I have grown up in a Christian home, have gone to a Christian school with Christian friends, and gone to church as long as I can remember. I have known the Gospel for almost as long. For years I could have explained that I am a sinner in desperate need of a Savior who has disobeyed the one true and holy God. I could have shared that God sent his son Jesus to be born as man, that Jesus lived a perfect life so that he could die on the cross in my place as the ultimate sacrifice for my sin. I could have told you that Jesus rose again from the dead, defeating death, and ascending to heaven where he is interceding on behalf of believers before God in heaven. I knew all these things but I had not truly believed them. They were just the “right answers” to the questions in Sunday school. I had a heart of stone that was unreceptive to the Gospel. At home, I was prideful and defensive about my sin when I was corrected. I was on the road to hell.

Over the past couple of years, I have felt God working in my life in several ways. I began to feel the need to confess my sin. The Good News, that though I was in grave danger, Jesus was still willing to take the burden of my sins on himself became reality rather than words on a page. Verses like Isaiah 53:5-6 began to take on a new meaning. I realized that I was one of the sheep that’s gone astray to its own way. God helped me to see that I needed a Savior. I have grown in my understanding of God’s word, and I find myself praying to him more. I am growing in self-control and humility, and he has given me a new desire to obey him. He has given me a new heart and a new life. That is why I am getting baptized today in obedience to God and as a symbol to the church that I, a sinner who had rejected God, have been saved by Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross and been given a new life with Christ. “But he was pierced for our transgressions; crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray and turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”