Since I was born and dedicated into the church as a young kid, I’ve pretty much known what Christianity was my entire life. When I was only five years old, my father introduced me to Christ on the staircase of our house. I accepted Christ into my heart that day not really knowing what I was getting into or really understanding what it meant to be a Christian. As I lived my life as a child, I pretty much lived like every other child just trying to be as good as a person for myself.

It wasn’t really until I was older that I realized what Jesus had to go through in order for us to have salvation. Through my youth groups here at church such as Christian Youth Fellowship (CYF) and Teens in God’s Service (TIGS), I realized through messages exactly what Jesus sacrificed for us. Despite this, I still continued to live the same as I had before. I continued to say pretty much whatever I wanted to and act the same as always. Some of the derogatory behaviors included cursing and thinking that I was better than everyone else. Despite going to numerous youth groups and Chinese Bible Mission (CBM) camps etc., where I was challenged numerous times to do the normal things like read my Bible and get baptized, my life still continued to not reflect Christ. I had understood the doctrine but had not made a change in my life because of it.

This past CBM camp however, was different. My counselor, Roger, instead of challenging me to do normal things such as reading my Bible more and getting baptized, he challenged me to be different from the world. We need to be in this world but not of this world. Romans 12:2 states, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” Now, I’m more committed to trying to be good in this world for Christ and trying to stick out in a good way. Jesus died for us and we are called to try to be just like Him. Baptism is essentially telling the world that you are a Christian. Today, I am committing myself to water baptism to declare to the world that I’m a Christian, and that I believe that Jesus died on the cross for my sins. This precious gift of salvation was given to us according to one of my favorite verses of all time which is Ephesians 2:8,“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God.” This gift is worth changing your life for. Today I am declaring to the world that this gift of eternal life has shaped my life and is worth it.