October 22nd 1983

I've you've been reading my blog for anytime at all you know that my FAITH plays a very important role in my life. In fact, I would say that my FAITH shapes just about every aspect of my life from my relationships to my finances. And so, in honor of what happened on this day 25 years ago I thought I would share a little bit about how I came to this place in my life.

On October 22nd, 1983 I started on this journey of FAITH. I told my mom that I wanted to "ask Jesus into my heart." So we prayed together and I told Jesus that I believed in him and that I was sorry for my sins and that I wanted to be in Heaven with him one day.

Romans 3:23 says All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. That means that I'll never be good enough for God. I can't get to Heaven on my own. I can't please God on my own.

So thank goodness for this next verse. Romans 10:9 says That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. It's that easy and that's what I did 25 years ago.

And so I've spent the last 25 years of my life learning more about God and growing in my relationship with Jesus. And it's been quite a journey. I will confess that I'm not the most consistent person when it comes to my faith. Over the years I've had times when I've been excited about going to church and times when I'd much rather stay in bed. Times when the Bible seems interesting and alive to me and times when it seems boring and difficult to understand. Times when I've prayed a lot and felt like I've really been heard and times when I've felt like I've been talking to the air. But one thing has never changed! Jesus has always been waiting for me. In my apathy, in my disobedience, in my busyness, in all of it he's been there just waiting for me to turn to him.

These past few years have really been a turning point for me. My faith has been tested over and over and OVER again and I have finally come to a place where I feel like my feet are firmly planted. I have no more questions. I have no more doubts. I know exactly what I believe. I know exactly Who I believe in.

I believe that the Bible is 100% true.

I believe that God sent his son Jesus to atone for our sins.

I believe the Jesus is the only path to God.

I believe that you must have faith in Jesus Christ in order to go to Heaven.

I believe that prayer really, really, for real, works!!!

It's all the same things that I've believed for 25 years, but I have a new earnestness about it that I've never had before. I want more than anything to be obedient to God's word and to be in His perfect will. It's so, so easy to get off track. Think for a second about the night that Jesus was born. It was a starry night in Bethlehem. The son of God was born. The savior that everyone had been waiting for and the entire town of Bethlehem was asleep. They all missed it. Only the shepherd out in the fields even knew what had happen. I don't want to go through life missing it. I don't want to be asleep and miss what God has for me!

Think about the Israelites. After God used Moses to bring them out of Egypt they were supposed to go to the promised land, but instead they wandered around in the desert for 40 years. They missed what God had for them because they were too busy whining, lying, complaining and being disobedient. I don't want to be like that. I don't want to go through life being so selfish that I miss what God has in store for me.

And that's my prayer for YOU too! I know that God has something amazing in store for each one of you! Oh how I don't want you to miss it! If you've never had a relationship with Jesus before click here and check out this explanation of what it means to be a follower of Christ.

I think there are two main ways that God communicates with us: prayer and through His Word, the Bible. I am still working on being more disciplined when it comes to reading and studying the Bible. I should do it a lot more than what I do. But I do have a pretty strong prayer life. If you ask me to pray for something, you can bet I will be praying about it for you. Please email me (judah322@hotmail.com) or leave me a comment if there is something I can be praying about for you. You can be annonymous if you want to! I know that there are lots of people who stalk my blog who like to be annonymous and that's okay :)

Whew...this got a little long, but I hope you're still here with me at the end. This post is really about what's on my heart! I want you to know the peace that having a relationship with Jesus brings. So that's it. Happy "Born-Again" Birthday to me!!