I grew up believing that "good people go to heaven", so I tried to be good. I went to church every Sunday, I recited a couple of memorized prayers, and I tried very hard to obey my parents. I thought I was doing ok, until I went to college...In college, I had two classmates, Abigail and Anthony, who are very different from the rest of us. They are not weird or anything like that. In fact they are so much fun to be around with because they have so much peace, joy and contentment, which I lacked at that time. So I started observing them...
One day Abigail and Anthony invited us (our class) to a Bible Study and because I was curious to find out "what their secrets were", I went.
Anthony used a little tract called "The 4 Spiritual Laws" to explain that doing good cannot save us because "all have sinned and fell short of the glory of God". I couldn't quite comprehend what it means, so he gave an illustration which stuck with me. He said, "Liza, if I give you a glass of water with 10 flies in it, would you drink it?". Yuck, no!, I answered...
He continued..."ok, if I give you a glass of water with just one fly in it, would you drink it?".. No...it's still dirty, I said.
That's the same way with God. Even if we sin "less" than other people, the fact is we sin...and still is not accpetable to God. And that's why Jesus came to die for me. Then he quoted Ephesians 2:4-6 "For it is by grace that we have been saved through grace. Not by works that no one would boast".
That day, I prayed to God for Him to forgive me, and asked Jesus to be my personal Savior and Lord. I became what they call a Christian. It's the best decision I have made in my whole life!
This is my simple and short version. There are actually a lot that went on inside of me through this process. Every now and then, I'll talk about it through this blog. But for now, I want to keep this short :)
Thanks for reading my story :) And if you live on Maui, come visit me at Hope Chapel.
