Growing up in a Christian family has meant that I learnt about God from a very young age. For as long as I can remember I’ve believed in God, attended church services, prayed and read from the Bible.
I used to assume that this made me a Christian. But when I was around 15 years old I started attending Bible study groups held by a local church, where I learnt even more about God, as well as meeting some amazingly kind people.
Gradually, it began to feel as if every church sermon at the time was aimed at me and the wrong things I’d done. One service, the preacher asked the question, ‘Where would you go if you were to die right now?’ and, although I had thought myself a Christian and did Christian things, it suddenly hit me that I had never genuinely asked God to forgive me my sins and to come into my life.
I realised that, no matter how much I seemed like a ‘good person’, if I were to die there and then, I was certainly not good enough to stand before a perfect God and enter a perfect heaven.
I went home, closed my bedroom door and just cried, asking for forgiveness. Now, I have the wonderful assurance of being saved for eternity, through faith in Jesus Christ who died on the cross for my sins.
Alicia Johnson
