1) Write the “after” part of your story. 2) How do you feel about telling your story to others? 3) How does this affect how you think about evangelism? 4) Write a prayer telling God your feelings after writing out your whole story.
Knowing Him 50: Obedient Leadership
Introduction Peter leads a large group of disciples to an isolated (perhaps secretive) meeting where Jesus will once again give them their marching orders. Then they make their way back to Jerusalem to await the coming Holy Spirit as the movement switches into its...
(Brandon)
After inviting God into my life and accepting Jesus as my lord and savior my life and emotions have turned around. As I mentioned before I used to feel lost and hopeless in life, but now I feel like I am where I need to be. The first time Dean brought me to church it felt as if the weight was lifted from my soul. My relationships with those in my life have become stronger. I’ve made new friends within this community. Now I don’t feel like I am alone. My goals have become clearer and I am motivated to make sure they become reality. I believe that God places people and events in your life when the time is right and I have been shown that through his love and forgiveness. Now that I have faith I want to help others in need gain that faith as well so they may be forgiven of their sins and live a better life. I would tell my story to those who want to hear it. I am not ashamed of who I was before because it taught me lessons which has turned me into a better person and I hope others can learn that they can be redeemed and turn their life around as well. This experience has made me believe that spreading your story and experiences can be beneficial for yourself and others. I pray that I can share my story to those who need to hear it and I thank God for putting me through this trial so that I may learn from it and share my story.
(from Roger)
1) I feel like I’ve discussed my after story before. In fact I know I have. Thank you don for your authenticity and transparency in telling your story. I know, without a doubt, that without Christ, I would not be clean today. He gets all the glory. I know I don’t know how to live life but through his grace I’m floundering, trying to figure it out, one day at a time. Christ has made a difference in my life because I feel him, I believe in him, and he is everything that I inherently am not. He is caring, loving, selfless, graceful, god is good. He has carried me when my mind tells me I can’t do it. He has loved me when I loathe myself. He has cared for me and lead me to my pillow clean for over 8 months. He continues to do for me what I could not. He is a blessing, a miracle, he is my power, my genie. His forgiveness has impacted me because it reminds me of his power and the depth of his love. It’s a reminder to myself to not be so hard on myself and to give myself a chance at living clean. Against everything that’s comfortable to me, I forge forward as best I can because of his grace. I do not want to squander this opportunity he has given me, like a son following his father, I don’t want to fail. I’ve spoken ad nauseum abt the cosmic change in my thinking. I sometimes catch myself and wonder who I am…..did I just mutter the words that came out of my mouth? In short, despair, hate, darkness have been replaced by hope love and light (for the most part). I may not know how my life will change….I really couldn’t tell you but it has and will continue to if I continue to do the things I’m doing. I believe that today. My default has changed from I’m screwed, let me drown out these feelings to allow the process to work. Have faith. Cosmic shift. That’s all I can really say abt that. Relationships I have today are stronger, more real. They are more than transactional or superficial. My faith in Jesus and his redemptive work make me a believer in doing what’s right. They
Focusing in on only the after part of my story:
To start, it was no perfect road. I did have an instance where I did fall again after having been on this life changing journey. The fall I had though, allowed me to experience grace and truly understand what that meant. It was during Easter, just the day prior to Good Friday. I remember spontaneously getting into a conversation with Kimberly Do and it just slowly crept into my second falling. I did not even intend on talking about that. This conversation was emotional and really encouraged me to confess my shortcomings. This then led to sharing the fear of sharing it to those I respected. The overcoming of those thoughts that crept up of they’ll hate you now. “How could you fall a second time, you’re weak.” I was able to put that off and had those conversations confessing to Pastor Bumble, Jenney, my accountability group, and so forth. From there I was able to turn back on track with an even better understanding. His forgiveness has helped me to understand for others and genuinely be there for them. My attitude has changed from the fact that, we aren’t all perfect. It’s pushed me to not judge others and be able to find my way back to Christ no matter what. My faith in Jesus has surely helped me through many battles like being able to move to a more ideal location, to finding my way to the job I have, and just my outlook on life. I see God using me in the dark places of the world, so his light may shine in those instances.
Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for bringing me back to you. You’ve been truly miraculous in the work you’ve done in my life. The trajectory in which my life took place were all unexpected and would not have been predicted. I pray as you continue to sharpen my story, you may also still use it for where it’s at to reach those you know it should. God may you open my heart and ears for me to be willing to go to the places you lead me to. May you allow me to see the hurt and lift it up to you. May you then speak and display your love to those that are severely lacking you through me. I pray all these things in Jesus name, amen.
I accepted Christ at an early age, but I feel like I didn’t truly grasp the magnitude of His saving grace until college/post college. As I kept trying to find contentment through boys, my outer appearance, success with work, and drinking, I always came up short and dissatisfied. I came to realize that satisfaction and purpose for life comes only through Jesus Christ. It was only through studying His word and striving to live a holy and fruitful life did I ever start feeling a joy that never went away — that wasn’t circumstantial.
For some reason I feel hesitant to tell my story. I think because sometimes I feel like my story is not “good enough” 😅. I grew up as a pastor’s kid and grandkid and so life as a Christian feels engrained in me. What I know is different than how I feel sometimes, because I know that God can use my story –that’s why he created me!–but I sometimes feel the opposite.
Lord, I pray that you give me the courage to share my story and remind me that you created me purposefully.
As I sit here trying to gather my thoughts of writing this “after” story of mine, I feel an overwhelming sense of gratitude and love. All the gratitude and glory is to Christ my savior. I would not be here to write this if it wasn’t for god. It is a relieve for me that to god, all sins are the same, sins are sins, Jesus died for my sins. I know that my sins for living the way I lived, being the person I became as an addict, are forgiven. My relationship with God was put away, gone and forgotten for a very long time, he never left me but I left him for a very long time. Coming back to church has been a big part in rebuilding my relationship back with god. Today I can say that I’m grounded with god. My roots are getting stronger with God. My thoughts on everything has really shifted. I’m not living on self will , self centeredness and selfishness. The small circle which is mostly myself has gotten bigger and it is the relationship that I’ve built and is keeping with my friends. Jesus Christ has shown me a way to live, to look at myself, work on myself and live with myself. I find that things just work out when I have faith and hope in god. I don’t need to have control of everything, I don’t need to lie to make people like me, it’s okay for me to be vulnerable and admit where I’m at fault and if they can’t except my best self and my best standards then I’m okay to be defeated by their high standards. I don’t have to be up there to be happy. I am content for what I have. The clarity that I have is amazing. Surrendering my will and turning it over to God’s will has given me so much freedom and hope because I see the change , and I can feel it. Acceptance for how things turned out for me has been hard at times but I turn to prayers and I treat my time in the morning and at night with god very sacredly.
Heavenly Father, my only savior, my relationship with you is the most important relationship that I keep, because when I feel like there is no one else there for me, you come through, not on my time but on your time. Thank you for giving me the patience to wait. Thank you for showing me how to first love myself and forgive myself in order for me to fully love others. In jesus name, amen.
after I came to Christ my life was very different. I would say I was worried about less material things and status with career. Feel like I was more driven to have a more fulfilling life with doing God’s work rather than focusing on the money. I saw myself be less worried about the future and about death. I feel like the way I view things have gotten better. I tend to see the beauty in things rather than the bad. I tend to be a lot more optimistic and others centered rather than pessimistic and self centered. Definitely feel more open to share my story if it ever comes up.
After I truly accepted Jesus because of my own decision, rather than because I went to church for my parents, I began to have more peace in my life with my future and approached life with more gratitude because of how God has worked in my life. My decisions began to be more intentional and I pray more, but I also know that there’s always more work to be done to grow closer to God and in my relationship with Him. I grew up in the church, so my story isn’t as “impactful” in a way as others, so I find that I often don’t share, but I know I should becuase it’s still God working in my life. God, I thank you for changing my life and I pray that I continue to grow closer to you, as well as share my story more.
1) After accepting Jesus, I began to experience more peace and brightness in my life on a frequent basis. It was during my first devotion that I recognized my need for forgiveness. Prior to that, I had little understanding of God, but as I delved into learning about Him, I realized I couldn’t live without Him. My journey led me to getting baptized during my second devotion.
2) I think I’m comfortable telling my story to believers but I sometimes do not have 100% confidence me telling my story to non-believers because I guess I’m afraid of them criticizing me.
3) I’m not sure this directly affect how I think evangelism but I sometimes choose my community or people who hang out both intentionally and unintentionally.
4) Dear Heceanly Father,
Thank you for giving me this new beautiful day. I’m most time comfortable to tell my story but still hesitate to tell it some people just because I’m afraid of something. Nevertheless, I trust in your guidance and strength to overcome my fears. In Jesus name. Amen.
1. After committing myself to Christ, He has made a difference in my life by showing me what it means to be fully known and fully loved. His forgiveness for me impacted me by allowing me to see that I wasn’t a good person and I couldn’t work for Salvation, but God did the work and His forgiveness helped me to trust Him more and not myself. I became more vulnerable in my emotions, thoughts, and attitudes, and God has helped me allow myself to be in the position of being fully known and fully loved. He has helped me embrace who I really am in my thoughts, attitudes, and emotions. This also translates to my relationship with people. My relationship with my family and friends has gotten better because God has helped me stop fearing what they would think of me and embrace who I am in the family. Although I do have hopes and dreams, my faith in Jesus allows me to trust in His power to give me the strength to achieve those things instead of trusting my own power. As a part of God’s plan, I see myself evangelizing and preaching the Gospel, whether it’s through Cru or Red Point. I’ve seen myself having a passion for the Great Commission, and I want to be part of it.
2. I feel confident and excited about telling my story to others because I want to share how good Jesus is and how loving He is to die on the Cross for my sins, and I want other people to have a story about how God has changed their lives as well.
3. It gives me more reasons to evangelize because evangelize gives me the opportunity to go share my story with other people.
4. Dear God, it feels very encouraging to know how much you have done in my life, and I feel joy writing it out. I know that there are certain parts of my story that are incomplete, but through it all, You are still working on it, God. Please help me have the courage to share my story so that other people may buy into it and have their story of Your salvation. I pray in Jesus Name, Amen.