MY TESTIMONY - IN SHORT

       This post is my official written life story, and written apology to my friends and family!     This is my apology for living my life for myself and not for God. For being an imposter, and not a true Christian. I have claimed to be a true for my whole life, but in reality I never gave my life to Christ! I just did it because it felt right or I just wanted to fit in. Now there are a few of you who know my true story, very few. But to the rest of you this will all be new. Or at least finalize your beliefs. Starting at age 11 I became addicted to the lust of the eyes, and the lust of the flesh. It started as curiosity, but grew into an addiction. I have always want to know more about everything. If it was new I wanted to know about it. So that was my first discovery, after that it grew with out me even noticing it. I didn't even know it was wrong. I just hid it anyways. I don't know why I did, it just felt right to hide it. So I did.     That was the beginning of hiding things from my parents. Actually sneaking kitchen knives out of the house was the first :).  And from then on everything just got a whole lot easier to hide! I am a quick leaner, very quick. And I learned how to be a "Christian" when I needed to, and when to hide things when I needed to. I think I was the cause for most of everything bad, or everything that happened in secret, in the church.  We would go up to church to watch movies and 90% of  the time we were watching movies that our parents would never let us watch. But we would tell them were watching something we new they wouldn't mind. Now where it was my fault, is I was the one suggesting we watch the movies, and the one giving the rides, and the one telling them to just lie to their parents. And did all this without one ounce of guilt. Because I was not born again! This went on for about 3 years. From the time I was 16 to 19. I think. I'm not to sure on timing of it all. Also we went to movies that were also not allowed. I watched my first R rated movie when I was 13, and basically never stopped. I have wasted everything I have ever owned on movies and my lustful desires.  know it a lot and hard to believe, but I have been working since I was 14! And I didn't spend my money on anything except me. I have also lost many good opportunities to advance myself in this world because it would have interrupted my lust. Take school for example. I am an excellent memorizer, though I have always said I am not. I finished the whole thing. But I chose my lust over an education! I could have graduated when I was 15! But no! I wanted the pleasures of this world.      So how long did all of this go on for? It wasn't until after I was 20 that I even understood, that christianity was more then just a prayer. It was in February of last year that I finally started living out the faith I had been taught from childhood. Yes I had been taught the faith, just not how to live the faith. I had no examples to learn from. No one ever told me that our faith was more than a  prayer. Everything in evangelism is focused around getting someone to say a prayer. You don't think this is true? Well I participated in a Billy Gram Crusade for Life event as a counselor  and I had to be "trained". They only taught us how to lead some one to, and through the prayer at the back of a pamphlet. Now by then I understood that it was more then that, so myself and the rest of my group only became counselors so we could go down to that field and guide someone to true Christianity. not just a prayer! Why, they wouldnt even let us take Bibles because they didn't want to offend anyone that might not like a certain translation! But my group took our Bibles anyways, and you know what? No one was offended! :).  But enough of that, back to my life before I was born agin.        It was 9 1/2 years that I was caught up in pleasing myself. For some that is not very long. For others, it is a lifetime. For me, it feels like a life time. I am come more and more to the understanding of what it truly means to be a follower of Christ. I think the best way to describe it, is follow the leader.        In February of 2011 I started to live my life for Christ. Even to the point that the people around me did not recognize  me. And asked questions. Like what happened to you? And made statements like, I didn't know you were that spiritual! This truly broke my heart. Because not only did it mean I had been living a lie, and people could see it, but also I had been leading my men in the wrong direction.  You see a leader, a true leader, is not just someone who tells people what to do, but he is also a spiritual leader to those under him/her.       I want to take this time to talk a little more about leadership. Most people when they here leader they automatically think of one person. The person who is put in charge of a group. But I think many over look the most important leader of all, you. Every person is a leader, especially men. And even followers. Yes even followers are leaders. A leader can be simplified down to a person who has influence on those around them.        The leader I want to examine, is the follower. A follower is the person who makes the leader, a leader. Without the follower the leader is just another follower. Also without a follower  there would be no one to influence the other follower to follow the leader. So I can be said that the most important person, is not the leader, but the follower.       So that's my life in a nutshell. A very small nut shell. And as I think I have already mentioned, my life is an open book. If you have questions, ask.