Justin Ruttkay’s Testimony
It’s difficult for me to know where exactly to start with the work that God has done in my life. I was raised in a split-parent household my entire life, balancing time between my dad’s house and my mom’s house. Both parents raised me in the Bible and teaching me about Jesus. I always knew what the Bible was and had a fair understanding of who God and Jesus were. Ever since I can remember I believed that Jesus was God and that He died for my sins. What I didn’t know was that it wasn’t a one-way relationship where God hooked me up whenever I needed Him.
Growing up with three older brothers influenced me to grow up a bit faster than most. By the time I was in 6th grade I was already doing drugs. I started smoking weed and drinking every other weekend by the time I was 13. I got swept away by the people around me and I always thought that if I continued to believe what I believed about God that I could do whatever I wanted. Basically, there was no reality and conviction to my walk with the Lord.
Once I reached high school things only got crazier. I was suddenly cast into an even bigger pond of sex, drugs, and everything else. It was all about how wasted I could get at night, how hard I could surf in the day, and how many girls I could hook up with in between. The list of drugs increased, as did the sleepless nights. And all the while I was getting straight-A’s in school, and being a model son to my parents. I felt like Clark Kent and my own pride and self-destruction was my kryptonite.
The parties and drugs lasted all the way through my senior year of high school. By that time I was so burnt on where my life had led me that I started going back to church with my mom on Sunday nights. There was one night when the pastor said, “You can’t live your life with your legs on both sides of the wall. Either you are claiming to be a Christian or you are going to live like one, obedient to Christ. Or you are going to live life your own way and dismiss what God has.” Right then and there I knew that I had to surrender all of the things in my life that were keeping me from truly having a personal relationship with Jesus.
After that night everything in my life changed. I soon found out who my true friends were, I also had a new sense about me as if God had relieved me of my self-doubts and insecurities in trying to be someone that I wasn’t. None of this was easy at first because I was so used to doing things my way. It was like the Holy Spirit had to retrain the way I thought and saw things. I was 18 when all of this happened.
Ever since then the Lord has done some spectacular things in my life. He constantly provides me with strength, hope, grace and love that take me through every waking second of my life.
1 John 4:13-16
“ By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his own Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son as the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. So we know and believe the love God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.”
