What was life like before you met Jesus?
Before Jesus Christ became my Lord and King, I lived for self-enjoyment and for sports. I was wandering through life with no true mission or purpose. Growing up I had always believed in Jesus with my mind, but never with my heart. I had a very shallow prayer life that was mostly self-centered. My prayers focused on wanting things from God that were for personal glory rather than God's glory. Obeying God was never a focus of mine. I wanted to live by my own rules which I thought would give me freedom, but in reality, only brought temporary pleasure.
How did you meet Jesus?
At the beginning of my senior year of high school, a friend invited me to her youth group. It was at this youth group that God put a community of people in my life to point me to Jesus. The youth leaders and other students set an example of what it looked like to follow Christ daily and live out your faith. This is around the same time I began to dive into God's Word. Scripture transformed my heart and how I saw God, myself, others, and the world around me. There was one week in the fall of 2020 I remember a significant change in my life. I had a constant joy that I had never had before. All day I could not stop thinking about God and listening to worship music. One verse that really impacted me in putting my trust in Christ and accepting the gospel was Galatians 2:20, which says "I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me."
After being saved by Jesus, what is your life like now?
Being in relationship and following Jesus has changed everything. The way I talk, my weekend activities, my purpose and vision, and how I view others are a few examples of what God has changed in my life. Christ has blessed me in so many ways and provided me with opportunities to serve him and others. Not only has my life been radically transformed in the past three years, but God has done a great work in others around me. I still struggle constantly to become more like Christ which makes me thankful for God's grace and that I don't have the depend on my own works for salvation. God continues to be faithful and loving even when I fall short. James chapter 4 says, "What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes." What this verse speaks to me is that this life is temporary and very short in the overall picture of eternity. And as Ephesians 2:8 says, "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith-and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God."