Confession of Faith

It is hard to know where to start this story.

When I was a young kid, church told me that if I didn't "get saved" I would go to Hell: place where you burned forever. You didn't die, you just felt the pain of flames licking your skin for an eternity. It was the forever that scared me the most, and I believe that is true of most. At night, I would lie in my bed in fear,  afraid that if I did one thing incorrectly on my 'journey to salvation' that one day I would be living forever in pain--without family, without God, and without hope.

Being six or seven, obviously I ran to "get saved." I prayed the prayer almost everyone in this region has heard before. "God, please forgive me of my sins, I am truly sorry. Please save me and come into my heart so that I may go to heaven." Even the prayer itself was a plea to stay out of Hell. It was a prayer of fear and desperation to escape the eternal wrath of God. To be clear, this was not fear of God, it was fear of spending an eternity in Hell.

I lived in fear of Hell for most of my life. Every time I would fear it, I would "get saved" once again. I would pray the prayer, "Jesus forgive me of my sins, save me." Fear driven I would continually reassure my salvation because that was the point of my salvation--to be free of Hell. If I had any fear of going there the prayer was my way of calming that fear, and it sort of worked.

That was my past, and my relationship with God was directly affected by my "salvation."  I don’t think that I am comfortable with saying whether or not I was truly saved at that point, but I do know that I did not have a true relationship with God. My prayers were rehearsed, repeated, and forced. The time I spend reading the Bible was tedious, arduous, and painful. I did not truly seek God nor did I seek to further His Kingdom. I forced a relationship, and I hated the way it felt.

Recently, I realized what it meant.  What everything meant--a relationship, being saved, following Christ, reading the Bible--everything I was always instructed to do I have finally begun to understand.

See I was following God because I was afraid, but now I realize that I simply love God. If I love God then all of the "supposed to's" become "get to's." Its like this:

Almighty God created the earth. Almighty God created man so that He may have a relationship with Him. He created man with free will to choose His way or any other way he wishes. Man ultimately chose a way different than the one God had laid out for him, and by doing so he caused a divide between himself and God.

God is holy and just. Since man disobeyed God, God out of His essence (that is His holiness) had to punish man. The punishment God gave man was death and separation.

God's desire to have a relationship with man never ceased, and so He sent his Son, Jesus, to assume the punishment in our place. Since Jesus was without sin, He was able to take on our sins and the punishment those sins deserve. This replacement was just in God's eyes. Because a sacrifice had been made and punishment had been dealt , man and God could once again have a relationship.

Recently God opened my eyes. He said, " Zac, I have created everything, I am everywhere, I have always been, I will always be. There are far greater things in this universe than you can even imagine that I have created. I am perfect, I am holy, I am just, I AM. I don’t need you. The world will spin without you, people will meet Me without you, you are not necessary, you are unimportant. I can do all things without you. But, Zac, I want you. I desire you. I created you to be with Me. That is why you are here. You have no reason to exist except to be with Me. I am your God, I am your salvation, and I want you."

God showed me how great and how wonderful He is, and then He said that He wants me. He wants to be with me. He wants a relationship with me. He said, " Look Zac, my Son died for you. I sent my Son to die in your place so that we can be together. Remember, I don't need you. This is simply how much I want you. I wanted you so much that I allowed my perfect and only Son to die for you. Come to me."

God told me all of this, and now…now I am His. I am with Him, He is with me.  I am saved. But here is the difference. It's not that I am now saved from Hell, or from the fear of an eternity of pain. I am saved from not having a relationship with God. The relationship that Adam lost when he disobeyed God was the relationship that I gained back, when I said" Jesus, save me from not knowing you. I want You, and want to have a relationship with You. I want to be with You."

You see, whether or not I got saved back when I was a kid doesn't matter. Because I now know that I have relationship with God. An eternal relationship, where I seek to further his fame and his kingdom. I am beginning to want different things. My mind is focused on giving instead of gaining. My heart is joyful instead of doubtful. I have a new life. I have salvation. That is all that matters. I don't need anything else. I don’t want anything else because I truly have Christ. I once was dead, and that was very apparent. I am now alive, and I hope that fact is infinitely more obvious.