One thing I have always craved is acceptance. I was extremely blessed to go to church with my family throughout childhood. From a young age, I was exposed to the Bible and to the good news of Jesus. I remember believing in Jesus from a young age – however, it was just head knowledge. I knew all the right answers, but it didn’t affect the way I lived and I did not have a relationship with God. So, I looked to other things to bring me satisfaction. For me, that was pursuing success in sports and specifically wrestling and acceptance from peers. I changed schools several times growing up and always felt like I was on the outside. So, I would do practically anything to fit in. In middle school, the guys in my grade were talking about pornography, so I tried that to and became hooked. Later on, in high school, I started to party for this reason too.
Personally, I wasn’t that into partying but did it just to try to be accepted by others. Going into college, it was a lot of the same things. I was looking for acceptance through a dating relationship and joining a fraternity. However, during the second semester of my freshman year of college, things started to change. God started to convict me of the way I was living, and I started to feel the emptiness of looking to others for approval and also the shame of an addiction to pornography. Thankfully, God placed Jeff into my life. Jeff was a guy living in my fraternity who said he was a Christian, but his life was so different from mine even though I would have said I was a Christian also. Jeff not only called himself a Christian but had a personal relationship with God!
Jeff and I became great friends, and I opened up to him about the emptiness I was feeling. Jeff asked me to start reading the Bible with him and we started to do this consistently. It was the first time I really read the Bible for myself, and God used His word to change my life! God showed me because of my sin I am separated from Him because He is perfect and has never sinned. God is also just, so because I sinned I have earned punishment in Hell forever. There’s no amount of good works I could ever do to get back to God because I have sinned and He is perfect. But God, created a way through His Son Jesus for us to get back into a relationship with Him. Jesus was fully God and emptied Himself from glory and became fully man as well as fully God. Jesus lived and experienced pain, temptation, and the joys of everyday life. He was like us in every way, yet without sin. So, He was able to take on the sins of His people in His own body and pay the penalty of sin by dying on the cross in our place. This way God was just and punished sin and made away for us to be forgiven by receiving Jesus as Lord and Savior through faith. After seeing this good news, I tried to turn from my sin by cutting out a porn addiction and a dating relationship and strived to stop looking to others for acceptance. I also placed my trust in God and began to have a relationship with Him by reading the Bible, praying, and having friendships with other believers. Since beginning a relationship with God my freshman year of college, God has totally transformed my life. God has put Jeff and another friend, Grant, into my life to show me how I can have a personal relationship with God and live on mission for Him by sharing my faith with others.
It is amazing to get to see how real God is in my life like Him answering specific prayers and giving me a purpose in life by getting to tell others about Him. I am currently striving to be faithful in knowing God and making Him known as I work as an insurance sales agent in Kansas City! It’s also important for me to say, following Jesus doesn’t take away all of life’s problems, and there are many costs involved in following Jesus. For me, one small way this was seen was being made fun of to an extent in my fraternity for following Jesus. However, after striving to be accepted by others all my life, I now know I am accepted by God. If you haven’t surrendered your life to Jesus, I hope my story helps show you how you can begin a relationship with Him! Your decision will be costly, but Jesus is so worth it!