{"id":16613,"date":"2026-04-29T23:10:36","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T06:10:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cbcwla.org\/home\/?p=16613"},"modified":"2026-04-29T23:09:38","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T06:09:38","slug":"beyond-the-beginning-a-journey-to-spiritual-maturity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cbcwla.org\/home\/blog\/beyond-the-beginning-a-journey-to-spiritual-maturity\/","title":{"rendered":"Beyond the Beginning: A Journey to Spiritual Maturity"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kelly Chua\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u3010<\/i><\/span>\u7de8\u8005\u6309\u3011<\/i><\/span>Kelly offers a profound reflection on the true meaning of baptism, moving from “Bible stories” to a deep personal commitment. Her story highlights a maturing heart that is learning to trade worry for trust and a life dedicated to service.<\/b><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Hi, my name is Kelly, and today I\u2019d like to share my testimony. Ever since I was young, my parents have brought me to church and Awana, so I grew up hearing many wonderful Bible stories.<\/span><\/p>\n

As I got older, I learned not only that God created the world, but also what sin is. I began to feel guilty because I realized I sinned often. For example, sometimes I would lie, and then lie again just to avoid getting in trouble. But through reading the Bible, I came to understand that God forgives our sins. From that point on, I began praying for His help. It hasn\u2019t always been easy\u2014I\u2019m definitely not perfect\u2014but I have become more careful and try my best to honor God through my actions. Even as I learned more, I would still feel worried sometimes. However, <\/span>Matthew 6:34<\/b> encouraged me: \u201c<\/span>Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.\u201d<\/b> This verse helped calm my heart and taught me to trust God more every day.<\/span><\/p>\n

At first, I thought becoming a believer simply meant getting baptized, but later I realized that baptism is only the beginning. <\/span>Hebrews 6:1 says, \u201cTherefore let us move beyond the elementary teachings about Christ and be taken forward to maturity.\u201d<\/b> Through this, I learned that baptism itself doesn\u2019t save me. Instead, it is a symbolic act\u2014showing the burial of my \u201cold self\u201d with Jesus and rising into a \u201cnew life\u201d in Christ. It is a way of declaring that my life is now meant to serve the Lord.<\/span><\/p>\n

I acknowledge that I have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. I believe that God demonstrated His love for us by caring for us even while we were still sinners. Today, I confess that Jesus is Lord, and I trust Him to guide my life. As I follow the Christian path, I will devote myself to prayer and daily time with Jesus. I want to study the Bible each day and participate in fellowship. On Sundays, I will attend Sunday school and worship God as I continue to grow in my faith. I also hope to gain enough wisdom to share the Gospel with my friends at school and encourage them to believe in God, too.<\/span><\/p>\n

Thank you.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kelly Chua\u00a0 \u3010\u7de8\u8005\u6309\u3011Kelly offers a profound reflection on the true meaning of baptism, moving from “Bible stories” to a deep personal commitment. Her story highlights a maturing heart that is…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":16614,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[435,358,430],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-baptism-testimonies","category-heavenly-cloud","category-testimonies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cbcwla.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cbcwla.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cbcwla.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cbcwla.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cbcwla.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16613"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/cbcwla.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16613\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16616,"href":"https:\/\/cbcwla.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16613\/revisions\/16616"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cbcwla.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cbcwla.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cbcwla.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cbcwla.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}