Joseph’s Story

I was raised going to church and thought that I was a Christian from the time I was very young. This confidence was based on my parents’ beliefs and my church attendance, but not on any personal faith. I can remember “asking Jesus into my heart” when I was six years old when the teacher at my Christian school said that would get me to heaven. (I can also remember many times after that asking Jesus to come into my heart again, just in case I had not done it right the first time.) Obviously, at this point in my life I was trusting in my own actions to save me rather than in what Christ accomplished on the cross. I did not have an accurate understanding of the gospel.

Nevertheless, I grew up believing that I was a Christian and continued learning bits and pieces of what the Bible taught. Because of my misplaced confidence, I can’t remember a specific point when I realized that eternal life is based on what Christ accomplished. I only know that by the time I was in middle school, I had learned that Christ’s sacrifice allowed me to be made righteous and enter into a relationship with God.

I continued to grow in my faith (slowly) through high school by having “quiet times” consisting of a few minutes of prayer and reading randomly selected Bible passages. It was not until I got to college and was discipled by a couple of guys with a passion for pursuing God that I really began to experience substantial growth in my relationship with God. It was then that I began to really dig into God’s word and pray in earnest in order to know Him and discover His will for my daily life.