On My Conviction

I accepted Christ when I was around five years of age. As I watched a movie about the Revelation with my parents, I asked them what was happening. They told me that the movie was about the future and proceeded to explain the rapture. They then told me about God and how He loves me. They told me, if I had faith that Christ came to earth to die on the cross for my sins, that I would spend eternity with Him (John 3:16). I attempted to understand as much as I could for a five year old. However, since I was five, I could only comprehend so much. I believed in Christ, but I did not understand how this knowledge would affect my life.

About ten years went by, and the ignorance of my faith continued to persist, until one day when my Youth Pastor mentioned how one’s faith should be real in his life. He said that I should not consider my faith as a religion, but as an intimate relationship with God. This had been told to me before and had always gone in one ear and then out the other, yet this time it stuck. I came to reality with my faith. I pondered this, and found it intriguing to think that God wishes to have a personal connection with me. The very same God that created everything; the universe, matter, thought, reason, and my very soul itself. He knows who I am and loves me in spite of the sin that corrupts my life. John 3:16 begins with, "For God so loved the world". The thought that God can love a corrupted human race that deserves death is amazing! I opened my Bible and began to read about salvation. I discovered that by God’s great love, I have been born again, and through this, my spirit has been made alive with Christ; I learned that it is by his grace, that I am saved (John 3:5-6; Ephesians 2:4-5). I then realized that all my life I was trying to live up to certain expectations in order to please God and yet continued to fail. I then lost hope, thinking that God would never be pleased with me. I then put on a facade, telling everyone that I was fine, even convincing myself. Yet, I remained in my despair. Grace, it is by His grace! If I were perfect, I would not need grace. God loves me despite my failure. With this new perspective on my life, I re-examined my faith.

I asked myself whether not my faith was indeed a real part of my life. As a Christian, was I behaving any differently than I had as a non-believer? If not, then not only was my faith not influencing my life, but I was atrophying spiritually. I decided to put a stop to this. I knew that I should desire to be different, for if I truly love Christ, I should have a passion to emulate him, not the world. At that moment, I rededicated my life to Christ. I would from then on seek God with all my heart and devote my life to Him. I prayed that God would continually increase my passion to fill even the minute capacity that I have for the knowledge of Him and that He would increase my capacity for it. I would seek after his divine goodness, truth, and beauty. I vowed to be wholly dependant upon Him and to allow Him to have absolute reign in my heart.

My attitude towards life was greatly influenced by 1 Corinthians 9:24-27, “Do you not know that in a race all the runners compete, but only one receives the prize? So, run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified”. It showed me that I must live my life as if I were in a race and continue to discipline myself, so that I will not lose the eternity with God that I seek to obtain. I continually pray that God would guide me in my seeking of Him and that He would continue to give me the strength, wisdom, and guidance to enable my logic and reason to rule my desires and passions through the heart that I have submitted to Him.

-Brian