Two Lies and a Testimony
Have you heard the saying ‘God doesn’t have grandchildren’?
It’s true.
It means that even if your parents are children of God, that doesn’t make you one. Even if you were raised in a Christian home, you still have to make the choice to follow Jesus for yourself.
I was in that situation. Both my parents are Christians, and I believed in Jesus. I knew that he was the Son of God.
The problem is that believing in Jesus isn’t enough.
Jesus says in the Bible that even the demons believe in Him. They know He’s real (He’s their bitter enemy, so they have to know He exists…) but does that make them saved?
No.
Satan believes that Jesus is real. That doesn’t change the fact that he is a sworn enemy of God.
I believed that Jesus was real. I even believed He’d come to earth and died for my sins.
But I didn’t understand that I needed one more thing…
Let me tell you the whole story.
How God became my Father
When I was about 11, I started having doubts. Not about Jesus being real or anything like that, but I started wondering—am I really saved?
I wasn’t sure what to do. How did I prove to myself that I was saved?
I dealt with this for nearly two years. I talked to my parents about it, but that didn’t really help. I was still missing something. I prayed about it, and God provided a missionary-type outreach for teens that I could join. I was twelve at the time, so I was in a lower level, but it was still awesome!
It was called Christian Youth in Action, or CYIA. I met many other young Christians, and grew many friendships. But I still felt like I was lost.
I still wasn’t absolutely sure that I was saved.
I figured, if I’m teaching others about Jesus, that means he’s in my heart, right? That made me feel a bit better.
But I still wasn’t quite there.
When I was 13, on my way to that year’s CYIA Pre-Training, I ended up sitting with one of the other teens’ dad. We talked for the whole 2-hour trip. He shared his testimony with me, and it was totally amazing. He’d been in the depths of despair (I won’t go into details, but it was bad), when Jesus reached in and brought him out.
He is now one of the most on-fire Christians I’ve ever met.
I was so inspired by his testimony that I just sat there, thinking about it for a while. Then he asked me, “What’s your testimony? When did you take Jesus into your heart?”
I stopped short, not sure what to say. “I…I’m not sure. I couldn’t nail down an exact place or time…” I sort of mumbled. He assured me that was ok, and we talked about something else for the rest of the trip.
During the Pre-Training, this same man’s son got a chance to share his testimony with everyone. He’d been the perfect Christian, he said. He knew all the memory verses, he knew what to say and how to act. Everyone believed him. He even believed himself.
Then something happened (again, not going into details for my friend’s privacy), and everything fell apart. He ran away from home. He was lost in sin, and didn’t know what to do.
Then he turned to God and repented, and was taken home to his family and forgiven—by both them and God.
That testimony shook me, although I wasn’t sure exactly what part of it touched me most. Skip forward a couple weeks, and I was thinking hard about both salvation stories I’d heard.
That’s when it hit me. I knew what I was missing.
Sure, I believed in Jesus. I believed that He’d died on the cross for me.
But I’d never repented of my sins. I’d never asked personal forgiveness for my transgressions against Him.
And there you are, my friends. That day, I really did have Jesus in my heart. I knew what I’d been looking for that whole time, and I finally had it.
Now I was a child of God.
The reason I called this post When God was my Grandfather is because of that lie— that if your parents are Christians, you are too.
But the other lie is this: believing in Jesus is enough. It’s not, my friends. You need to truly repent and ask forgiveness for your sins before you are really saved.
If we confess our sins,
he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins,
and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
1 John 1:9
So there’s my testimony, along with the two lies I believed for so long. I want you to know the truth, my friends, so you don’t have to be blind as long as I was.
What is your testimony? When did Jesus come into your heart? If you’re alright with sharing, I’d love to hear about it in the comments!
God bless,
Janet—a Child of God
