The aim and purpose of this week is to hear the stories of everyone across the campus. And to see how God's bigger story intersects with our own. And well, here's my part of the story. I presented this in front of our weekly meeting a couple months ago.
At a pretty early age, I accepted Christ as my savior and
wanted to live my life to please him, but as a young lad of only six years of
age when I made the decision to follow Christ, I had absolutely no idea what
that entailed. It was a rare Sunday when my family and I did not find ourselves
sitting in the pews of the church. Sunday
school and Bible studies were a part of my weekly routine as I grew up. And
when God just became another thing I did in addition to a plethora of other
activities I was involved in, his significance became lost on me. He became a
boring, uninteresting figure, unable to provide me with any real fulfillment.
Yeah I would say and do all the Christian things, but the things I said I
believed and the way I lived didn’t always match up. I claimed Jesus was in
driver seat of my life, but in reality I doubted whether a man who lived 2000
years ago and an ancient book could really offer me any satisfaction in this 21st
century world. So I looked for satisfaction in myself and indulged anything
that made me feel good. I put my
identity in my athletic prowess, my musical talents, and outstanding school
work, anything where I rose above the rest of my peers to make me seem like I was
the best this society had to offer. It made me feel good, and I’d give a shout
out to Jesus if I had to.
When I got to college, I felt it necessary to seek out a
Christian group on campus and looked for a group that would act as my moral
compass now that I had moved away from home. Now I don’t know if it was the
free laundry bag at the OSU involvement fair or the attractive girl I
recognized from my high school handing out the free laundry bag, but I was
somehow drawn to the Real Life booth and compelled to check out what this thing
was all about it. I vividly remember that first meeting as the lights dimmed
and the music came on, and I saw young college students worshiping and singing with genuine hearts. The
enthusiasm was something that I had never really experienced before. And it was
the same way in the small group Bible study I began to get involved with. We
would study passages and stories that I was familiar with, and thought I had
all the easy answers to, but the way my Bible study leaders analyzed and looked
at scripture was something incredibly new to me. They actually enjoyed studying
the Bible, and didn’t see it as a chore. God was real and it was evident in the
way they lived their day to day lives. So in my efforts to imitate my new
friends, I joined the crowd at Real Life. I made it my number one priority, put
it at the top of my list, and it was a rare Wednesday or Thursday night when I
wasn’t at a Real Life function of some sort. I did all these things to satisfy my
spiritual quota for the week and feel good about my standing with God. It
became routine, and although the routine was fun and I experienced great
community and love, my experience was hollow, although I didn’t know it at the
time.
By the time my freshman year ended, I thought I had grown a
lot in my faith and had a great community surrounding me. Then summer came
around, and that community vanished, and any semblance of growth that I
experienced did to. I no longer had a regular schedule or structure and I ran
out of Christian events to go to. My summer saw me returning to my old patterns
of sin at home where myold habits resurfaced and God once again God no longer
seemed relevant. Was everything that I experienced during my freshman year just
a lie, just some good emotions that had no merit? I struggled with these
feelings, desperate for school to start again in the fall, so I could fill my time
doing good Christian things once more.
I was relieved when my Sophomore year started. I started
leading a Bible study and started filling up my time with ministry events. But
the satisfaction and good feelings I got from doing ministry felt empty and left
me tired. I wondered what was I doing wrong. Why did God feel like he wasn’t
present in my life It was then that through a series of talks with my old Bible
study leader that I began to realize what I was putting my hope and identity
in.
All my life I had thought of myself as either a good
student, or the athlete, or the funny friend, or the musician who happened to
be a Christian, who wanted to put Jesus first. But I realized the error in my
thinking and had the wrong viewpoint of who my Lord is. Jesus isn’t another
aspect of my life that fits alongside my other priorities. He doesn’t even want
to be number one in a sea of priorities. He’s not an item on the list, he is
the list. He should permeate through every aspect of our lives. When the Bible
tells us to confess Jesus as Lord, it means that he is Lord over everything. It doesn’t matter that I had perfect
attendance here on Thursday nights. When I fall into sin, I can’t do enough
good or feel bad enough about what I did to somehow earn my way back into God. When
we put our identity and self worth in Christ, we see that we can’t do anything
to add to what he already did. He saved me from sin and death, and begs me to
enjoy him, not work for him. When I realized this truth of the Gospel, I can’t
help but feel genuine excitement and love simply for who God is and experience
real victory over sin.
Now I still struggle with attempting to earn my salvation,
feeling it necessary to prove to God that I deserve him, and viewing God as an
activity I do rather than someone I worship. But every time I fall short and
have this wrong view, I am reminded that Jesus said “it is finished” on the
cross and all my sin and shortcomings have been washed away. And that’s the
greatest reminder and reassurance that I could ever have.
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