I was a sinner from the beginning. Born and raised in the Roman Catholic religion, I was always aware that God existed. I followed the religious traditions of my family – we attended church every Sunday. I followed their prayer life as well – we prayed in front of carven images, often with rosaries in our hands. I have always been aware of the existence of God – even as a young child, my mind was independent from that of my parents, and I did whatever I could to do what I felt would earn the favor of God and send me to heaven. After all, this was what I was taught growing up. For all I knew, Heaven was for the good while hell was for the bad. I knew that my life before God was independent from my family, and I did whatever I could, as an elementary school child, to do what I felt would impress God and get me into Heaven. It’s amazing, but true – even at this age, I already had a works-based approach to salvation.
I was aware of the tension that was developing between my extended family and my Uncle Gines after my Uncle Gines was saved and became a follower of Christ. It became more of a reality when I was scolded for telling my sisters that praying to Mary was wrong – something my brother and I had been told by Uncle Gines. And so, for a while, I decided to listen to my parents and purposely saw Uncle Gines as a religious “heretic,” often covering my ears and opening my own little picture Bible to “protect” myself when he would discuss certain theological issues with my brother during family dinners. But one day, sometime when I was in first grade, I decided to make a trip up to his room. While the rest of the family was busy chatting over the dinner table in my grandmother’s mansion, I slipped my eight-year old self up to my Uncle Gines’s room upstairs. He invited me in, and sat me down. That night, I asked him all the questions that my mind had been pondering over the previous few months – mainly why he was a “born-again Christian” and why he didn’t pray to Mary or the saints. Needless to say, he answered my questions well. And, that night, even though I was told countless of times that he was of the “wrong religion”, I believed all that I had heard from Uncle Gines to be true.
And so, my roots leading to Christianity started there. Behind the back of my parents, I stopped praying to Mary and the saints. I had many talks with Uncle Gines about Heaven and hell. My older brother, Vincent, had been saved not much earlier, and had many conversations with me concerning these matters. As the years went by, and as matured into my later elementary school years, my brother Vincent shared the gospel with me. He didn’t do it in one sitting – at least I don’t think. He slowly, but surely, shared it with me, and I never doubted his words to be true. “Of course Jesus died for our sins” I would think. But of course, I had no idea that I was a sinner, and I was not saved. Life as I knew it was running so smoothly at the time for me to call out to God for salvation. Still yet, when it came down to choosing between the religious life of my parents and the religious life of Vincent, I chose to follow Vincent. I called myself a Protestant – mainly because I knew that I didn’t want to be known as a Catholic.
In 1997, before entering junior high, my parents divorced, and I moved to Los Angeles with my mother and two sisters. The smooth life as I knew it was shattered, and I was away from Vincent. I didn’t know where to turn to for comfort, and so I turned to success in school, which at the time I felt was my only source of joy. I decided to place all of my efforts and all of my pride into my success as a scholar and tried to win people’s approval through such. For the next six years, up until I graduated from high school, I developed into a young man ravenous for worldly success. I put all of my efforts into getting good grades, shunned my family, and did everything I could to win the approval of people. I did maintain a church life; as a sophomore in high school I began to attend Warm Springs Baptist Church, and eventually involved myself in the church’s musical praise team and attended a small Bible Study with my Uncle Gines and a few church friends. I took pride in this, and proclaimed myself to be a Christian. A part of my maintaining these activities was for fear of hell. The other part of it was driven by a rebellious desire to be different from family. In reality, I had one foot in the church, another in the world, but neither feet were running towards Jesus. I did not live for the glory of God. If anything, church was merely a place for me to clarify in my mind what things were permissible and what things were forbidden. And I did everything I could (such as use foul language, and drink not to the point of getting drunk, and talk lustfully about women without engaging in physical intercourse) to be of the “world” while at the same time maintaining moral externals that would seem to permissible to Biblical standards. It was clear that I was not living to please God. I merely kept these Biblical morals because I thought that they would keep me out of hell. Everything else that I could do that would serve myself, I did. It was a shameful life that I lived in trying to fool people and God that I was a Christian. The only person I was fooling was me. Did I really know Jesus as my personal Savior? Apparently not – at least according to the instance when I was left without an answer for my praise team leader from my church who asked me during the interview when it was that I had accepted Him as my Savior So there I was, as a college-bound student, running straight for worldly success carrying around a Christian nametag. There I was – a self-proclaimed devoted Christian sprinting straight to hell.
It still brings me to my knees to think about the night God saved me. The events that took place that night are still fresh in memory. It was a Thursday night, on September 25, 2003, while walking back to my dorm room before the first day of college, that God stopped me on my tracks and rescued me. I had been in San Diego for almost two weeks, having spent a weekend with Intervarsity Christian Fellowship and most of welcome week attending free barbecues and dessert nights held by other fellowships that I had thought about joining. That night, that Thursday night, before walking back to my dorm, I found myself talking and praying on one of the library walk blocks with a fellow incoming freshman and childhood friend, Miguel. Having just left an IV large group, we found ourselves praying, asking God to take control of our college careers, and to make our time at UCSD a time for Him. In all honesty, although it was my idea to pray, I only did so because I thought it would sound spiritual. Did I really know what I was talking about? No – well, at least, not till a few minutes later. As we separated to go back to our dorms, I was suddenly convicted of a sin that I was always too afraid admit I would ever have to confess – that I did not love God. I looked up to God, while walking across Mandeville Auditorium, at around 11:00 pm, and admitted to Him that I had never loved Him. I admitted that I might have not even been a Christian at the time. I realized, at that moment, that not once in my life did I truly love God, and I knew that this was enough for all of my external actions to be counted as futile. I realized my state before Him, as a lost sinner, not knowing where to go. I sat down on one of the chairs in front of the auditorium, and asked God to forgive me for having my back turned to Him for 19 years, and told Him that I now needed Him. I confessed my need for Jesus, and told Him that night that I wanted to give the rest of my life to Him. It was the same prayer I had prayed only a few moments earlier with Miguel, but this time it came out of a broken, fearful heart that was looking to God for the first time as the only way to salvation. I had already heard the gospel message before, but that night was the first time when I truly embraced Christ as my personal Savior, as someone who had died for my sins. How could I have accepted Christ as my Savior before, when I had never really known what I needed to be saved from? Previously, I never saw myself as a sinner. But that night, I understood that night that I was a sinner, and took joy in the fact that Christ had died for my sins, and that now I was going to heaven. It was no longer just a theory, but a personal reality. I had always understood it with my head, but that night I finally understood it with my heart. I remember praying, “God, for 19 years, I had been running away from You. But You were patient with me, in waiting for me to turn around to ask You to take me back. Now, my life is Yours.”
It wasn’t until a few weeks later, when my small group leader at the time asked me to prepare a testimony for the group, that I realized that it was on that Thursday night when I was saved by God and was named a Christian for the first time. Granted, the first few weeks were puzzling to me, since I knew that I felt different but was not sure why. All I knew was that I loved God genuinely for the first time, and was all of a sudden willing to live for Him and not for myself. But while writing the testimony, I asked myself the following: “If I had gotten into a car accident during my drive down to San Diego from Las Vegas, would I have gone to heaven?” I concluded that the answer was no. It was during that time, writing my testimony, that I realized that September 25, 2003 was not just a date when I decided to be more passionate to live for God. Rather, it was the date when God saved me, and gave me a new heart that could finally look to Him as Savior, embrace Him for that, love Him for who He is, and commit to living for Him.
I write this testimony now a little over eight years since that day. Things have changed – radically. I would never have imagined myself where I am today had you asked me three years ago what life would be like as a now husband, father, and pastor. Since the day He saved me, I have not looked back. Life has indeed been very different – very, very different – since. He justified me that day, and has continued to sanctify me up to this day. In all honesty, it has been painful. I once told my first small group (that night I shared my testimony to them) that I had so far had not had a bad day, since each day has been such that I was discovering new things about God. I really didn’t think that I would ever have a bad day again, and even looked down at Christians who struggled. A little over a year past, and I was in the emergency room of Scripps Mercy Hospital for trying to jump off the Geisel bridge, having struggled with severe depression. Following Jesus, I realized, is indeed a call to die to myself. I have had to give up pursuits and dreams that I never thought God would ask me to do, I have had to rebuild relationships out of love that I never saw myself doing, and I have had to love fellow brothers and sisters in ways that I did not know were possible. I have had to wage war against a sinful flesh that I once so enjoyed. I’ve realized that my indwelling sin is what makes following Jesus a true spiritual war. But in all the struggles, I have never been more joyful than I am today, knowing that despite all of life’s difficulties, I have something that is more precious than anything that the world has to offer – a personal relationship with the living God through my very own Savior, Jesus Christ. Each day is a struggle to deny myself – each day is a struggle to find joy in God and in nothing else, and to whole-heartedly pursue the welfare of my brothers over my own needs. But in each of these days, God has further conformed me to the image of Jesus, and thus works in wills in me to look more pleasing to Him each and every day. In the end, it doesn’t matter how hard life is – I was saved by my very own Creator, who calls me His son, and is empowering me to live for His very kingdom and His glory. I realized that I am no longer dead to my sin. I no longer have to give in to my selfish, fleshy desires – I am free to pursue a life of holiness. I am now released from the bondage of the habits that once had me chained, and now have the freedom to live the life that was planned out for me. Yes, life is a terribly deep struggle. Yes, there are times when I feel like I won’t make it through. But is there any greater joy that, amidst all the struggles, the very God of the universe is making me look more and more like Jesus, that I may grow deeper in the intimacy of my knowledge of Him?
God has remained faithful to growing me through trials and struggles, blessing me with joys, and providing me with brothers and sisters who have over the years sharpened me, provided me with true fellowship, and built me up towards Him. Now, currently an associate pastor of Lighthouse Bible Church San Jose, the task at hand is one of tremendous dignity – being called to shepherd, disciple, and equip God’s precious saints is a task to be taken with utmost gravity, and has caused me to take things one day at a time. But, again, is there any greater joy than knowing that my God has called me to serve Him, be on His team, and is equipping me to shepherd His workmanship that He Himself set apart before the foundation of the world to glorify Him? Even more recently, God has blessed me with the opportunity to shepherd my family of a beautiful wife Kathy and wonderful son Jayden. What a privilege it has been to be called to love them, disciple them, and lead them for the glory of my Savior. It truly is a noble calling to lead a wife and child to God, but is there a more privileged task than this? Is there any greater joy than knowing that the very Creator who runs the blood through my veins is shaping me to become more and more like the only human being to ever live a life completely pleasing to Him, in Jesus Christ? Before college, I was trapped in sin with my back turned towards God. Now I am currently struggling hard against sin and the sins of others, and walking with Jesus. Did He save me or what?
