back to indexKorinn Lee's Testimony
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So, my name is Corinne and I recently graduated from college and I'm in the BAM group at Berean. 00:00:14.000 |
So I first started going to church when I was in the womb. 00:00:17.480 |
My parents were teachers at the high school group at my old church. 00:00:21.760 |
So I kind of like grew up in that environment where I went to church every single Sunday 00:00:26.880 |
and Bible study every Friday night. As an elementary school student I would get like 00:00:31.160 |
I would tag along to these high school retreats and I would just kind of be inundated with 00:00:35.320 |
a lot of biblical teaching. But I think that instead of helping me to understand the gospel 00:00:42.000 |
it just kind of puffed me up with pride. It kind of made me think that I knew everything 00:00:46.720 |
there was to know about Christianity and I had this conception, this misconception that 00:00:53.720 |
if I follow God's laws good enough, like better than the people I saw around me, then I could 00:00:59.960 |
kind of do whatever I wanted with the rest of my life. And it kind of grew into this 00:01:03.600 |
feeling of moral superiority that like, "Hey, I know all these things about the Bible." 00:01:08.520 |
The time when my idea that I was morally superior to everybody else, it kind of started falling 00:01:14.880 |
apart around my senior year of high school. There were kind of three things that happened 00:01:19.200 |
that God used to kind of break me to the point where I realized that I needed Christ. The 00:01:25.360 |
first one, I ran into these two girls on my high school campus that were, they were basically 00:01:32.040 |
evangelizing and they came up to me and I saw them gripping their Bibles and they were 00:01:35.160 |
all happy and I was like, "I do not want to deal with this right now." They asked me, 00:01:40.560 |
"Oh, do you know who Jesus Christ is?" And I was like, "Yeah, I go to church and I'm 00:01:44.200 |
saved." And so one of the girls, um, dared to press a little bit further and I'm really 00:01:48.920 |
grateful to her for this, but she asked, "Well, how do you know that you're saved?" And the 00:01:53.840 |
first thing that wanted to come out of my mouth was, "Oh, because I go to church." But 00:01:58.400 |
then the youth pastor, Maria, the Sunday before had said, "Well, just because you go to church 00:02:03.600 |
doesn't mean you're a Christian." And as it was coming, as the answer was coming out of 00:02:06.720 |
my mouth, I was like, "This is wrong." I actually, I couldn't for the life of me think of a reason 00:02:13.800 |
why I was saved. And so that kind of got me thinking, like, maybe I'm actually not saved. 00:02:20.360 |
The second thing, like, broke down my idea that I was morally superior was, um, I started 00:02:25.680 |
going out with a boy my senior year of high school and, um, we kind of quickly started 00:02:31.120 |
into a more physical relationship and there are a lot of things that happened that, um, 00:02:38.120 |
that kind of left me with regrets. Like, growing up in a Christian household, I knew what I 00:02:43.120 |
was doing was wrong, but the scary thing was that I couldn't stop. It was kind of devastating 00:02:48.560 |
because I spent my whole life thinking that I was, I was morally superior to everybody 00:02:53.680 |
else, that I had, that I was good with God because I followed His law, but here I was, 00:02:59.720 |
I couldn't follow His law for the life of me. Um, and so I think that kind of set me 00:03:07.400 |
up for the third thing that God introduced into my life, which was an argument with my 00:03:12.080 |
mom over my, um, my then boyfriend. And she, um, was blunt with me and she called me out 00:03:20.200 |
and she told me, "Hey, you're a sinner." And, um, I was like, "Oh my gosh, how dare you?" 00:03:26.280 |
But I knew she was right. And she said, "Hey, you're a sinner and you can't stop sinning 00:03:30.880 |
on your own." She told me that the whole point of Christianity is not to be good enough because 00:03:38.240 |
you can never be good enough, um, for God's standards. But the point of Christianity and 00:03:44.560 |
the point of a relationship with Christ is to accept that I'm a sinner and I can't possibly 00:03:51.080 |
reach God's standards, um, but that I have to trust that Jesus' death and resurrection 00:03:58.240 |
paid for this sin. And, um, and I can do nothing, I can't add nothing to that. And I think that's 00:04:09.760 |
the, I think that's the first time when I really understood what grace meant, is that 00:04:15.240 |
I can add nothing to my own salvation. I can't do anything, um, on my own apart from Christ. 00:04:27.000 |
So what my mom said kind of stuck with me, um, and I, I got saved at a Berean retreat 00:04:37.040 |
the summer right before I started college. I came before God and I said, "God, if you, 00:04:44.360 |
if you exist, then I really need you to cover my sin with your Son's blood because I can't 00:04:50.680 |
do it on my own." God gave me a desire to want to do His will and want to obey Him. 00:04:58.280 |
And I'm really grateful to God that He saved me before going to college because that kind 00:05:02.640 |
of set me on the right path to grow a lot more. He placed me at, um, at a very strong 00:05:10.280 |
church in a very strong fellowship group, uh, UCLA. Um, God just put me in a really 00:05:15.400 |
healthy place where I could, um, fellowship with believers my age who, who love the Lord 00:05:21.000 |
and want to pursue Christ. And, uh, there's still many brothers and sisters who are running 00:05:26.680 |
this race right alongside me and who are there to encourage me and, um, to hold me accountable 00:05:31.880 |
in my sin. And yeah, I'm, I'm, I feel again very blessed that God has placed me in a healthy 00:05:37.560 |
environment, um, where, uh, I have believers around me to, um, encourage me and to push