Cameron Denlinger's Testimony

Cameron provided the following testimony just before his baptism:

I am a sinner and former enemy of God, that He has reconciled to Himself by grace, through faith in the perfect sacrifice of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. I believe with my whole heart that my salvation comes from completely outside of myself, it rests wholly on the work of Jesus on my behalf, that there is nothing I can do to earn or merit God's favor, to obtain salvation, but it is rather a free gift, paid for by the precious blood of Jesus.

I believe that Jesus is the Son of God, fully man and fully God, that He was born as a baby and lived a sinless life, was crucified and rose the third day and is now seated at the Father's right hand interceding for His people. Jesus died for me when I still hated Him and was still His enemy. God through His grace and by His Spirit chose to reveal His Son to me and wash me in the blood of Jesus. I was by nature a child of wrath and there was no good thing in me. I was a slave to sin. God in His mercy gave me a new nature and now I no longer have to serve sin but can instead be obedient to God.

I have been baptized before but it was out of fear and with the idea that my salvation came at the time of baptism. I am getting baptized today because of the work that Jesus Christ has done in my life about two years ago. He brought me through several circumstances to the end of myself. I could go no further, my life was falling apart and I had no hope of recovery. I knew I was a sinner and needed forgiveness and through some counseling and a lot of prayer Jesus broke my heart and showed me what I really was and how desperately I needed him. Although things haven't been perfect things have changed dramatically in my life.

Up to that point in my life I thought I didn't have a very neat testimony, I had never done anything really bad and thought that becoming a Christian wasn't a very big change for me. I know better now, when I was converted I was raised to new life in Jesus from being dead in my sins.

It is my desire to bring glory and honor to God and to in some way help others to see the love and forgiveness that can be found in Jesus. I want to develop a passion for God and a love for others. I want to thank those of you here at Grace that have taken us in, especially when we first started coming, we looked different and didn't know you but you accepted us and loved us anyway. We praise God that you were willing to be used by God to help bring us to where we are today. We love our family here at Grace and the dedication that we see to the Scripture and serving God and to each other.

May God bless you!