What was life like before you met Jesus?
Before I met Christ I was obsessed with doing lots of "good" things to give myself better status with my communities. I also did these many things to guarantee myself good standing with God. In reality, this obsession was really rooted in my lack of eternal security and played out as a self-driven quest to make myself feel loved by God and the people around me.
How did you meet Jesus?
I met Jesus after chasing after a girl (now my wife haha) all the way to a church's youth group. There I met a pastor and other leaders who, for the first time in my life, taught the true saving gospel of Jesus Christ. After several months of conversations and internal wrestling matches with myself, I realized that the faith I thought I had was really a selfish and Christ-rejecting attempt at earning my own salvation. So on a June night alone on a bible camp hillside, I cried and repented to God of how foolish I had been and how sorrowful I was for rejecting his son who died for me. At that moment I accepted Christ as my savior and his work on the cross as the only thing I needed to be reconciled to God.
After being saved by Jesus, what is your life like now?
After being saved by Jesus I have become a new person. I no longer seek to appease a Holy God with my own works that are really the equivalent of dirty rags. I also became a more loving friend and family member. I truly now care for people around me, rather than my relationships being based on what I get. My new way of going through life by following Jesus became apparent to me and the people around me as I chose to speak with different words, have different perspectives on daily life, and maybe attend or not participate in certain activities. I know I have eternal salvation in Jesus because I feel and see the changes that he has done to me in my heart, mind, and life. 2 Corinthians 5:14-17 says “For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised. From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”