I grew up believing if I lived a good enough life, that would qualify me for heaven.   And I tried.  I lived–compared to lots of people–a great moral life.   Annoyingly moral.   Nice guy.   Didn’t do any of the biggie sins.   Tried to help people.   I thought I was fine.

Then I got to college and started spending time with people who had read the Bible.

And I learned that no matter how “good” I was (by human standards), that wasn’t going to be enough.  If I had a 75 on the morality meter, and Billy Graham had a 97 and Mother Theresa had a 99, God’s level on the morality scale was a 1,000,000,0o0.   I wasn’t going to be able to try hard enough to impress him.

In fact, that was the whole point.   He had to do something to bridge the gap between us.  And he did.   Christ’s sacrifice on the cross created that eternal bridge.

After 8 months of struggle, fear, and fighting against God,  I finally woke one morning and wanted to give my life to Christ.  I asked (as best I knew how) Jesus to forgive all of my sins, and come into my life to control and guide it.   There were no lightning bolts, but over the next few weeks I noticed I was approaching everything differently.

I had expected to be bored out of my mind, since I was going to be living for what God wanted me to do instead of what I wanted to do.

But I found out quickly that life in Christ is real life, adventurous life (when I actually obey God instead of playing it safe), and totally worth it.