Aaron K's Testimony based on 2 Peter 1:5-9 (short written)
	I was told to give a testimony. In court, a testimony is the truth from one person for the jury to use as evidence towards a decision. Put very simply, my testimony is that there is an All Powerful God, who can have company with nothing less than perfection.  Against all human reason He was willing to trade the perfection of His Son’s life for ours so we can be friends with our Creator.  And that one day all people will live together with Them forever either or eternally separated.
	
	Usually salvation brings on a big change. Someone has gone from being powerless under the influence of whatever the world threw at them; to free from the death penalty they owe God for their wrongs, and looking forward to eternity with the One who saved them. This is to me the most amazing of God’s works, but my evidence, my testimony is that God can take a cocky, average American child and guide him to do things that are unnatural. Consider others better than yourselves, give – truly expecting nothing in return, and consider your life as expendable for the cause of a man who cruelly died 2000 years ago as a disappointment to His people.  The world always forgets about the resurrection part.
	
	Based on 2 Peter 1:5-9
	
	Faith
	The most amazing event possible in a human life happened so early for me that it is hard to see the beauty of it.  When I was 6 or 7, I lay in bed after a talk with my dad and prayed to God for Jesus to take away the sin in my life. At the time I knew very little about sin, but enough to know that I had done wrong things and Jesus could take care of it.  This was the beginning of faith.
	
	Goodness
	By nature I’m a good kid. I avoid conflict with people, don’t like to break laws, and am stubborn enough to resist most peer pressures.
	
	Knowledge
	I thank God that I was raised with one parent who made sure I was learning, even memorizing Biblical basics (even if most of the time it was watching Hanna-Barbara cartoons or competing with other kids). Just those three properties alone were evidence to the people around me that I was different somehow.  People would ask me tough moral questions when I was just a little guy and often I knew the right answers.  My reputation grew as being the well-adjusted Christian kid.
	
	Self-Control
	I thought my knowledge and goodness were keeping me from the big mistakes. I can easily look back now and see how God kept many of those mistakes just out of my reach through different developments.  He is true to the promise in Philipians 1:6 ‘that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion’.
	
	Perseverance
	During high school I was gifted with the opportunity to give God His due credit for a lot of the blessings in my life, but was growing increasingly harder on myself to do things right.  I prayed when things got really tough, but bore the responsibility of upholding my good reputation as an example of good living. At one point, I was trying so hard that God finally put a temporary hold on one of the most important things in my life, running. In my younger more naďve days I thought I would strike a deal with God.  I prayed, “if I ever become arrogant in my athletic abilities--break my legs”.  While I was still fairly humble in my running abilities I had become conceited enough to think that I could make my life look good in front other people alone.
	
	Godliness
	In the last few years I have started to understand what a close friend had told me all along. He’d say it again and again, “Grace.”  I’m still struggling with its full meaning, but I’ve added to my thinking that God’s grace (giving us what we do not deserve) not only saves us from eternal separation, but also allows us to live a life that would be pleasing to our Father both externally and internally.
	
	Brotherly Kindness
	That revelation eventually allowed me to go from all my external acts of kindness to emotionally feeling the brotherly kindness that we are commanded to live out.
	
	Love
	The final and greatest commandment becomes almost natural after all of that, love.  “’Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’”  This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ – Matthew 22:37-39
	
	
	
	
	
	To really get the evidence of there being a God in heaven and a Jesus who really died and rose again from my life you need to hear the hundreds of stories that pile together to make what I’ve said true.  There are other people here that have life stories different from mine, but if you take the time to listen, you will hear they have the same backdrop as mine: we do not behave like we should, we find the Savior – Jesus, we learn that the price for this salvation is tough but simply forgetting ourselves daily for someone the world hated enough to kill, and each day our good works are a natural way of life while we wait to see Jesus face to face.