Hello, my name is David. I'm a post-grad in BAM Ministry and this is my testimony. Growing in faith has been a lifelong journey. During my childhood, I was blessed to be raised in a Christian household and have the opportunity to begin to hear about God at a young age.

My parents were active in church and served in many roles. My father attended seminary and became a pastor with his own ministry. I volunteered, served, and was involved in church in ways that seemed to grow my faith. I checked off a lot of boxes as a Christian living in Southern California.

In reality, I had not even met God and wasn't pursuing His kingdom with all my heart. My focus was always advancing my earthly goals and aspirations. In my mind, I thought I was walking and living for God and that God was helping me carry out my plan. However, I was actually living for myself and mistakenly believing that I could glorify God with my selective obedience.

I lived as if I was king of my own life and I did what was right in my own eyes. At best, I was obeying only some of God's commands. While in grad school, my eyes were opened to how fragile this world is and how incredibly shallow my faith was.

I was surrounded by brilliant individuals who were driven and willing to sacrifice every moment to advance their careers, lives, and their own names. I also sought after these things and continued to mistakenly believe that I was doing all this for God. I thought that I could give more to God by pursuing my own interests, even though that was far from the truth.

I was still attending church and serving in various roles, but was really wandering away from the presence of God. At best, I was obeying most of God's commands. While wandering away from the presence of God, my soul became troubled because I knew the example that Jesus had set for me.

I became so preoccupied with my own life that I couldn't possibly live for God. After grad school and coming home to California, I entered into a spiritual desert and recognized I did not have a genuine relationship with Him. No matter how much I prayed, read the Word, and attended church, I couldn't enter His presence simply because I could not become righteous by my own efforts.

Through His mercy and grace, all the things I had placed my hope and trust in fell one by one. Only after I became sick and tired of living for my own life did I understand that His love is greater than anything I could ever comprehend. By grace, He allowed me to begin to understand when He said, "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways," and that "to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams." By grace, He showed me that He is Almighty God and that He shares His glory with no one.

By grace, God allowed me to understand how to seek after Him with all my heart, and only then did He finally meet with me. By grace, He invited me to seek Him and gave me the privilege of possibly comprehending His love and goodness. In God's own brilliant way, He called me to build my life upon the foundation of faith and His righteousness.

I have learned that for me, there is no prioritizing God over things of this world, and that there is only God's truth and nothing else. Through Christ's sacrifice, I am able to be with God, and I have been crucified with Christ and it is now Christ who lives in me.

I can place my trust and hope in Jesus, who made a way back to God, and walk by faith, believing that slowly but surely, I am becoming the man God has called me to be. Thanks to Jesus' sacrifice, I can live a life where my joy, peace, and rest is in His word and presence, and I look forward to a life of repentance, perseverance, belief in the power of Christ's sacrifice, making God king, and giving my very best to obey not some, not most, but all of God's commands.

Thank you. (applause)