What was life like before you met Jesus?
I was baptized as an infant, and I grew up going to the Lutheran church about once or twice a month. I believed in God, but I didn't know God, I didn't know what it meant to follow God. It was not until I was about 17 that my brother introduced me to Veritas Church, I still was a back pew person coming when I felt like it then college came and God was not on my mind. My brother taught me what it meant to really follow Jesus and live a life for him, and it quickly scared me away, I lied about my lifestyle and didn't think it was that big of a deal. Right before my second semester, I lost a very close brother-in-law to suicide, I became numb to most emotions and living life with dragging feet and no one really knew. I fell into a hole of being a collegiate football player where my only care was how many offers I could get and drown my sorrows with that joy, but that love died out. My next love became living a college lifestyle of partying, smoking, and drinking. More than just on the weekends but anytime I was bored, and that love was a constant whirlwind of feeling joy in the moment, and it quickly turned to hatred of my lifestyle. So I dropped out of school and pursued my passion for working in real estate and being in the entrepreneur world but still, something was missing. I was still trying to find joy in the alcohol and partying on the weekends after a work week. I so desperately wanted to go back to church but was ashamed of the hiatus I just went on, how can I go back? Then finally, this August came, and the Kirkwood kickoff took place and I couldn't keep holding away from God.
How did you meet Jesus?
The kickoff came, and it was time for me to fully commit and go all in with Christ. I was tired of living such a high and low lifestyle, never being happy with what I was doing in the moment. I got connected with connection groups that night and went right into attending. After every group and service I attended, the more I realized how lost I was without Christ. He put me through so many trials, time and time again and I avoided him until he gave me no reason but to come to him. I felt him working with so many people and myself the night of the kickoff, I was so happy, a joy I haven't felt in forever. Romans 6:20-22 says, "For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life."
After being saved by Jesus, what is your life like now?
That previous verse just puts me in awe, and when I heard it for the first time, it felt as if God was looking down and gifted it to me when I so desperately needed it. I was a slave of sin and free of righteousness, but there was nothing fruitful about it, no joy, and there is an end to it, and that end is death. The lord saved me and freed me from the evil my life was. He sent his son to die and suffer on the cross for the sin I commit, I am a fool not to live a life praising him and for him. The earthly sacrifices I get to face now in this life with Christ will lead to eternal life with Him, and that gives me a joy and freedom that no person, item, or substance ever could give. To end the rest of chapter 6, Romans 6:23 says this, "For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."