Today is my rebirthday, meaning that Christ has been my Lord for an entire year. Some may think I've been saved longer than that, but hey, that's what I used to think as well, and you'll see why in a minute. In any case, I promised some friends almost a year ago that I would blog my testimony, but never got around to it (and there are actually some good reasons for that). So today, being my first whole year as a true Christian, I thought it would be fitting to finally post it. So here goes nothing.
They say that every testimony has a central theme to it, a defining and recurring subject which is core to the story. The recurring theme of my testimony is that of false conversion.
Depending on your definition of "saved," I've been saved several times. However, it is my opinion that I was never truly saved during any of my many "conversions." Why would God allow me to go through multiple false conversions? My opinion is that God wanted to make me an example. An example to myself, as well as to others, to show what false conversion looks like, in many of its forms. Why do I think this? Because every one of my false conversions was different.
My first false conversion was when I was really little. I can barely remember it at all, I was so young (probably between 3 and 5). When you're the age I was, you want to be just like your parents and siblings. You try to take over their chores, You walk around in your dad's shoes, you might even play around with your mother's makeup. And that's how my first "conversion" was. I was just doing it to be like my family. We were in the car going somewhere, and my brother, who was two years older than me, was telling me bout Jesus. Well, I ended up "saying the prayer," and thus I was falsely converted for the first time.
I like to call this the "Go with the flow" conversion. Let me tell you, it is no conversion at all. People do it out of peer pressure, or a desire to be like the people around them, to go with the flow. But as soon as the 'flow' changes directions, they change directions too. Luckily, my family never changed direction, so I was still a pretending Christian, but a pretending Christian is still not a Christian.
My second false conversion was what you might call a "crisis conversion." The way it works is during a crisis, when you feel like everything is falling apart, you call on God. But once the crisis has passed, you go right back to living the way you always did. Nothing has changed. This kind of conversion happens all the time and to lots of people, from soldiers on the battlefield, to gangsters on the streets, to folks going through a tough marriage. What was my crisis? Cleaning my room. It may not sound like much of a crisis, but at my young age, it was. I was mad at my parents, mad at my siblings, felt like everyone was against me and that everything was falling apart. So I turned to God. But sure enough, after the "crisis" had passed, I showed no signs of change. Clearly, this conversion was false.
My next "conversion" happened years later, when I was twelve. This time, I was getting what they call "fire insurance." At this point in my life, I had been thinking about hell, and was really afraid of going there. I knew that at any time, Jesus could come back or something bad could happen, and I would die and go to hell. The thought scared me so much, that I got up and went to my parents to "get saved." I was, simply put, a fear convert. This also happens to a lot of people. They hear the shouting of the sign-toting "Christian" on the sidewalk who preaches doom and destruction, they read the words of judgement in the book of revelation, some have nightmares, and some just want to be covered "just in case."
So they "buy the insurance," "put on the parachute," or "come to the front;" they say "the prayer" and maybe even get baptized. But their hearts aren't in it. And neither was mine. We want to reap the benefits of being a Christian without having to live like one. But let me tell you, this is not fire insurance. This is fire assurance.
I was still not saved, but nobody knew it. Three years later some events began to happen which would make it very apparent.
First, my family moved. We moved over 900 miles from our home in Florida to come live in Indiana. Needless to say, I was not happy about this decision. I was angry at my parents, and became exceedingly bitter about the move. Not only did I rebel against my parents' decision, but I rebelled against the will of God. Now this means two things: One, I wasn't a Christian and two: my rebellion was completely and utterly ineffective, because God's Will always wins. And eventually, His will for me would come to fruition, but for now, I was stuck in my sins.
The next thing that happened was that my Grandfather got pancreatic cancer, which practically nobody survives. Our family made two trips to Montana to spend as much time as we could with Grandpa. It was during our second trip, a several-month stay, that my Grandpa died. I was in the room when he passed. It's something I never want to experience again.
My grief for Grandpa's death mixed with my anger from the Indiana move and served to totally crush my spirit. Another result of the move was that I had very few friends, and so I had nobody to turn to (or at least, that I was willing to turn to) for comfort. I felt depressed and friendless, so what did I do? I turned to the internet to cure both. Not a good idea.
I started commenting on blogs and forums and spending time in Chat rooms, and through this I made many new "friends." Let's just say the internet isn't the safest place to immerse yourself, and the bad crowd got me into some bad things. My life became full of secret sins that nobody knew about... except God.
The year or so after Grandpa's death became a bad time for me. The majority of my time was spent laying in bed or on a couch with a computer or my tablet, watching videos, playing games, reading comics, or conversing with my various "friends." During this time, I still maintained my false allegiance to God. I knew he existed, and I claimed to be His child, even defending His existence and goodness in many internet debates. But I wasn't devoted to Him. I didn't live like one of His children. We had no personal relationship.
But all of that began to change around October of last year. My father led a Bible study for the guys in our church out of the book Thoughts for Young Men by J.C. Ryle. If you're a young man and haven't read this book, read it now. If you have read it, read it again. It was through my father and this convicting 100 year old book that God worked in me. He showed me my sinful state, revealing to me what I had denied for years: I was not His.
And then today came. November 19th, 2012. I had just finished writing 50,000 words for National Novel Writing Month, and I was surfing the blogs of some of my Christian friends (none of whom are associated with the internet 'friends' I mentioned earlier), when I came under great conviction. I got out of my chair, and jumped into bed with my e-reader tablet, and opened up my ebook Bible. I opened randomly to Colossians 3: "If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God." I realized that I was not seeking those things above, and that my heart was not set on them, which was clear by all of the sin in my life. Thus, I concluded, I had never truly been raised with Christ. With tears in my eyes, I got out of bed and fell on my knees before God.
What did I do? Did I go once more through the "sinner's prayer," ineffective all those other times? No. Salvation isn't something that happens when you decide to recite a few lines. Salvation is something that happens when God opens your eyes, showing you just what kind of person you are and just what kind of state you're in: blind, dead, enslaved to sin. Nobody, when these facts are revealed to him by God, can then decide "I wanna stay this way." And neither could I. God's Grace was irresistible, and the only choice I could then make was to surrender. What exactly I said then is lost to my memory, but I do know that I asked forgiveness of my sins and devoted the entirety of my being to Christ, and meant it for the first time in my life.
Several thing happened. First, I felt the massive load fall off of my shoulders. Something many have described but which I had never felt before during any of my false conversions.
Next, I was overcome with a desire for scripture. I had always tried to make it a habit of mine to read the Bible, but for the first time in my life, it became something I looked forward to.
Many other things happened. I almost completely stopped going to those forums and chat rooms. There is only a small remnant of those internet 'friends' whom I still visit, but my intention is to spread the gospel to them rather than be pulled down by them (though I admit this is really hard). I almost completely lost the great passion I once had for computer games, now only really playing with my siblings now and then, compared to the hours spent daily in pulverizing enemy zombies, robots, aliens, and orcs. The many other destructive, sinful, and lazy habits I had were either defeated by Christ, relegated to a position where they're no longer harmful, or are still being fought against today. Whatever the case, it was made clear that my life had been changed forever by Christ. We have a relationship now. I don't just know about God anymore, I know God personally.
All that happened exactly a year ago. And though I've stumbled and fallen many times, and experienced low spots throughout my Christian walk, I can say with certainty that I am truly saved now and that Christ continues to work within my heart.
But what about you? What's your testimony? How were you converted? Does your story match up with any of my false conversions? I sure hope not. If so, then I pray that God will work in you to bring you to true repentance. If you have no testimony because you have not been converted, falsely or otherwise, then I urge you to repent and believe in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Amen.
