Cultural Christianity - Samuel Lawrence
I made superficial changes, I looked like a Christian on the outside. But I hadn’t changed on the inside....
Keep ReadingI faced the very thing I had dreaded my whole career and was compelled to pray a very specific prayer....
It was when I moved to the United States that I got to know the true gospel of Jesus Christ, something very different from what I knew in the Catholic religion who taught me to worship images of God, a crucified Christ, and the Virgin Mary. ...
Before I gave my life over to the Lord, I was living very much in the world. I felt alone and unworthy. I had lustful thoughts, engaged in new age activities such as crystals and sage, and was going out on the weekends abusing substances. I knew it was wrong, but I still did it. I was trying to fill the void with all of these things, but after I would still feel the same or even more empty....
After the campaign, I moved home to Oklahoma, bringing a pregnant girlfriend, a fragile faith, and an expectation of judgment for both. I didn’t know what the future would hold for me, and I was scared. ...
I've always grown up in church and considered myself a Chrsitian. However, I only went through the motions. I would go to church once a week, never pray, and not read my Bible. I had no relationship with God and the only things I knew about Him were things others told me, not my personal relationship with the Lord......
I did my best to hide my struggles and put on a fake picture of myself, but deep down, I was miserable and couldn’t escape....
In my loneliest season and the darkest year for our family I finally came to the end of myself and turned to God’s Word for help...
March 28, 2001, my world was rocked when I was involved in a terrible car accident. I broke my neck in three places and had to wear a halo for two months. I was 20 years old. Oh, how I wish I could tell you that was my moment of awakening, but it was not. ...
The story of how God called me into a relationship with Him is a miraculous story. As you read this, you may think it’s not miraculous, but any life transformed by God is a miracle....
We heard the gospel clearly preached and the Lord used that to draw me to Himself. I recognized that I was a sinner and that only Jesus could take away my sin. ...
I felt so empty and alone. No matter how many people I had around me nothing could fill the growing darkness inside me. ...
Before I knew the truth, I lived in the world. I valued my flesh, my possessions, my life more than I valued the one who created me. I believed that the more I achieved, the more I possessed, the longer I served the military the more I could prove I was a good person....
I found hope and security in the money I was making, my career, friendships, parties, and materialism, a marathon with no finish line...
It took five years, a lot of heartache, getting married, having a baby, and more struggles to realize I did not have control of this life ...
I made superficial changes, I looked like a Christian on the outside. But I hadn’t changed on the inside....
My life as you can imagine was completely destroyed. I knew I had only one hope to survive, God. I cried day and night....
Three years ago, my life broke into pieces. I was striving for status in my church, I lost my job, my life was falling apart right in front of me....
I have been saved from battles of pornography, a “foul” mouth, and drunkenness. I used these “vices” to cover up my own self-esteem issues....
I wrestled with God. I knew I had said the prayer, but I also knew my motives weren’t right. I was so heavily burdened by it....
Looking back on it, I know God had His hand on me. I grew up in a messy home and in a dysfunctional family....
I had never seen anything like that: he gave, showed me around, without asking me for a dime, that rarely happens where I come from....
I made superficial changes, I looked like a Christian on the outside. But I hadn’t changed on the inside....
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