My Testimony

I grew up in a home that consisted of nominally Catholic parents, two brothers (one older, one younger) and two sisters (one older, one younger). When I say nominally Catholic, I mean that their Catholicism went as far as serving as a title for themselves. My brothers and sisters and I went through all of the steps of the church (Baptism, reconciliation, First Communion, Confirmation), but outside of doing those things, and going to church on Christmas and Easter (sometimes, but we skipped that a lot too), we really had nothing to do with the church at all.

When I was in about fourth grade, a family moved in across the street from us. We lived in a little neighborhood in a house that was across the street from an elementary school, and there were quite a few kids close to my age in the neighborhood. After this new family moved in, my brother and I (by this time, my older brother had moved in with his mom, my parents divorced early in my life and my mom was remarried to a man who already had two kids) began to befriend the kids of the family. As we got to know them better, we found out that Bubba's (he was the same age as myself) dad was a pastor. They were never able to play most of the day on Sunday or on Wednesday nights because they were gone to church.

After getting to know the kids for a while, they began to invite my brother and I to come to church with them, and we gladly accepted. This was the perfect opportunity to get out of the house, to get out and do something that didn't involve the oversight of our parents, what could be better? Well for the next few years, we accompanied them to church whenever we weren't doing something else, and even got to go to summer camp with them a few times. I will never forget some of the things that I did while I was there, the trouble that I caused and some of the things that the other kids learned from me, but regardless of this, they kept right on bringing us whenever we wanted to come.

When I was in eighth grade, the father in this family took a church in Florida, and they were out of our lives. It was during that same year that I had my first taste of alcohol, tobacco and marijuana. By the time I was a junior in high school, I was a regular 2 pack a day smoker, working as a cook in a bar where I was able to get as much liquor as I pleased when the right people were working, and dabbling around with some illegal drugs like acid and weed.

I never got in any real trouble. I partied a lot but never landed in jail or anything like that. The more I drank or smoked or got stoned, the more I thought that there had to be more to life than this. I knew that living this lifestyle would ultimately lead to destruction (physically at least), and I wanted to do something meaningful. In fulfillment of this felt need, I got a few extra jobs. I was now working 3 jobs totaling about 65 hours/week, and going to high school. I was able to get fulfillment from this for a while, I was bringing home $400/week at times.

I graduated high school and after taking a semester off went to community college. I began to pursue a major in mainframe programming because I wanted to make a lot of money. Even at this point I was working three jobs. I was stocking the dairy cooler at a Food 4 Less one night, and the Assistant Manager came in to check on me. He saw that I had a book in my pocket, at this point it was one of the Lord of the Rings novels. I liked to read whenever I was on break or at night before I went to bed, and actually spent quite a bit of time doing it. We began to talk about books that we enjoyed reading, and he told me about a series of books called "Left Behind." I had never heard of these books, but the idea of a twelve book series that portrayed a fictional account of the end times sounded like an awesome idea, so I got the first book.

I ended up reading all nine of the books that were out in about 2 weeks. There are a lot of things about those books that I'd like to talk about sometime, but this is getting rather long so I will spare you for now, but one thing that the author did a great job of portraying is the change that Jesus Christ can make in one's life.

One Sunday while I was reading this, I decided to get up and go to church. The Catholic Church that my parents took us too on occasion didn't seem too appealing, so I went back to that old Baptist church that my friend's dad used to pastor. I remember walking in there and sitting through the songs, sleeping through the sermon and rushing out afterward to go home.
Having finished the books in the series that were out, I moved on to my next read, The Odyssey. I was sitting in the Student Center the next Wednesday reading my book and a guy who always sat with a group of people at the table beside me introduced himself. We talked for a while about books that we had read, and when I mentioned the Left Behind books, he asked me if I was a Christian. I knew that I wasn't a Christian by the definition that Jerry Jenkins (The author of Left Behind) would give, so I gave him the famous "I'm Catholic." After talking for a while, he invited me to attend "Campus Crusade for Christ" the following night. I went to this, and it seemed like the same thing I saw on Sunday morning, except everyone was the same age as me. These kids were excited about something that I could not understand, and I just figured that they were all strange and went home.

The next Sunday I woke up early (early was before noon) and decided to go to that church again. It was the same as the week before, except as I was trying to rush out someone stopped me to talk to me. I don't remember the specifics of our conversation, but I know that while he was asking me about myself, he found out all of the things that had been happening in my life recently. We went to the church office where it was quiet, and we talked about the work that Jesus did on the cross for me.

I had been confused about this whole gospel thing, having grown up with a slightly Catholic background, I didn't understand what exactly I had to do to earn this gift. I understand by this point that I was a sinner, just like every other person on this planet, and that there was no way that I could do anything about it myself. I understood that God cares for me and that He sent Jesus to die or my sins, but I couldn't figure out how to fulfill my end of the deal.

The man in the church office explained to me that there was nothing I could do to 'earn' this gift. Ephesians says that it is by grace that we are saved through faith. Grace means that I don't deserve it and I can't earn it, but God gives it anyways. Faith means that all I have to do is believe that it is true and that I can be reconciled to God through Jesus' death. 1 John 1:9 says "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness." The man let me pray and pour out my heart to the Lord, and it went something like this:
God, I know that I'm a sinner. I know that I have done so many things with my life that have offended you, and that I can't do anything about it. I know and believe that you saw my problem and sent Jesus to earth to die so that my sins would be forgiven. Please forgive me for the things that I've done, and let me begin a new life and a new relationship with you. Amen.

This was April 1, 2001. From that point until today and through the end of my life, I can say that if I die, I will spend eternity in heaven with God. I was freed from the bondage of tobacco and alcohol, and am able to enjoy relationships with my fellow Christians.

This gift is not exclusive, it is available for every person to receive, all you have to do is accept it.

In The Beginning

Hi, I am Justin Culp. I am from the Kansas City Area and I attend classes at a local Bible College. I work as campus security here at the college, and last night I was surfing the net in the security office, and found a peculiar website. I was googling some of the names on the "FBI Ten Most Wanted" list that hangs on the bulletin board of the security office, and I found a post on a website where some guy was just entering his thoughts for the day. I did a little clicking around and found out that the website was called a 'blog' or a 'weblog'. This type of online diary seemed like a good idea so I am going to try it for a while.

There is so much about myself that I want to write down, so I think I will have to split it up into a few posts. I just finished my second year in college, and when I graduate I plan to serve on the mission field. I am not quite sure what venue the Lord has planned for my service, but I know that He has given me a heart for missions, a love for children and a love for studying His word.
If anyone who is reading this is instantly turned off by the fact that I am a Bible believing Christian, I would encourage you to at least read my testimony in the next post and see how I came from a life that is normal for an American teenager to a life that will be spent in service to the God of the universe.

I love to discuss matters of theology and Biblical teaching, and I hope that readers who may disagree with my stance would write me through email for the sake of discussion. As a disclaimer, I do not like to fight or argue for the sake of winning an argument (I believe an argument should be for the purpose of finding the truth).

Well, I don't know if I'm starting this out right, but I hope it will be as fun as it seems like it will be.

Have a nice day!