Salvation Stories: Sojourn’s Jesse Carden

A Sojourner tell this story of salvation, which led to a recent baptism at Sojourn Gathered:

I grew up in church from a very young age: Wednesday night youth group, Friday night prayer meeting and of course Sunday morning church. However, when I started college I stopped going to church and during my second semester I joined a fraternity. I more or less abandoned all my old church friends and my family and threw myself into the party scene.

For over 3 years my life consisted of heavy drinking, smoking weed and sleeping around. I was completely self-absorbed. I didn’t care about who I hurt and I was only concerned with doing whatever I could to make myself the happiest.  And to be honest, I did enjoy myself for a while.  I had all of the things I used to think I was missing out on: girls, all these new “friends”, and even my own party house.

However, toward the end of my junior year everything began to unravel.  I went through a rough breakup and once I moved out of the party house all of my supposedly great friends suddenly stopped calling.  I had traded my relationships with God, my family and my real friends for a life of sin that left me feeling broken and alone.

About a year ago my brother invited me to Sojourn when I was going through this difficult time and I finally gave in and agreed to come.  I started attending regularly over the summer and even got plugged into a community group.  But, when school started back up, I let distractions get in the way and took my focus off of God. Luckily, God wasn’t willing to let me get away that easily.

A few weeks ago I had some health issues that sent me to the ER, which was a major wake up call to me.  I realized I had been playing games with God.  I had been putting off truly committing to God and had not made him the main priority in my life.  Instead I was trying to give him a small piece of my life as long as it didn’t interfere with my plans or take up too much of my time.

God has truly convicted me and I feel like he is calling me to step out in obedience and get baptized.  He has shown me that I am not promised tomorrow and that any time that he chooses to give me on this earth is a gift that should not to be squandered or wasted.  But, most importantly, he has shown me that my religious game of giving God my Sundays but not my heart will not save me.  I am completely reliant on Jesus to save me, to change my heart and to keep me faithful to Him because I am not capable of doing any of these things myself.

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Learn more about baptisms at Sojourn here.