{"id":988393,"date":"2021-12-22T01:38:45","date_gmt":"2021-12-22T07:38:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nocbc.net\/?p=988393"},"modified":"2022-01-04T17:19:57","modified_gmt":"2022-01-04T23:19:57","slug":"my-spiritual-renewal-by-darcy-guo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nocbc.org\/en\/2021\/12\/22\/my-spiritual-renewal-by-darcy-guo\/","title":{"rendered":"Darcy Guo: My Spiritual Renewal"},"content":{"rendered":"

Growing up in a Christian family, I was very familiar with Jesus when I was very little. However, I could have cared less who he was and what he did for mankind at that time. As I became older, I learned from Sunday school that he was sent by God the Father to die on the cross for us. Little did I know how much this single fact would change my entire life.<\/p>\n

Ever since my childhood, I have been going to church frequently. In fact, I went so often that going to church felt like a chore\u2014becoming more and more loathsome, less and less meaningful. Most of the time, the only reason I went to church was because my parents forced me. Despite my regular church attendance, my life felt empty\u2014something was missing. In addition to this emptiness, I also felt that I was separated from God, straying far off of God\u2019s path for me. Trying to fill this emptiness inside, I look to fill my mind with more secular items, which only made it worse. Nothing could get rid of the gaping hole in my soul. Rapidly losing my faith, I went to church less and less until I stopped completely.<\/p>\n

Last summer, I found out that our church received a new English pastor. Having met him at tennis camp before, the new pastor, Christoph Bajewski, seemed like a great person. At that time, I had no idea that he would be the instrument of God that led me to stand before you today, delivering my testimony after baptism. I decided during the summer that I would return to church to listen to Christoph preach. I connected well with Christoph\u2019s sermons well and realized my past disobedience to God. Learning more and more about Christ, I decided it was time for me to be baptized. Ready to be saved, I planned to do exactly as stated in Acts 22:16: \u201cNow why delay? Get up and have yourself baptized and your sins washed away, calling upon his name.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now that I have entrusted my life to Christ, I can shout to the world that \u201cI am not ashamed to be a part of God\u2019s family.\u201d With God watching over me, my faith matures every single day. Although living a true Christian life may not be an easy path, I know that God will bless and guide those who are willing to make great sacrifices for Him. With today\u2019s baptism, I now know that Jesus lives inside me, shielding me from sin with the \u201carmor of God,\u201d as stated in Philippians 4:13: \u201cI can do everything through Him who gives me strength.\u201d To those of you who are still considering baptism: “repent and be baptized every one of you\u2026 and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit,” (Acts 2:38) as I have done today.<\/p>\n

In conclusion, I would like to give my personal thanks to pastor Christoph, my parents, and all those who have supported me in my spiritual conversion. Finally I have been given a new life to fulfill my only purpose in life\u2014to glorify God and show His love to the world.<\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Growing up in a Christian family, I was very familiar with Jesus when I was very little. However, I could have cared less who he was and what he did…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[127],"tags":[128],"class_list":["post-988393","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-testimony","tag-baptism-testimony"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nocbc.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/988393","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nocbc.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nocbc.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nocbc.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nocbc.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=988393"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/nocbc.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/988393\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":988711,"href":"https:\/\/nocbc.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/988393\/revisions\/988711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nocbc.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=988393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nocbc.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=988393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nocbc.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=988393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}