All to Jesus, I surrender..

So this post is a very joyful post for me, but also a very humbling post to share.

Sunday at around noon I received Christ as my personal Savior for the first (real) time, and I fully gave my life over to His Lordship.

Now, see how this is very humbling?

Let me share, because I know that my story isn't unique. Many people have the same one, or can maybe relate, and it took a long time before I could quite understand that.

All of my life, I have worked at being a Christian. I have worked very hard. However, that work was leading me no where; it especially wasn't leading me to an eternal home in Heaven.

Working at being a Christian is hard. How is that? I was living a life following the rules to the best of my ability, but I was not feeling that absolute peace that I knew came with being one of His. I was filled with doubts constantly, not knowing if when I died I'd be with Jesus, or burning in hell for eternity. That is so scary. All the doubt led to constant fear.

But if you asked me how I was, I would respond--- Great! With that, I was a liar.

Worse than everything, my pride has clouded my vision for years. That pride was Satan's tool to bring me down. He was constantly telling me, "Lyndsey, you're totally a Christian.. don't tell anybody about your doubts.. they'll judge you and think you're not a Christian-- but you TOTALLY are. Trust me.. You're doing everything right, aren't you? You go to church and you sing to God don't you? You try to tell other people about Jesus don't you? I promise.. you're totally there. If you go talk to your pastor, then he'll think you're a hypocrite. Don't tell your family because they've always thought you're a Christian. So, let them think it! You are, aren't you? Just keep going to church, everything will be great!"

Satan does that. He will give you a false sense of peace, and use pride to keep you from ever truly giving everything to Christ. He does it all the time. He was using it to drag me to hell, while I was looking up at heaven thinking I was a Christian.

God's pull is stronger. 

Let me tell you what went down Sunday. It was nothing short of incredible.

We had a sermon on Salvation. I thought it was going to be easy-peasy, because I'm a Christian... Right? Wrong. God was pulling at me the entire time, I seriously thought I was going to be sick. So when it came time at the end of the service, I had talked myself out of doing anything, and maybe I would just talk to one of the revival leaders that I had gotten to know over the past couple of weeks.

The preacher asked if we would raise our hands if he could pray for the ones who thought their salvation was in trouble...

I so didn't raise my hand.. somebody might see it! (Pride)

He asked everyone to stand, but to keep their heads bowed.. He said that even if we didn't raise our hands, we could still go to the prayer room.. there was still time left to talk to someone.

Well, we were sitting on the back row so that we could slip out with Andrew if he was fussy.. Charles had just gotten Andrew to sleep, so I couldn't just make him get up and wake Andrew up.. I would just go and talk to Elizabeth (the friend I had made on the revival team) later in the week..

He said, "Jesus crawled a very long way carrying a cross for You. You could crawl over the people in the pew to come to Him."

Good night. I had to. God was speaking DIRECTLY to me. I crawled out and looked back at the sound board hoping that Elizabeth was back there so that I could just slip out the back and talk to her.

Of course she wasn't back there, so I had to walk all the way from the back of the church up the middle aisle to the front door of the sanctuary, in front of hundreds upon hundreds of my church members (both services combined).

How is that for God kicking my pride right in the gut? He rocks, you know..

I went to the prayer room, talked with Elizabeth, and I finally gave my entire life to God, every bit of it, and I laid it there for Him. He had already bore all of it for me on the cross, so He took it off of me willingly, and hugged me up.

I have perfect peace now. I have NO doubts now. If I were to die this second, I KNOW I will be in heaven. That is such an incredible feeling, and I hope you know that feeling. Because I know what it is like to not feel that peace-- I felt it up until 3 days ago.

God is so much bigger than pride, doubt, and Satan. He loves us, and you know what? I shared this with my church last night--- one of the absolute hardest things I have ever done because they all thought I was a Christian--- and I am still alive to tell about it. My pride is no match to God's grace and mercy.

I am so sorry to all of you who thought I was a Christian. I bore the name of Christ when I wasn't fully His.  But I am not sorry for finally giving in to Christ and for letting go of my pride. I am free, and I am His!