Naked Conversions

I have been a Christian for a long time. I accepted the Lord when I was 9 years old. I don’t have one of those testimonies where I left my life of prostitution, drugs, and living on the mean streets to become a Christian. I got scared into salvation. I was a happy go-lucky 9 year old, who knew the gospel, but didn’t really think it applied to me just yet. I was only 9 years old. I saw a movie at my church called, “A Thief in the Night,” The movie is a cheesy movie about the end times, the rapture specifically. This girl is married to a Christian man and she wakes up one morning to find his electric razor on and bouncing around in the sink of their bathroom. She realizes he’s disappeared and she doesn’t know what to do about it. You see the rapture has taken place and God has taken all His children home. I immediately went home, after seeing that movie, and accepted Jesus Christ as my Savior, in my bedroom. I didn’t want to be left behind.

I was really scared by that movie. I also didn’t understand God’s daily forgiveness. So, every night, when I went to bed, I prayed to accept Jesus Christ as my Savior. I did this EVERY SINGLE NIGHT after I got saved. I needed to make sure. This was a huge burden on me. I knew I sinned throughout the day, so at the end of my day I would just cover my bases and accept Christ all over again.

Well as you know, God knows everything and He knows everything about us. He knew my struggle, of accepting Him every night before I went to bed. God needed to set me straight. He needed to educate me on the Christian basics, so I wouldn’t have this burden of accepting Jesus Christ as my Savior every night before I went to sleep.

Two years later I go to my first Christian Summer camp. It was a week, camping on the glorious Lake Clark in Alaska. A week of dodge ball, canoeing, hiking, singing, laughing, and preaching. I was ecstatic. I had so much fun. I think it was my first night there, my camp counselor of my cabin shared her testimony with us. She said she accepted Jesus Christ as her savior when she was young. We were all laying in our bunk beds listening to her talk. She said she wasn’t sure about her salvation, so every night she prayed to accept Jesus as her Savior, just to be sure. My ears were pricked! Someone did the same thing as me? I listened more intently. She said she was burdened by this, so she made a decision to accept Christ as her Savior once and for all and believe that she was truly saved once and for all. To make it official, she said she took off all her clothes and laid down on her bed to give all of herself to the Lord. I cringed at that part. I was eleven years old at this time and shared a bedroom with my sister and brother. I wasn’t going to be doing any naked conversions. But even though I wasn’t buying into the naked part, I knew the Lord was speaking to me through her. I didn’t have to accept Jesus Christ as my Savior every night. I was already saved.

Along with my camp counselor’s naked testimony, we had a speaker who we listened to morning and night. He talked about exactly what I needed to hear. He explained that when we accept Jesus as our Savior, we still sin afterwards. We didn’t lose our salvation, we just needed to ask the Lord for forgiveness when we sin. If we don’t, it puts a veil between us and God, so our prayers aren’t effective. He taught us to pray and get daily forgiveness from the Lord. Oh, I thought to myself, well that makes sense. Between my counselor’s naked testimony and the preacher’s teaching on daily forgiveness, I had been relieved of my burden.

So I wasn’t unsaved when I sinned. I just needed to confess my sins on a daily basis. And even though I had accepted the Lord hundreds of times, I was going to do a once for all conversion, but without the naked part. I think I waited until I got home from camp. But when I did, I made one final conversion. God knew what I was doing, it was closure for me. So I accepted Jesus Christ as my Savior one last time. I now had confidence that I was truly saved. My counselor’s naked testimony had helped me, the preacher at camp had helped me, and God used both of these people to unburden a sincere 11 year old, who He knew, loved Him, and wanted to get to know Him better.