My Testimony

I did not grow up going to church with my parents and my parents are not Christians.

As a kid, I tried to be good and to everyone around (my parents and my teachers) I appeared to be very good, yet privately knowing I was bad.  I knew that I would only get in trouble for getting caught for doing wrong things.  If I was able to keep things hidden, then I could get away with doing things that I should not do.  This actually just made me confused.

Now I thought Christians were brainwashed idiots.  My sister became a Christian and invited me along to a Youth Group.  There I thought I would watch the leaders brainwash the youth and then expose them.  Instead they studied from the bible and I was able to see from reading the bible for myself that they were not making it up.  At this point I really didn’t know if it was all real – I just hoped that God was real.  By calling myself a Christian I was really just hedging my bets.  I did not know the truth or understand why Jesus was so central to Christianity.  

At university the Christian group, they clearly explained that Jesus, the Christ, was the centrepiece of Christianity and that is why it is called Christianity.  I then ‘knew’ about Jesus: that he died on the cross to take away everyone’s ‘sins’, but I didn’t have a personal relationship with Him.  I also thought I was too sinful.  I thought Jesus had died for everyone else’s sins but mine.  Why did Christians keep talking about having ‘personal’ relationship with Jesus?  

Now after calling myself a Christian for several years, it didn’t make me Mr. Perfect!  A friend reminded me that there were still attitudes and actions in my life that I needed to give up, even though I’d wanted to get rid of them from my life for years. I decided that I couldn’t live up to God’s expectations and that it was too difficult to be a Christian – it was too hard.  So I decided to give it up and live how I wanted and follow my ‘desires’.  However, in my open rebellion from God, I knew that Jesus personally loved me.  And no matter how much I had or would rebel, Jesus would continue to love me.  I thought he was pretty stupid and kept thinking that he should choose someone else.  So since Jesus was not going to stop loving me, I decided that I could not deny Jesus’ love for me or pretend that wasn’t true.  So I continued as a Christian, but now I had a personal relationship with Jesus.  

A friend of mine called Keith asked me, ‘how did I consider myself?’  I said that I saw myself as a ‘work-in-progress, sinful, pathetic’.  Then he asked, ‘how did God see me?’  And I said that God saw Jesus when he saw me: perfectly clean, sinless and totally good.  He replied that I should see myself as God saw me!  I knew that on judgement day (after Jesus returns or I die) that I will be declared clean and innocent.  And I knew how pathetically sinful that I was, so I couldn’t work it out.  I couldn’t work out when I became clean.  

Now I also knew that Jesus had died for our sins 2,000 years ago.  I knew that the cross was important because it was there that Jesus swapped: my sins for his perfection.  Jesus also proved that he was perfect by rising from the dead and ascending to heaven.  By rising, he showed that he had defeated sin and its consequences: death.  So now I did not have to fear death.  But I still had not worked out when I became clean.

After 2 weeks, I accepted that I needed to see myself as clean now.  By continuing otherwise, I was allowing myself to continue to live in my ‘sinful’ life (my work-in-progress) – instead of giving it up.  By completely letting go of my old self (which I dearly clung to and which I thought I had given up), it was difficult, yet amazingly liberating!  My past sins would now not restrain or dictate my future.  I became free from the shackles of my past, and could serve God with all my life.  It was a real relief!

A good verse that sums up God’s unconditional love for me and you and shows the timing of this love is Romans 5:8: 

‘but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.’  

Jesus has forgiven my sins.  I can now go forward without being chained to sin.  I’m free and that is the best thing.

Giving up my past and my hidden wrongs (that seemed so familiar and comforting) was actually hard and painful, but ultimately it was liberating and freeing.  I continually have to fight against the temptation to return to my past, but I do know that the only real future requires giving them up.  I have to keep taking off the little crown that says that ‘I know best, I can rule my own life’ and say ‘No, Jesus knows best.  He is the rightful ruler of my life’.  Some friends think I am deluding myself and that I should give in to my desires and temptations.  But I know that they are not ultimately satisfying.  I may continue to struggle with temptations for the rest of my life, but I’ll not give up.  I will keep going and keep submitting to Jesus as Lord of my life.

I want to glorify God in all my life: my words, my actions and my attitudes.

I’m not confused anymore.  Being a Christian is not about appearing to be good or doing good.  Being a Christian means being in a relationship with God.  

There is an attitude shift in my life.  I want to live for God in all my life.  I used to hold onto my high-paying, time-consuming job.  Previously I started counting the priorities in my life after my job, so I could say that God was #1.  But then I realised that my job was getting in the way of serving God.  

Today, my faith in Jesus Christ means my top priority is my relationship with God.  Being a Christian is the most important thing in my life.

My Mission is "Through love and vulnerability, to build authentic communities where people feel complete in Christ." 

My first community is my family, then I have other circles of close friends locally and overseas.