Baptisms: My son Austin

This week we are sharing the testimonies of some of our loved ones who recently got baptized. On Tuesday Jasmine shared the story of God’s work in her sister Kat. Today and tomorrow, I will be sharing the story of God’s work in my oldest and youngest sons Aidan and Austin. Today I will talk of Austin since he is the youngest. Let me tell you a little about him.

Austin is 9 years old. He is a talker! He is smart as a whip and he knows the gospel back and forth. As such, we’ve always had great conversations about eternal things. But within the last 6-12 months, we watched God change that knowledge into something more in Austin. He gave Austin a certainty that the gospel wasn’t just truth, but rather that it was real. God changed it from Sunday school truth to real life truth… it wasn’t just a story of “grace”; it became salvation to my little guy. God has given Austin a love for Jesus which He is also growing into a passion to live for Jesus. I am excited to see God at work in him and continue to pray daily for him and my other sons that God will use them for His glory and help them to live “all out” for Jesus. He was baptized by my husband Ryan this past Sunday. Here is Austin’s testimony which he read to our congregation at Temple Baptist Church before he was baptized. I hope you will be encouraged by it.

Austin’s testimony:

I learned about God from Mom and Dad, from Pastor Matt at home and at church. I learned that God is Almighty and about Jesus. Without God, we don’t care about Him. That’s bad because we need to care about Him. If we don’t, then we’ll go to Hell. God made us to glorify Him. If we don’t care about Him, then we won’t glorify Him. God sent Christ to die on the cross for our sins because He loved us and so that we could draw near to Him.

At first, I would sometimes obey and sometimes not. I sinned a lot. I didn’t really care about Him. It felt like He wasn’t really there. Whenever I heard that Christ died for me, I thought “No, He didn’t really die for me. He died for my mom and my dad and my brothers, but not for me. Then for awhile I thought maybe He died for me, but I wasn’t sure. Then I was reading my bible each day and it said that Jesus died for my sins. For about a week I was still thinking about it. And I saw those words again and I was just sure that He died for MY sins.

Jesus died for our sins. He rose from the dead. He ascended into Heaven. He’s coming back to earth and He’ll make a new heaven and a new earth. When I believed this, I was glad. Now I try to be more kind and to help people. When I sin, I try to confess it and seek forgiveness from whoever I sinned against.

Sometimes I think that I want to be like Paul. He was a missionary who preached the gospel. Or like Simon Peter. They loved God so much. I want to love God that much. It was possible for them to love God so much because God loved them and because the Holy Spirit helped them. He can help me, too.