Church Since Birth

Hey Christians! We all have a testimony. Everyone has a story. Maybe you weren’t an atheist and then a Christian, or living a messy life and then God “picked you up” when you were at your worst. Maybe like me you were raised in the church. I’ve heard many people say “I don’t really have a testimony. I went to church my entire life, made mostly “good” decisions, and here I am today still a Christian.” If that’s you then listen up!

You have a story; one that is filled with the epic grace of Jesus just as much as anyone. Why? Because you are a sinner and Jesus died for YOU. If that’s not an epic of enough story for you, I don’t know what is! I understand that it may not contain as “messy” of stuff, therefore not having a rock bottom moment in your life where everything changed for you. However, maybe for you your “rock bottom” wasn’t a moment. Maybe it was the fact that for years you had Jesus and his word at your finger tips, and yet still something was missing. Maybe that “thing” was Jesus. Is that your story? That’s my story, and it’s still epic and it’s still important and it’s still a testimony.

The problem is that many of us have BELIEVED in Jesus practically since birth; so right away we are assuming that our story has no depth. However, believing in something doesn’t automatically mean that you are fully embracing what it really means to live out what you claim to believe. Belief alone does not equate to real experiences. It’s not just about what you believe that changes you; it’s about how you are living as a result of it. Unfortunately these days, it’s very easy to “believe in” a lot of things but never actually do or experience anything regarding it. A treadmill can sit in your house for 10 years because you “believed in a healthy lifestyle”; but you aren’t going to see changes until you actually start experiencing the exercise. In the same way I think a lot of people think that being a Christian is believing Jesus exists and rose from the dead; when really it’s not about believing anything. It’s about EXPERIENCING Jesus and EMBRACING the resurrection. If you sat in church every Sunday for 20 + years, and yet you still had not experienced Jesus, then you were just as far from him as the atheists who don’t even believe he exists.

Having been in church for 32 years, I know what it’s like to let church (unintentionally at times) tell you what a “Christian” should look like. That was my downfall. That was my very own rock bottom. I clung to it for almost 20 years. The truth is though, now I don’t follow religion or Christianity, I follow Jesus. I’ve been a “believer” for over 20 years; but I became a Christ FOLLOWER slowly over time in only the last 12 years. Jesus entering my life when I thought He was already there is my testimony. I didn’t realize I WASN’T a Christ follower until I actually was one. I stopped living within the LIE that I needed to live a certain way to receive Gods love; and started living in the freedom of Christ, by acknowledging the truth of His grace and the need for relationship with Him.

If you were raised in the church and therefore you struggle to look back and find “your testimony”, know that you aren’t alone and that you DO have a story worth telling. Maybe for you the question isn’t, “when did you become a believer?” The question is, “when did you become a Christ follower?” When in your life were you introduced to not the IDEA of Jesus, but the actual person Jesus? Where do you look? When what you believed started effecting how you experienced Jesus, that is where your testimony is.

{Believers believe that God exists; Christ followers experience Jesus}