Faith

What I'm using to read the Bible in a year.

My Testimony.

I grew up attending Valley Baptist Church in Bakersfield, California. At the age of seven, I was saved and baptized. My mom was the church’s children’s minister and so we were at church virtually every time the doors were open. As the years passed, I grew in my faith, through the ups and downs of adolescence. After high school, I moved to Ohio for college and graduated from Cedarville University, a Baptist College. Although I had a large amount of memorized scripture under my belt and had retained a lot of Biblical information, it was not until after college that I really understood that my faith wasn’t supposed to be simply a reflection of what I knew and how much I had memorized. Rather, faith was about relationship—a real relationship with my heavenly father. How had I missed that growing up??

From a young age I knew I was a sinner and that I needed Jesus’ redemptive love and saving grace to enter heaven. I knew that I had asked Jesus into my heart and that I was indeed going to heaven when I died. What I didn’t know was that a real, living, breathing, minute-by-minute relationship with my Creator was “where it’s at.”

My prayer for this blog is that it will be a transparent picture of my life and what it looks like to be a sinner in a fallen world, all the while growing closer to the Lord. Frankly, it doesn’t matter how BIG a sinner a person is, because we’re all sinners. We’re all far from perfect. And religion isn’t what saves us—a relationship with the Lord it.

{for specific Scripture references regarding the plan of salvation, please scroll down}

I know the Lord loves me even on my worst days (yes, even the days when four-letter words are flying) and He loves you on your worst days, too. Yes, even “one of THOSE days.” As you read my journey, I pray you we can grow right alongside each other, gaining momentum to live out the Lord’s purpose for our lives.

Funny story! When I was seven, I knew everything about sin, Jesus dying on the cross and the necessity of asking Him into my heart to go to heaven. However, when my pastor interviewed me before my baptism, he asked if I was a sinner and I told him “no.” My mom later asked me if I was a sinner and I told her, “Yes!” She asked, “Why did you tell Pastor Roger you weren’t a sinner??” I replied, “Because I didn’t want him to know!!”


The Plan of Salvation

Romans 3:10 "As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one."
Romans 3:23 "For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God."
Romans 6:23 "For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."

Salvation cannot be earned. Everyone is a sinner and deserves death, but God gives eternal life. So how can we receive God's gift of eternal life?

Romans 1:16 "For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth ...."

To be saved, we must believe the gospel. The word "gospel" means "good news." But before we can believe the good news, we have to know what it is.

1 Corinthians 15:1-4 "Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel ... that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures ...."

This is the gospel which we must believe in order to be saved. Now, how does believing this gospel save us?

Romans 5:8-9 "But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him."
Romans 3:22-26 "Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference: For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation (appeasing sacrifice) through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus."

We can be saved from the wrath of God, because Jesus Christ, the Son of God, died on the cross as a sacrifice for our sins and rose from the dead. He paid the price for us, and we are justified in God's eyes through our faith in the blood of Jesus Christ.

Ephesians 2:8-9 "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works lest any man should boast."

There will be no boasting in heaven. We cannot be saved by our own righteousness, but only by God's grace, through faith.

Ephesians 1:13-14 "In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory."

Once we believe the gospel, we are sealed with God's Holy Spirit. This is God's deposit, that guarantees he will redeem us, whom our Lord Jesus Christ "purchased with his own blood" (Acts 20:28).