Jacob’s Testimony
On March 25, 1988, I accepted Jesus Christ as my Savior. My parents had been saved a few years after they were married, allowing me to live in a Christian home from birth. I had gone to church all the time, but it was that night in March at the age of four that I realized that trusting Jesus was something that I had never done, but I needed to. My Mom and I had been having devotions in her room, when the subject of salvation came up. She explained to me what salvation was, and I put my hope for salvation in Jesus alone. I followed Christ in baptism in May of the following year.
Like many young people who are saved at a young age, I had doubts of my salvation periodically through high school. I wondered if I truly understood everything. I could not see a great change in my life; in fact, I saw the many sins that I had committed, and wondered if I had truly obtained salvation. I made assurance of my salvation a couple of times, but I finally had peace while listening to a preaching tape one day. Pastor Bobby Roberson brought out the fact that we are not the ones who save us, that we don’t have to say a certain set of right words, but it is Christ who takes the humble sinner that calls upon Him. This helped me realize that I had been trying to determine if I had done everything right, when I just needed to simply accept Christ’s doing everything right for my salvation. Looking back, I can see that there was sin in my life and a lack of daily fellowship that also allowed the doubts to come.
Viola’s Testimony
I was privileged to grow up in a Christian home. I can not remember when I didn’t know the Gospel. Around five or six years of age, knowing the punishment for my sin, I became very scared of hell and would pray every night for God to forgive me of my sin. One day my sister explained to me that Christ died once for ALL my sin and I didn’t need to keep asking for forgiveness. She led me in a prayer and I trusted Christ.
It was a few years before I was baptized; I was very self-conscious and was embarrassed to let others outside my family know that I was a Christian. When I was nine, I finally realized that I needed to obey the Lord and was baptized.
I went through a time of inward rebellion as a teen. On the outside I looked good but on the inside I was rotten. The Lord pricked my conscious over and over about my sin. I tried to get the victory but failed. Then through a study of Romans, the Lord helped me see that He had already given me the victory.
I had surrendered my life to the Lord during my teen years, but never felt the Lord leading me to any one area of service until opening revival the fall semester of my freshman year at Ambassador. I felt the Lord leading me in the area of missions. He placed with in my heart the desire to serve Him in that capacity and I surrendered to be a missionary. After prayer I decided to remain a music major because I knew that the Lord could greatly use music on the mission field.
