Monica's Testimony
The story of my journey as a Christian is not one smoothly paved. I have stumbled and tripped and fallen, and the longer I live, the more I realize, how very little I know. By the grace only of God, for the first time, I share my testimony in writing.
I grew up in a Christian home with parents who are still married to each other. I have two younger sisters. I was fortunate that my parents took us to church, and it was a church that placed value in knowing the Bible. When I was in the third grade, I started a Bible quizzing program that took a book of the Bible each year and studied it. I spent my elementary years studying Genesis, Exodus, Matthew, and Acts. This studying, along with Sunday School and church, gave me a foundational knowledge of the Bible at a young age.
In the summer of 1988, during Vacation Bible School and during the invitational service, one of my friends said that she was going to go down to the altar to pray. She asked me if I wanted to go. I went with her, honestly more for her than for me. However, when I went down front, I can remember exactly where I knelt at the altar, on the right side of the sanctuary. I remember that as I prayed, tears came to my eyes. When I stood from the altar, I knew that I had been forgiven of my sins and saved by God. I went back to my seat, and, afterwards, my mom and I talked about what had happened. I felt assured of my salvation. I had never prayed like that before. In the fall of my sixth grade year, our pastor came to our house to talk with me about my salvation and obedience in baptism. I told him that I had prayed during the VBS the previous year and felt sure of my salvation. On a Sunday morning that followed, I officially made my public profession of faith. That same night, I was baptized.
As I grew older, however, I did not spend enough time reading the Bible and praying on my own. I still went to church, but I fell into a pattern of living that mainly felt like following certain "rules". My life and my attitude became one more of self-righteousness rather than living in the grace of God and relying on His strength. I began to look for ways to bend the "rules" and to keep from "falling from grace." My heart grieves for the many missed opportunities for me to grow in my relationship with Jesus and to share with others about His love and sacrifice and forgiveness. I was seeking God and His will for my life, but I was not aware of the enormity of sin that God had saved me from. Somehow, this "rule-following" and "searching" combination attitude led me to believe that I was on a higher level of sanctification.
John MacArthur, pastor, teacher, and founder of Grace To You, states this about self-righteousness.
A person who thinks he can be righteous on his own is self-righteous. A self-righteous person is proud of his philanthropic contributions, moral integrity, and religious accomplishments. He sees himself as better than those around him and assumes God shares that assessment. He depends on what he has done rather than on what God has done for him. But self-righteousness is not true righteousness—it’s merely pride dressed in religious or moral garb.
It was only after I had been married several years and was expecting Grace that I began to realize how sin-laden my life had been. I prayed desperately for God to forgive me. My life was engulfed in self-righteous living. When Clark was born three years later, Monroe and I had been reading and studying our Bibles more. We were working through some of the problems that we had faced early in our marriage. Not only was our marriage growing stronger, our faith was growing deeper. God was making a difference.
One of the most pivotal moments in my life came one night while I was cooking dinner. Monroe and the kids were outside. Monroe and I had had a disagreement about something. I was crying as I was cooking spaghetti in the kitchen all alone. As I quietly prayed, suddenly, I felt a huge weight of sin on me. Like a light had been turned on in my heart, I became aware of the amount of sin that was in my life. I was aware that though I had followed my "rules", I was a person steeped in sin. My pride. My vanity. Time and opportunities wasted. My sin. My sin! Jesus had given me the ultimate gift of mercy by dying for those sins in my place. He knew all of my sin, and yet He still died for me. He still loved me. I was still His child.
I prayed a prayer of confession and repentance that night over a pot of spaghetti. I knew that the condition of my heart was forever changed. He gave me an understanding of His love and forgiveness that I had never known before. My "rule-keeping" had not kept me from sinning. In fact, it had led me into greater sin. My "rules" had not kept me from "falling from grace" but had kept me from falling into His grace. I now had an understanding that I was truly saved, that He had kept me when I gave my heart to Him as a child, and that He had been with me the entire time. I only now had the beginning of an appreciation for what He had done for me. I had a love and thankfulness that I could not contain.
That night, I knew that God altered the course of my life. He gave me a new song and a real relationship with Him. I am conscious of my ever-present sin and of His love for me and His forgiveness when I fail Him. I now read my Bible with an intense longing just to be close to Him. He has given me joy and peace and forgiveness and love. All the years that I sought it in my own strength have now been replaced with a calm, a peace, and an assurance of my salvation. I have a greater desire to know and follow Him.
The message I have for you is that God loves you and desires to have a relationship with you. I am not alone in that I am a sinner. The Bible tells us that we have all sinned and are therefore separated from God. Who could stand in His Holy Presence? Only through the redemptive blood of Jesus, the Savior of my soul, will I gain access to God, Creator of the world.
My list of sins is grievous and more personal that I would ever want anyone to know. I was filled with shame and guilt. But, I know that Jesus came to earth as a human, lived without sin, and gave His life for mine on a cross over 2,000 years ago. He did not stay dead but defeated death by rising again And, one day, He will call me home to heaven. I accept Jesus' sacrifice for me and understand that it is the only way that I will ever be worthy to stand before the throne of God. Jesus stands in my place. My rightousness is only His righteousness. I am not deserving or worthy of this gift, but He is worthy and full of power. Because He stands with me and I in Him, He gives me the gift of eternal life. He has also given me the gift of the Holy Spirit that I might know Him more during my time on earth. I am no longer filled with shame and guilt but instead live in Jesus' victory. I do not have a spirit of fear but of power, love, and self-control.
My story does not end there. I continue to acknowledge the sin that Jesus paid the ultimate price for. I pray that He will use me and continue to teach me through His Words. I ask forgiveness for all the times I have not shared His love with you. I pray that you might read my testimony and see Him working, hear His Voice, feel His Presence. I ask your forgiveness for the times I may have personally hurt you with my words or actions. I pray that all who might read this will come to a personal and saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Bible tells us that He will come again, and I pray that you are ready to meet Him.