My Testimony

I opened my email app and I had a draft of an email that I was writing to send to someone to proofread... Here's the testimony I gave my church to be a member. It's something that I wish everyone knew about me

Hi im Jason Reyes

26

From long beach, CA. And I am a sinner.

 Before I even existed, and before I was a mortal thought, God had a plan to save me from my sinful self. Romans 6:23 says, "The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." I came to the saving knowledge of the Gospel, that Jesus died, was buried and resurrected, when I was 7 years old.  My aunt taught my Sunday school where my brothers and I learned a song to memorize John 3:16. Later that week, my aunt caught us singing the song. She brought us into her room and led us to the Lord. She told us that we would be in Hell, separated from God, if we did not believe in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. In hindsight, I prayed a generic sinners’ prayer in that room after receiving the gospel but it was Gods grace that saved me.  To quote Ephesians 2:8-9 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

So by the grace of God, I was saved… and I’d like to tell you that I lived happily ever after and that my spiritual life grew, but that wasn't the case. My home church in Long Beach, CA closed, so I stopped attending church. I was a freshman in high school when God taught me the importance of church involvement and accountability. I started going to a church that some relatives invited me to. It was a Baptist Church in Long Beach. I got to be active in youth group and I shortly followed Christ in Believers’ baptism – Identifying with Christ as dead and buried, by plunging into water and coming out, as a symbol of Jesus being raised again.

God allowed me the opportunity to work as the Youth director at my old church and as a Christian camp counselor for 6 summers. Despite being involved in so many activities, I still found a way to take God for granted. I looked at the ministry I was serving in as a hobby, in turn, the hobbies became my god. I had God’s love regardless of who I was, but His love is so big that it eventually changed me.

After being unemployed for quite some time after graduation, I desperately applied for jobs outside of California. God then opened up an opportunity to start a career here. Everything I replaced Him with: Friends, family, girls.. Were all taken from me. I realized that when Jesus was all I had, He became all I ever really needed. Part of the beauty of the Gospel is that, in comparison to what Christ already did for us, all the problems you have become insignificant. God has been showing me more and more of my weaknesses and more and more of His perfect strength. He has shown me that freedom in Christ wasn't freedom TO sin, it was freedom FROM sin.

I’m glad that he has led me to Willow Creek, and I am very excited to see how I can serve here.