Posted: September 16, 2012

Yesterday at school, during Bible class, my teacher shared his experience of explaining God's salvation for us to his son, who was at the time only four years old.  He talked about the Great Commision, and of cource, the little four-year-old didn't understand.  My teacher then told us to over the weekend, think of how we would explain it to a little kid.

I remember, back when my brother was in early elementary, I played teacher-and-student with him.  That one night, I was teaching about how God sent His only Son, Jesus, to save us from our deserved punishment-- hell. On that same night, my brother officially became a Christian. I take pride in that, to be able to spread the Gospel.

So, I thought about what my teacher asked us.  He said the plan of salvation was simple; only man made it complicated.  For me, I don't see any complicatedness in the plan, probably because I have a (very) limited amount of knowledge of the Bible. If I were to explain the Gospel to a four-year-old, this is how I would put it:

Back to the beginning of time, Adam and Eve were the first people on Earth.  Eve was tempted by the devil, who took form of a serpent, and ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  God told Adam and Eve they weren't allowed to eat from that tree, but Eve did.  She sinned, and she passed the sin to Adam.  Ever since, man has been sinning, and the punishment was eternal separation from God.  God loves each and every one of us, and He didn't want us to be separated from Him, so He sent His only Son to save us.  The Son was Jesus, and He died on the cross for our sins.  He took the blame for us, allowing us to be able to be with God in heaven.  This was a gift, a gift that we should accept.  In order to accept this gift, we must first accept Jesus as our Savior, believe God is the only God, and confess our sins.  Once we do, we have made a personal relationship with God, and we trust Him with everything-- even our lives.  This is called our faith, and we can make our faith stronger by reading the Bible, praying, and spreading this good news to other people.  There will be times when we, as Christians, are tested, and these tests often involve judgment, so we must stand firm that God is the only God who saved us from the great punishment; nothing can ever be superior or equal to Him.  

My testimony isn't too special, since I didn't go through a major, significant change in life.  I will share my testimony here...

I was born into a Christian family; my parents were Christians who went to church.  When I was about one years old, my parents brought me to church to dedicate me to the Church and God.  When I was three or four years old, I attended a Christian preschool, where I remember learning about God sending Jesus to save us from our sins.  I came home that day, curious about Christianity, so I asked my mom what it was all about.  She explained to me again about Jesus sacrificing His life to save us, and then, she asked me if I wanted to become a Christian.  I said yes, and we prayed a prayer of me becoming a child of God. As I grew up, I attended a Christian school and reguarly went to church on Sundays and fellowship on Saturday nights.  

To be honest, I don't remember too much about church, and I didn't really like it, either. We had worship, the message, and memorizing Bible verses. I didn't really like church is because I didn't have friends.  I know the reason for going to church isn't for friends, but I felt so lonely in that seat.  There was no one I could talk with, and I looked at the other girls, jealous that they had a best friend to be by their side.  This feeling kept lingering in me, and I didn't really look forward to going to church. Or fellowship.  I was usually by myself. I only liked the worship part where I wasn't as lonely.

We stopped going to church a few years ago, my family.  I am blessed to have attended a Christian school and is still attending, so I depended on school to build my faith.  Chapel was one of my favorite parts of school. I love singing during worship, and I still do.  I also had Bible classes, which I always forget most of what I learned.

For many, many years, I learned about the Bible but never actually understood the meaning behind those verses.  Only the past year, I felt that my faith grew.  We had to make goals at the beginning of the school year so that when school ends, we can check if we reached our goal.  Mine was to pray more often and maybe, go back to church.

I made the same goal for a few years, since fifth grade.  I don't know why, but the past year, I felt guilty for not attempting to reach my goal.  Praying almost only happened at school, barely on my own time.  So, I told myself, that I would actually try to reach my goal.  I did. I started praying every night before I went to bed.  There were some times when I forgot, but through prayer, I felt my connection with God became closer.  My image of Him seemed clearer-- I put more trust in Him.  

I am human. I still sin. And I wavered about my faith, too.  I sometimes wonder, "Is my name written in the Book of heaven? Will I go to heaven when I die? What if... what if God wasn't real?" These were silly thoughts.  About God's existance, I was affected with my history classes that talked about evidence of God, but I can for sure say that God is 100% real.  About going to heaven... I'll be honest and say I'm not entirely sure.  I have accepted Jesus as my Savior, which is the key to salvation, but I think I'm not a good Christian, not good enough to go to heaven.  I also worry if I'm fake, a hypocrite.  I don't want to be a hypocrite, I want to be God's child.  I prayed about this for quite a few times, and I feel reassured after.  And when I pray, I try to reguarly "clean up" by asking God to forgive me of my sins.  This cycle continues, of course, but I trust God that He has mercy and will forgive me.

I'm bad at memorizing Bible verses because I forget them right after I'm tested on them.  Not a good thing. 

My faith is mostly made up of prayer.  I believe in prayer, but I don't say anything when asked if there are any prayer requests. Not too good.  I made an excuse: I don't want to bother people with my (personal) matters, though it's really me not wanting to tell others what's going on in my life.  

~*~

That's about it, my Christian life.  I'm willing to talk to you about Christianity or details about my faith.  Or if you have questions about Christianity, I will do my best to answer them.  I'm also free to listen to you anything you want to say, too.  I won't judge, because I'm not in the position to, and I think it's wrong.

I think I kind of went off topic... I think a four-year-old will understand my explanation of the Gospel, and I can explain the "big" words, because my view of God's plan of salvation is of a four-year-old's.

Sorry for this really, really long post.  I appreciate it if any of you guys read through the whole thing. :)