How Jesus Saved Me

I hope all of the blog's readers have taken time at some point to read the entry on the right hand column of this page entitled "How Jesus Saved me." I used to have the "About Me" section toward the top of the page as it is by default in the Blogger template, but I didn't want the blog to be about me. So, when I moved that section lower on the page, I also moved the section containing my testimony lower with it.

However, my testimony about how Jesus saved me is not really about me. It is about Him. It is about the way in which He - as Great God and Savior - bestowed the grace of salvation upon me. So, to draw attention to His gracious work in my life so that He may be more fully magnified through this blog and so that God might be more fully glorified, I have included this testimony here to highlight what He has done in my life through His death and resurrection and my gratitude for His having done it!

The Lord graciously saved me when I was twenty years old and serving in the U.S. Navy. Although I had been going to church most of my life and wanted to know the Lord Jesus as my Savior, I believed that salvation was based upon my own efforts to live righteously and thus to prove my faith to God. This false belief was easy for me to accept, especially given several factors in my childhood. For example, I came from a broken home and experienced much isolation and loneliness. I just could not bring myself to believe that anyone could love me just as I was. This led me to frequent bouts with deep depression throughout my childhood and into my adult years.

However, through the witness of believers in my life, and through His Holy Word, the Lord opened my eyes to the truth that He loved me even though I did not and never could deserve it. He showed me that I could never earn His love and forgiveness, and that I didn't have to try. I praise God for His saving grace, by which He enabled me to trust in Him alone for salvation! Through his work in my heart, I came to understand that the Lord Jesus has done all that needs to be done for my salvation through His sinless life, atoning death, and resurrection from the dead.

If you do not already know Christ as your Savior, I pray that you will come to know Him too!

Ephesians 2:8-10 "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them."

The Bible teaches that "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" and that "the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 3:23;6:23). When it speaks of the "wages of sin," it is speaking of what we deserve for having done wrong in the sight of God, but it also teaches us about the "gift" of eternal life which we do not deserve. Thus God offers us freely through Jesus that which we cannot earn. He offers to do for us in Christ that which we cannot do for ourselves.

Will you put your faith in Jesus to save you from the punishment your sins deserve? He is willing to forgive you and give you eternal life if you ask Him. "If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation" (Romans 10:9-10).