John 3:3, “You Must be Born Again” (Part 3, Student’s Testimony) A Bible Study Devotion.

As promised, a student’s testimony, share with all the teenagers in your life…

My names Dalton, I am a 2009 graduate from Blaine High School. Now what I wanna recall is a time in my life, let’s rephrase that, the worst time in my life. I was your typical 16 year old junior with a lot going for him. Tons of friends, minimal responsibility, and a car. Now high school is a fun place, for the most part. You go and goof around for 4 years, make new friends, date tons of girls, and make the best of it. Well for me, I was doing all of those things, without a single care in the world. Coasting through life, really not caring about much, or for anyone else. My life was mine and I was gonna live it "without regret" (which was my motto at the time...) Well as if this carefree life couldn't get any better, I had a girlfriend, which I thought was good. Yeah... it wasn't.

Here, let me give you a background of my faith, since this is a testimony and it's important to explain every detail of it. Well... there wasn't one. Which in my opinion was why everything in my life came crashing down on me. Now in the bible it says something along the lines of, a wise man builds his house on the rock while Dalton Larson builds his on sand. (Matthew 7:24-27) My name obviously isn't in the bible but the point is, my foundation, my life, was not built on the rock which is God. And through the storms, troubles, and everything in my life, eventually soiled the sand until the house collapsed. So that was my life, and of course I didn't know it was heading in that direction until God finally slapped me across the face and woke me up.

Now the story goes; at the end of my junior year, I was finally devastated by that gloomy realization that I had put all my eggs into one basket; the wrong basket. As most high school relationships end, mine did with about a week left of school. My girlfriend at the time had been lying to me and after about a year of dating had finally confessed to cheating on me...great. Everything I had put my hope in was now crushed. One thing that initially happened when I was reflecting/venting anger on my past year of wasted life was the fact that I needed God. I honestly have no idea why that thought popped up in my head. I knew that God existed I believed that there was a God; I just didn't really know him yet. Since there was now a desire in my heart to seek after God I was also faced with the grim realization that I didn't even deserve God. Through the past year, I had been overwhelmed by sin, and by sin I mean everything, anger, greed, lust, etc etc etc... "Why should God even accept me, I’m a worthless person, I have completely betrayed Him, why...?" The verse that I felt was Romans 3:23 "23for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God". That was the guilt I was completely consumed with for most of the weeks following the break up. I was completely lost and a completely broken human being... It took one car ride for my heart to completely break; it was as if God was trying to show me how He felt from what I had done with my life. A song came on in the car, a song from one of my favorite bands, the lyrics went something like "And on my knees, I wept at Your feet and finally believed that You still love me." I immediately broke down crying... those words were straight from God. Because this whole time I was so lost and confused and didn't even believe that God could still love a person like me. A couple days after that I went to the Wednesday night youth group at Horizon's Community Church and that night completely changed my life. We worshipped and for me it was the most intense worship I had ever experienced, I was seeking after God so hard and I finally felt His love for me. The rest of Romans 3 was revealed to me that night, not literally but I had finally understood what God was all about, "24 Yet God, with undeserved kindness, declares that we are righteous. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins. 25 For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin." And that night I learned what it meant to be "Born-Again". My youth group challenged me with the question "Are you Born Again? Do you know what it means?" And of course I had never even heard of the term and I thought that you can get to heaven if you are baptized or whatever... well I was wrong. John 3:3 stated that "unless you are born again, you cannot see the Kingdom of God.”

So of course I wanted to be Born-Again because I learned that Christ is the only way to salvation and everlasting life. (John 3:16) A huge part of my testimony comes from that small group on Wednesday nights, (SGROUP!) God led me to that place; He helped me get up off the couch that night instead of just skipping it and playing video games instead. God does exist, God loves me for who I am, I don't need to feel guilty for the sins I have committed in my life (Romans 8). Because God with his unconditional and everlasting love has set me free from the selfish life I no longer live. No one could ever write me a big enough check to return to my former life...not even all the money in the world because chances are that check would probably bounce anyways. Thanks for reading and God Bless.



Guest written by Dalton Larson

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