our told me when she shared her testimony with me that made me sure of my salvation. She said "for most people, they really do accept Christ when they're little. But then, when they're older, they begin to question their faith." Just like I had been. And then she said something else.

"But most of the time, it's not that they need to rededicate their life, it's that they're going to God and saying, 'I'm surrendering to your plans. I'm going to live for you.'"

So I thought about it all day, and that's when I realized, I don't need to rededicate, it was time for me to surrender.

I've realized why I struggled so much with my salvation through the years. I was trying to figure it out myself. I wasn't letting myself focus on Him. The moment I did, everything changed. My attitude, my outlook, everything. It's not about us, it's about God. So when you ask questions, ask God, and not yourself.