who i am

i am a seventeen year old mistake maker and debtor. i am of the all who have "sinned and fallen short of the glory of God" and of those who should receive "the wages of sin, which is death".

but i am set free. because "there is therefore no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus."

i am a Christian. i am a follower of Christ and a student of God's word. i am in Christ Jesus because I am in the church of which He is head, "which is His body"

i have no qualification; i am neither a "baptist" or "methodist" or even a "church-of-christer" Christian, because i find no such qualifications in His Word. however unpopular this idea might be, i find that Christ promised to build His church and that there is "one body", which is His church. my Lord prayed that believers may "all be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in you; that they may also be one in Us" and Paul pleaded to "all who in every place call on the name of Jesus Christ our Lord" that we all "speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment" and what could be classified as division but denominations, which in its very definition mean division?

if this unity were not possible my Savior would not have prayed for it and Paul would not have commanded it through Holy inspiration

and so i belong to Christ Jesus. i do not belong to John Smyth or the pope or John Wesley, for Paul said that he heard of those saying "I am of Paul" or "I am of Apollos" or "I am of Cephas" and Paul asked "Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?"

these men did not die for my sins and I belong to no one's "church" but Christ's. for i know that "not everyone who says to Me 'Lord, Lord' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven." i am not a member of a denomination, i am a member of Christ's church because "for by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body", Christ's body, the church, in which "there is no condemnation"

i am "a living sacrifice". i am "transformed". i am "a peculiar people".

i am a sinner and saved, an imperfect girl with a Perfect Savior who says "In My Father's house are many mansions... I go to prepare a place for you"