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Baptisms – July 30, 2023

July 26, 2023 | KSC News, Students

Below are the testimonies for those who were baptized on Sunday, July 30, 2023. We celebrate with them as they take this step in their journey with Christ.

Anna Schaffer

Hi my name is Anna Schaffer. I am a senior at Liberty University. My testimony isn’t a crazy conversion story, but rather a testament to God’s steady goodness and patience in my life. My whole life I have spent in a godly environment. I have grown up in a Christian household, gone to church, and have attended Christian schools. There was never a time God wasn’t in my life. He may have been on the outskirts at times, but there he was nonetheless.

It wasn’t until college that I made my faith my own. God started working within me through my classes and professors teaching me about who He really was. I had to decide things on my own, where would I attend church at school, what does every day devotions look like for me and how much would I prioritize all of this. I started to see that life is too hard to live without our Savior. He is my strength and my fortress. He provides unexplainable peace.

A lot of my life, I thought I would get baptized when I was on fire for the Lord and my relationship was perfect with Him. The more I learn about God and baptism I know how wrong my thinking was. God just wants us near Him. He wants to be there for us when we inevitably stray from the narrow path. We will never be perfect, God knows that, yet He still chooses us every time. Today I want to choose Jesus. I want to get baptized today because I want to make a public proclamation of my faith to Jesus and to be obedient to His Word.

 

Joshua Mertz

My name is Joshua Mertz and I graduated from Chambersburg High School this spring with plans to attend Liberty University in the fall. I grew up in a Christian household and accepted Christ at a young age.

As I entered high school, my faith became more of a religion of going through the motions than a relationship with Jesus. During this time, I gave little thought to baptism because I felt that I was unworthy or that I was not Christian enough to make a public proclamation of “I want to live for Jesus,” knowing full well that I would sin later that day. Recently, I have felt God urging me to be baptized and have been reassured by my parents and other mentors in my life that baptism is not a claim of being perfect, but rather a commitment that I will follow Jesus and live out God’s will for my life rather than my own. I am getting baptized today to show that I am choosing God’s plan and will live for him, even if it makes me uncomfortable.

I worked at Camp Joy El for five years, in eighth grade and all high school, and during that time I grew in my faith through Godly mentoring and Biblical teaching. Over these years, I grew the most when I was serving others through being with my campers or helping in the kitchen—being intentional about loving others and getting to know God by reading my Bible and praying. These weeks and weekends made me realize how much I needed Jesus to be a bigger part of my life than he was; that I wanted a relationship and not a checklist of rules to live by.

Life change will not start with my baptism; it started years ago when I first made the decision that I wanted Jesus to be my Savior. I do not have a dramatic before and after testimony like some people do, but that does not mean my testimony is pointless. Even though my life has many changes on the horizon, I have peace because I know that God will take care of me and be with me, no matter what.