Jeremy is a second year statistics major who enjoys reading, napping, playing guitar, wearing sweaters with polos, and trying to understand cultural references.
Before I was saved, I was stuck in a life of pride and selfishness. Even though I grew up in the church and was praised as a good kid who said the best prayers, I did not truly understand the weight of my sin or my need for a savior. Instead, I placed my pride in being spiritually and intellectually superior to my peers, so I had little love for God and for others. At home, where there were no friends to see me, I rebelled against my parents and pursued pleasure above all else. I vainly sought satisfaction in video games, social status, and lusting. But evening in finding their failure to bring me true joy, I still did not want to commit everything to Christ. I “knew” God but did not honor Him as Lord.
I became a Christian through the faithful preaching of the Word at my home church. As God graciously softened my heart, I started to wrestle with my sin and truly desire freedom from it. I realized that my own flesh was so corrupt that even my best deeds were filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6), not to mention my repeated, defiant sins. Because of this, I was under God’s righteous and just condemnation. I then underwent a long mental and spiritual struggle over the certainty of my faith, pleading with God to change my stony and unbelieving heart; even then, I battled with the desire to keep my sin as close as possible so I could still enjoy it while being safe from hell.
In God’s mercy, I came to realize that I could not live a life of compromise and expect reconciliation with God and entrance into heaven. As Paul so passionately declared,
“How can we who died to sin still live in it?” (Romans 6:2)
I don’t know the exact day I was saved, but it was some time in my sophomore year of high school that I completely turned to Christ and trusted in Him alone for my salvation. Since that moment of salvation, I have seen a change in my entire attitude and worldview. I actively mortify sin in the flesh, not by my own power, but by God’s grace alone. The Lord has also been faithful in giving me victory over most of those recurrent sins as well as strengthening me to pursue daily spiritual disciplines, which was an inconsistent and unfruitful exercise before.
Jeremy
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