http://www.gty.org/Blog/B160217

When I read the blog written by Jeremiah Johnson, from Grace To You, I very much identified.  It’s part of my own testimony.

I did exactly what the one part talks about regarding ‘false salvation’. I walked the isle, repeated a prayer, got baptized…all for the wrong reason. I even knew it was for the wrong reason at the time. I had been teased by another in the youth group at church about not being saved–I was told it was so easy…thus, I eventually went forward. I don’t mention that part of the equation because I hold a grudge against any individual, rather, it was the blindness of the surrounding circumstances of that person and myself at the time; that, and the fact my time for salvation hadn’t come yet.

From the moment of my ‘false profession’, it was chalked up as “I did it, I did what everyone else had done or was doing’…”I got saved”. There was no evidence anything had changed, then, or for many years to come. There was no growth, or even desire. Until…one morning I was at ladies fellowship, a morning get-together I almost didn’t go to; and I felt the speaker was talking directly to me. There was an overwhelming sense of conviction, guilt, remorse, at who I was, in light of Who Christ Is. There’s much more to all this, but I will say that my life has not been the same since I became a follower of Christ…for 23 years now. It’s not a perfect life, but my desire is to follow Him. I like how R.C. puts it: “We don’t enter Christianity until Christ enters us. It isn’t about turning over a new leaf; it’s about starting over with new life in Him. Practices, precepts, performances; it’s a relationship with a real person.”

Your salvation may not have happened just as mine did.  I know everyone’s testimony varies…because the Lord works in different ways, at different ages; and our sins vary;  Yet, salvation in the Lord is the same when we are born again; and our sins, no matter how hideous, are washed away.  In those ways, we are one and the same in the Lord, for we all belong to Him.  In belonging to Him, everyone who belongs to Christ belongs to everyone else who belongs to Christ.

2 Cor. 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!

Earnestly,

Yours