We were asked to share our personal testimonies on the team blog. I was born at an early age.
Okay, now to the testimony. I grew up attending a Lutheran church. At about the age of thirteen I was confronted with the reality of hell and I prayed to trust Jesus for eternal life. I had a problem with doubts which plagued me for years. My doubts could have been due to a lack of repentance of sin and an uncertainty of God’s promises. At the age of 24, in November 1977, I believed in the eternal security of my relationship with God. This changed my life from a life of fear in losing my salvation to one of faith in God who will keep me. Words cannot adequately express the joy and the thankfulness which I had and continue to have.
In July 2007, while on my second mission trip which was to Costa Rica, I came to realize that my life was not totally surrendered to the Lord. I prayed a prayer of total surrender as I surrendered every part of me, my future, my past, my present, my reputation, my job, everything I owned, every member of my body so that He could use whatever was left of my life as much as He could. As Jesus said, we are to pick up our cross daily and surrender to Him. The Lord still continues to work in my life which He does in all believers. The truth is that we will not become perfect and complete in our sanctification until that day when we see Jesus. However, we are still told to be holy as He is holy. I love what my instructor for my class at Luther Rice in Spiritual Formation says, “I hope that if Jesus comes today, He will have less work to do than He had yesterday and if He comes tomorrow, He will have less work than He would today.” See, we should be growing and becoming more like Christ every day.
The Lord has worked in my life a lot since I prayed that prayer of surrender in 2007, especially during the past two years of studies at Luther Rice. I praise God for His grace in making the eternal things more visible and the temporal less so.
Kelly Kuettner
I am very excited about traveling to Honduras. The Lord has given me a passion for the people of Honduras. I have recently read in J. I. Packer’s book on the Sovereignty of God and Evangelism about the need for evangelism. The Lord commands to go. Jesus said that we are to love our neighbor as ourselves. If our most cherished possession is our redemption made possible only through the blood of Jesus Christ then if we do love our neighbor then how can we not share this? The natural response to someone in danger is to risk one’s safety to save another. Our natural response should be to share with the people we know and the people we meet who do not know the Lord. We should always do this in love although not the kind of love that avoids telling the truth. Peter wrote, “but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence;” 1 Peter 3:15
ReplyDeletePacker suggest beginning with those people with whom we have relationships, family and close friends.
I challenge you to do this. We are responsible for the truth we are given and for sharing that truth with others.
I also ask you that when you read this, should the Lord lead, would you get on your knees and pray for the people in Honduras who do not know the Lord. While you are praying you will probably want to lift up those who you know who do not know the Lord.
Kelly Kuettner