Thanks for letting me share my testimony. It was in 2010 my father first started going to church. Our family followed his steps. I too joined the Sunday school. I was 12 years old at that time. I am 22 now. At an age of 16, I was baptized.
Everything seemed to be okay until I became 21 years old. I thought I knew the gospel well, which I did intellectually when I recall those days. I believed that I had believed in Jesus Christ. But when I turn back and see myself then, I feel I never truly knew the true content of the gospel. 1 John 3 is evident of the fact that if anyone keeps on sinning, he is not of God but of the devil. All those 8 years of my life passed in sin. Pornography was my habit. Sin was a pattern of my life. 1 John 5:4 says that God is love and his commandments are not burdensome. But for me, the commandments in the Bible were all grievous. They were very heavy.
There was, I think, not at all a desire to obey His commands. Maybe I was never truly saved then. I did not have that a zeal to do the Word. I just had this fear of hell. All I wanted of Jesus was to escape hell. I was a worship leader, youth leader, and bible study facilitator but I lacked a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus. I feel now I was never regenerated then. Ezekiel 36 says that when God takes out the heart of stone and gives the heart of flesh, that is, when a person becomes a Christian, then he does the will of God. May be I was never a Christian all those years. I think I had not accepted Jesus as my master, as my Lord.
That pattern of my life was continuing even up to a few years back. But something happened a year or two ago. I got exposed to serious faithful sermons of some notable pastors in the youtube. People like Paul Washer, Francis Chan, John Piper etc. I noticed something peculiar then. I learned from them great essential doctrines of Christian faith. I got to know the gravity of the gospel to save sinners. The God they seemed to preach seemed to be very different than the God I had been professing to know. The depth of relationship they seemed to have with God astonished me. I continued listening to faithful preaching of the Bible, the gospel. Then slowly I started seeing my sin. I realized I was a sinner and was in need of a Savior. All those years of my life had become a lie. But glory to God that he showed me my real condition. I repented of my sins, asked the Lord to bring me to know Him as those faithful preachers seemed to know God. The Holy Spirit started working in my life since then through the Word of God. Then my life started transforming. All those sins started breaking lose. I don’t even remember praying for freedom from pornography but that was no longer an interest in my heart. Then started having uncommon love for the Word of God and his people. God greatly used Youtube in my life for saving me. It’s not that I do not sin now but sin is not a lifestyle in my life. 1 John 1 says if anyone says he does not sin then he is a liar. But something different than before is the fact that I repent and grieve over my sin now which was not the reality then. I love the Lord and his word now. I am always thankful to God for this miracle that he has wrought in my life: my salvation for His glory!
Prakat Neupane
Completed BSc. in Biotech.
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