- Good morning, my name is Jessie Yu, and I'm a second year at UCI majoring in Criminology. I grew up in a Buddhist household practicing religious ceremonies, like bowing down to idols, burning incense and papers, and putting plates of food at the altar. However, I never understood the rituals, and I even questioned why I was doing so much for a god that I wasn't even sure existed.

When I was eight, a friend shared with me about God on Father's Day. She asked me, "Did you know we have another father, "a father in heaven?" I laughed, not understanding her words, only assuming she must have meant that her father passed away. Though she did not share the gospel with me, she introduced the existence of a heavenly father, and when I only knew, oh, when I only knew of having an earthly father.

But afterwards, the thought of God would pop in and out of my mind. For some reason, whenever I needed help or even wanted something, I would turn to God, not fully understand who I was talking to or whether he existed. I just wanted to entertain the thought. That very summer, I attended church for the first time through an invitation of a stranger my mom and I met at the park.

I pushed my mom to let me go because the words of my friend left a curiosity in me. Initially, I wanted to continue attending because of the Bible stories. They were also new and fascinating to me. I ended up attending weekly, and that spanned two years, with the entirety of my family eventually attending.

My parents threw away their idols and became devout Christians. I saw the transformation that took place in the household and how my parents would react to difficult situations differently from when they were Buddhist. That spoke very loudly to me because I was still in a place of attaining just head knowledge.

Even though I confessed Christ as my savior around my early middle school years, it was really just to maintain the image of a good student, and I only accepted Christ because I saw him as the solution to my fear of death. For some reason, I was terrified of death.

I was not struggling mentally or emotionally, but the fear of death gripped me to the point where there'd be nights of panic from attempts to fall asleep. During those moments, I felt so hopeless and weak. That pushed me to look at Christ seriously, but only enough for him as a means to overcome this fear.

I did not place God as Lord of my life, nor did I pursue a personal relationship with him. I just wanted heaven. Despite my lack of understanding of what it meant to be a believer, I was baptized because I thought that's what Christians do. I didn't evaluate where my heart was and if I truly understood repentance.

As I continued to identify myself as a believer, I knew my relationship with him was absent. I did not read the Bible and only prayed occasionally. By the time I reached high school, I tricked myself thinking I had a solid foundation as I would share my faith and defend my Christian beliefs.

Yet internally, I knew God was not a priority of mine. I would be annoyed by the time of family prayer that we would have and I had an obligatory heart for discipleship. I was never able to pinpoint why my actions were contradictory. I didn't like personal time with him, yet I was sharing about him.

In Matthew 15, eight, it reads, "This people honors me with their lips, "but the heart is far from me." I acknowledged his existence, but again, my heart was far away. In James 2, 19, it says, "You believe that God is one, you do well. "Even the demons believe in shudder." But now I see why my attitude was like that.

I saw God as an inconvenience when he interfered with my life and the things that I wanted to do and only accepted him when he made me feel good. With all worship and gratitude to God, that changed in college. Looking back, I could have easily started my life as a nominal Christian, but by the grace and love of God, he gave me the desire to truly learn and grow.

College, as many say, is when faith becomes personal and it's up to us to pursue. I wanted to find a fellowship that was theologically grounded in scripture and my specific desire was to learn how to read the Bible on my own. I knew I had to work on my intimate bond with God because the absence of it convicted me.

God had been too gracious with me and I realized that as he led me to Berean. The first time I attended Friday night Bible study, Pastor Nate explained how to do inductive Bible studies. All I could think of was how God answered me and that led to a true feeling of how undeserving I was, but God remains good and faithful.

My hunger for the word was strong, which was something I never felt prior and ever since then I have been working in my spiritual disciplines. Truly understanding the gravity of the gospel and what it means to be a believer has reached clarity for me through personal studies of scripture, most importantly because I finally understood what being a sinner meant.

Before I understood sin as something that was always going to naturally live with, but I did not see myself struggling with it because I never saw how it manifested itself in my life and I didn't understand the depth of how sin separated me from God eternally, but now I see that being a believer means I need to fight the flesh daily and live in constant repentance, which can only be done through Christ because I am forgiven and redeemed.

That helped me view the word prayer and worship from being an obligation to response to God as I continue to grow in what it means to love and thank God for his sacrifice. Thank you. (audience applauding) (water gurgling) - Jessie, you understand when you go into the water, you're united with Christ in his death and when you come out, you're united with his resurrected life?

- I do. - I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. (water gurgling)