About

Hi and welcome to my blog!  I am so glad you have decided to join me.  I initially began this blog in order to document my journey through planning and going to volunteer in West Africa back in 2016.  Though my time in Africa is over, there are many things which continue to challenge and change me, so this is a place I can share those.  Below, you'll find a bit about me and my testimony, and therefore my reason for writing this blog.

My Testimony

I grew up in a Christian home, with a dad and mom who love God and did their best to teach me and my siblings to follow Him and love Him for ourselves.  At a very young age, I realized that I needed Jesus.  I could not get into heaven by my own doing, and only Jesus could help me.  I knew that He is good and kind, and more than that, I understood that Jesus died on the cross so that my sins could be forgiven and so that I could be with God in heaven when I died.

Just like every person who has ever lived, I too had rejected and denied God, wanting to live my life my way, rather than looking to God for His guidance.  Although I didn't realize it at the time, I had actually made myself out to be a god, in charge of my own life and making my own decisions.  I lived to please myself.  "What is the big deal with that?", you might ask; "Isn't it good to be autonomous and confident?".

While it is true that confidence and autonomy are valued traits, the truth is much deeper than that.  The problem with this self-declared autonomy is that it is not real.  The God of the Bible, "who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth" (Acts 17:24), is the Owner of all things.  He has created and owns every single one of us.  Therefore, God legitimately has the right to do with us and command from us whatever He wants, but each of us have rebelled against Him.  God has made us for an incredible purpose, to glorify Him, but each of us has strayed very far from that (Romans 3:23).  It is like a lump of clay telling the potter, "I want you to make me into a teapot.  No, not that way!  Make the handle larger--no, make it smaller!"  It just doesn't work like that.

"Woe to the one who quarrels with his Maker-- An earthenware vessel among the vessels of earth! Will the clay say to the potter, 'What are you doing?' Or the thing you are making say, 'He has no hands '?"  - Isaiah 45:9

To say I have rejected and denied God and made myself into a god may sound a little bit severe--I mean, does anyone really say, "God, I'm doing things my way and you can just get out of my life"?  Unfortunately, the answer to this question is, yes, all of us have done that.  Not everyone says these exact words: "I reject You, God", but we may deny the existence of God, or even if we believe there is a God, we don't want Him to take part in our lives unless it is to help us when we are in a tough situation.  The Bible says that at the very least, it is our actions that speak louder than words and show what we truly think (Titus 1:16).

Is there any solution?  Is there any hope?

God is perfect, unique, righteous, and good.  All human beings are imperfect, unholy, sinful, and bad.  So knowing these things about myself and about God, there is a vast chasm to cross if I am going to fulfill the purpose God created me for!  I can never reach God on my own.  It is too big of a gap to cross over.  I can never do enough good things to get to God.  Instead, even when I try to do more good than bad, I still am earning wages leading to death (Romans 6:23).  While I am working and doing good things, trying to please God, I will get paid somehow; whenever we work, it requires payment.  But unfortunately for me and for all of us, the wages (payment) we will receive for our good works is death.

Now hold on a second--death?  But I'm doing good things!--However, God has said in the Bible that all of our righteous acts are considered to be like filthy rags to Him (Isaiah 64:6).  So there is nothing I can do that will earn my way into heaven.  There is nothing any of us can do.  We are hopeless.  But wait, there is a way.  There is hope!

Fortunately for us, God has provided a means of cleansing from our forlorn, imperfect, sinful states.  He can even purify us and wash us to the point where our blackened, rotten hearts are white as snow (Psalm 51:1-4;6-7)!  The hangup though, tends to be that we too often want to hang on to our pride and the desire to do things our own way.  This has been true in my own life.  I can be quite stubborn against God.  There needs to come a time in each of our lives where we are done doing things our own way and where we resign ourselves to follow after God, realizing that it will cost us everything.  And yet in losing everything, we gain so much more.  This is paradoxical, because how can we gain everything if we just lost it all?

There is only one way to be forgiven for our sins and washed clean: The Way is Jesus Christ.  He is "the way, the truth, and the life" and is the only way to reach God (John 14:6).  Our sin is too sinful for God to look at.

Not only does sin lead to death, but it is breaking God's law.  When we break civil laws, there are consequences, and the same goes for God's law.  Imagine I am standing on trial, and I am to receive the death penalty.  The judge pronounces me guilty and sentences me to death for my wrongdoing.  In fact, if the judge just let me off scot-free, he wouldn't be a good judge.  The truth is, if I deserve death, then justice demands that I must pay my penalty.

But what if a man stood up and said, "I'm actually going to take that sentence that Erin was supposed to receive--kill me instead".  What?!  How astonishing!  And what if the judge acknowledges this exchange?  Now, the fact that I broke the law is evident.  I committed a crime, but this man said he would take my place, my criminal record, and my death.  My criminal record is wiped clean, and in the eyes of the law, it is as though I never did anything wrong.  Justice was served, because someone paid the penalty, but it was not me.

This is a poor representation of what Jesus offered to do in my place.  I do deserve death for my sin, and God has to judge me for that, or He would not be a righteous God.  But Jesus died on the cross 2,000+ years ago, taking my place.  The Bible teaches that someone might be willing to die for a good man, but I was not even good.  It is amazing that "God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:6-10).

Jesus is perfect, clean, and spotless, but because of His love for us, took all of our sins upon Himself.  He bore the shame and filth of our sin.  He was not guilty one single bit, but He was treated as though He was.  Because He did not sin (1 Peter 2:21-24; Hebrews 4:15), He was able to pay for our sins once and for all (Hebrews 9:24-26).

However, there is a responsibility on each of our parts to accept this payment Jesus made on our behalf. It's one thing to know about it, but it is another thing entirely to believe it and accept it.  There must come a time where each of us examines our own hearts and trusts in Jesus to save us from our sins and rebellion.

It is very simple to obtain salvation from Jesus, and also very difficult.  Jesus even said, "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God" (Matthew 19:24), meaning that we cannot hold onto anything as more valuable than God.  If I am unwilling to give up anything and everything in my life, I cannot follow Jesus.  I cannot value anyone/anything else more than Jesus, and still say that I want Him.  This is impossible without God (Matthew 19:26), because without Him and His power, I will not even want to put Him first!  But God also makes it very simple to come to Him!  I must go through Jesus and "confess with [my] mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in [my] heart that God raised Him from the dead" (Romans 10:9), and He will save me!

"...for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.

"For the Scripture says, 'Whoever believes in Him will not be disappointed.'

"...for, 'Whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved.'"

~ Romans 10:10, 11, 13

If you have any questions about what it means to be a Christian, please do not hesitate to contact me!  I would love to discuss with you what it means to know Jesus!