I am a Christian today because of the preaching of God’s word in Monash University and regular CERC sermons. Through the Scriptures, I was confronted by the true God, who is worthy of all worship - a holy and faithful God who cares for His creation plans. Back then before university, All I thought about Christianity was God’s great sacrificial love for me so that I could be forgiven to enter heaven. Sinning was seen as simplistic wrong doings, and I assumed that God’s love covers all sin so that I could be in heaven and not having to suffer in hell. Monash CF was studying the book of Romans and I’ve gained better clarity of the depths of my sin before the Holy God. Even though I called myself a Christian, I realized I wanted to do nothing with God, I only wanted the benefits of being in heaven because of the fear in being in hell. I did not worship God; I just treated God as a convenient genie. By God’s grace, after many bible studies and sermons over several months and years, I was finally pricked to the heart. It was a long struggle because of my arrogance. I kept rejecting the God revealed in Scripture and asserting my own ideas of who God should be. The turning point was when I saw this continual rejection is what sin is – I want an easier god, a domesticated god that is tolerable to my standards. I wanted a God who accepts me even in my sins, but not the God who judges sinners in his righteousness. I had no love for this holy God, and I hated this new reality of God that I must conform my life to Him. Begrudgingly, I attended all church activities and MCF activities thinking this is the right pious thing to do. Only through the BT series (God’s Story) did I develop a deep reverence of God. For the first time, I came to appreciate the goodness of God seen in him being the loving ruler of the world through salvation and judgement. God is gracious to reveal himself to sinful humanity, when he had no obligation to do so. After The Fall, God remains steadfast to his creation purposes, made a covenantal promise to restore mankind from their sinful depravity to become his holy people. The BT series exposed me that I am no different from the Israelites, even though God has given us His Laws, the tabernacle, his prophets, his words, I still refuse to worship God. Only by God’s gracious intervention, in sending Christ and giving me the Holy Spirit did I slowly understand God through the Scriptures. I realized I need to yield (bend the knee) to this big God. My view of God drastically changed, from a genie God to a God who foreknew his people since the beginning of time, predestined to make them his holy people. With this, I decided to become a committed member of CERC because it’s God’s grace that I can even be part of this community of God. Despite being a typical gen-Z commitment phobic person, I now see the church as the fulfillment of God’s plan, who is made up of sinful people now transformed to be a new creation capable of being committed to God and his people. I want to be in a church that could teach me who I am as God’s child, I live as his child exercising holy and patient love like God. I am so used to love transactionally, with an expectation of reciprocal love, but the love that God has shown me is so vastly different if anything I deserved eternal death and judgement. Joining God’s church meant that I come under the authority of the Word, I make the daily decision to fight sin and obeying Lord Jesus as a pleasing sacrifice to God. I want to grow up to practice loving his church self sacrificially, as the church is the corporate reality of God’s glory on earth and in the future.