Noelle's Testimony

Yesterday I posted Jackson's. Now, here is Noelle's :

My name is Noelle Aldrich. I grew up here at this church, so most of you know me. I was born a sinner who couldn't have a relationship with God, because I was His enemy.

My mom and dad taught me to trust and love Jesus Christ because God sent Jesus to die in my place so that I would no longer be His enemy. My grandparents, Aunts and Uncles also taught me that. I have been taught a lot about the gospel from my teachers, like Miss Kim, Aunt Kat, Miss Cindy, Aunt Leila, and my first teacher, Mrs. Cate. Just reading through the Bible has helped me to know the gospel of Jesus Christ.

I trust that Jesus died for me and God says in His word to "believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved". (acts 16:31) And I believe that God keeps His promises.

I want to be baptized because Gods' word says, "repent and be baptized", and I want to obey. I know baptism will not save me. But, I want to testify to you about what God has done for me. He sent His Son to die so that I will not die in my sins and be separated from God, but have eternal life with God.

Ephesians 2:4-7 says: But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us,
even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

I want to spend my life trusting God's promises, obeying Him, and loving His people.

Jackson's Testimony

Hopefully I can post pics later, but I have no access to those now.

My heart sings praise to my Lord as I reread this testimony my son wrote. Baptizing Jackson and Noelle was not a decision we came to lightly. They have professed faith in Jesus for quite a while, and have asked to be baptized on several occasions, but we made much effort to talk to them and show them how to examine themselves and look for fruit in their young lives. All the time we were continually pointing them to Jesus, and time and time again they would tell us the gospel and declare their faith and love for Jesus. There came a point when they came saying: "The bible says, "repent and be baptized" we've repented, we want to be baptized so we can obey." It is really hard to argue with that.

As you read through this testimony you will see the part that our church has played in our children's lives. Missio Dei belongs to Jesus, He purchased this body, and we love all of you and are thankful for how God has used you in our family's lives. As each of my children wrote out their testimony, we were so excited to see how they view this body of believers. Thus far, you have been faithful to the promise you made when they were babies at their dedications: to help us raise Jackson and Noelle for God's glory. I ask you to continue to help them grow!

Thank you for faithfully laboring in the Lord with us. Here is Jackson's testimony. Tomorrow I'll post Noelle's.


My name is Jackson Aldrich. I have been at this Church my whole life.

I learned about God from my parents at home. My mom and dad read the Bible to us and we have a lot of discussions during family worship or when I have questions after I do my Bible reading. I ask my dad when I don't understand something I read in the Bible and he answers me. We talk about God and Jesus all the time. I have also learned the gospel from many people in this Church. Like, my Sunday School teachers. Nichole, who is very special to me and comes over a lot. Mrs. Cate, my first Sunday School teacher, who is very special to me too. Mr John Herrin who is my Sunday School teacher and is cool. Miss Sherri, she teaches good and is fun. My Aunt Betsy and aunt Leila were my teachers and good Aunts. Miss Kim has helped me as my teacher too and Miss Cindy! All my grandparents! Miss Debbie and Pastor Matt. Pretty much this whole Church--- too many to mention. I love all my teachers, they are so special.

I know I am nothing but a sinner without Jesus, and I deserve death and hell. I have a hard time not sinning. I loved my sin. Now I really hate my sin. I do not want to be God's enemy, I want to be with Him with all my heart.

I know I need to be forgiven for my sin and Jesus is the only way to be forgiven. I believe God sent His Son to die for me and HE rose again in three days. Now I belong to Jesus. I am no longer His enemy. I know HE is my savior because he is causing me to love him and want to obey Him. I feel bad for people who do not know Jesus because I do not want them to perish in their sins. I want them to be with God forever.

I am being baptized because I believe Jesus died for me and I want everyone to know that I truly believe in Him. I want to show that I belong to Him.

Romans 5:1 says: Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,

2 Corinthians 5:21 says: He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

I plan on continuing to trust Jesus and teach others about Him; and how through Him, they may be forgiven and loved by Him too.

Some Pictures for You

Good Morning Ladies! I believe later on today Jasmine is going to post her son Jackson's testimony for you all to read and tomorrow we will get to see Noelle's. While you wait, please check out the links below to one of my favorite blogs, the Big Picture. They recently did a three day series called '2009 in Photos'. It is crazy to think how much went on in our world this year! Enjoy!

(Just a note, for those of you with kids, I would recommend looking at the pictures before you let your children see them.)

Part 1

Part2

Part 3

Encourage So That None Shall Fall Away

I read an interesting post today at Julie Ganchow's blog about addiction. I was interested to hear what she thought about the subject because she is a biblical counselor and because I don't really believe in addictions for believers. However, as this was not what her post was about, we will leave that discussion for another time.

Julie makes the statement near the beginning of her post about groups such as the AA: "For the unbeliever, they are the best route to ceasing these behaviors. They provide both Believer and Unbeliever with fellowship, and like-mindedness. I think that each of these groups has pluses and minuses, and while they may be helpful in addressing the issues of the flesh they are sorely lacking in the vital areas of 'recovery.'" This was especially interesting to me, as I had just been reading in Hebrews 3 the night before.

Here is a (very) quick summary of verses 1-17 (keeping in mind that Hebrews was written to Jews):
1-6 Jesus is greater than Moses
7-11 Quoting from Psalm 95, written by David looking back on the generation that was made to wander for 40 years in the wilderness because they were not allowed to enter the Promised Land.
**cool note on verse 7, note that the author of Hebrews is quoting the Psalms and introduces by saying "as the Holy Spirit said" WOW! There is an awesome reference to the point of Scripture being God-breathed that I never noticed before!
12-19 Points out that the Israelites were not able to enter the Promised Land because of unbelief. Warns the readers of Hebrews that the only way to know for certain that one is a believer in Jesus Christ and His gospel is that they do NOT fall away in their lifetime.

Verse 13 is the one that I would like to focus on for this post "But encourage one another day after day, as long as it is still called "Today" so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin." The author of Hebrews is warning us that sin is deceitful. He is warning us that the Israelites, who had seen more miracles than any of us ever have, still managed to fall away into unbelief. He is reminding us that the validity of our belief is tested by our perseverance in our belief. Notice the first line "Encourage one another day after day, as long as it is still called 'Today.'" There are several applications that we can take from this statement.

First, we need to be in a position to encourage one another. We need to have deep enough relationships that we can take part in mutual encouragement. "Hey, look out for sin; it's bad," does not count as encouragement. More of a "Hey no kidding, thanks for nothing!" statement! We need to be aware of what is going on in each other's lives. We need to be aware of what is going on in each other's minds and hearts and emotions. We need to be aware of each other's struggles and trials. If these things are not happening, then we are simply not in a position to encourage.

Second, we need to be in a position to encourage one another daily. Saying a vauge "hello" to a couple of people on your way in and out of church on Sunday morning does not count. We need to be in relationships with brothers and sisters in Christ to the point where we have the opportunity to encourage day to day.

So where am I going with all of this? People go to AA meetings every day. If they truly want to stop being an alcoholic, they work as hard as they can to get accountability and support from those who are going through the same things they are. They stand up in front of large groups of people and declare, "I am an alcoholic." They encourage successes and, when failure occurs, work to get the one that fell back on his or her feet.

This is all well and good for unbelievers. But as Christians, we have something far greater. We do not need to go to groups such as AA to help us recover from sin. Why? Because we have the church. We have a group of brothers and sisters who are all going through the same things that we are. We have people who are always there to hold us accountable and offer us support. We should be cheering the growth we see in each other's lives and encouraging more. We should not be afraid to share our sin with others, knowing that we will not be judged, but exhorted to repent and offered assistance in doing so.

And why should all this be happening? Because sin is deceitful. And there is always the possibility of falling away. We do not know each other's hearts and so we accept that if someone say that they are a believer then they are. But we know that many have fallen away so we encourage each other in the faith every day.

Sisters, may I encourage you to find someone today, a sister in Christ that you do not know well, and seek to develop a relationship with her? May I encourage you to take a more active role in all of your relationships with believers?

When life gets in the way

 

Have you ever let "life" get in the way with your relationship with God?  Do you ever cut down on your Bible reading and study because you have to be somewhere at a specific time?  Have you ever been so busy that you did not take time to pray? Recently, God showed me that I gave into the world and left Him "on the shelf".  I was so busy that I cut my Bible reading down because I needed to be somewhere on time. I was not spending time in prayer, just a "help me Lord" every once and awhile.  I started to feel really down, as if I lost my best friend. Sometimes I think that since God is not here with me right now, in the flesh, that He will not mind if I "just take care of this" and then get back to Him when I have time.  This is wrong, of course.  He is actually to take first place in our lives. I thought about how I would have no life if God had not created me.  I thought about how He sent Jesus to die in my place so I could have a relationship with Him.  It made me sad to think about how I basically told God that He was not worth my time.  That must have hurt Him too.  I think that we need to give God our prime time, not our leftover time.  There is nothing more important than our relationship with Him.  One day our life will end, and things will not matter any more.  All that really matters in the long run is whether you have a saving relationship with God. I heard a saying once that said: 'I have so much to do today that I don't have time to pray. But, then I realized that I have so much to do today I need to pray.' I think we should make it a point to give God your best