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Testimony

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Mae Klinger
March 23, 2025

Sermon Manuscript

Mae Klinger Testimony


March 23, 2025

I grew up in a church-going family, attending Sunday school and following what I thought were all the right things to be a good Christian.
But in reality, my focus was not on God; it was on success.
My family immigrated to the U.S. from the Philippines when I was ten years old.
From an early age, my parents instilled in us the importance of education and hard work.
They wanted a better life for us.
I believed the ultimate goal in life was:
Getting into a good college, securing a stable job, achieving worldly success.
Without realizing it, I was striving for security and fulfillment in my own efforts rather than in God.
Even though I identified as a Christian, my faith was more about tradition and obligation.
I didn’t have a personal relationship with Christ.
I was living under the illusion that I had good standing with God, as long as I did the “right things” externally.
But beneath the surface, my heart was far from Him.
My trust was in my achievements, my family’s approval, and my ability to control my life rather than in the saving grace of Christ.
Then, in my senior year of college, I met my husband, Jim.
Our first real conversation was a debate about faith and politics.
Those are things you’re not supposed to discuss on a first date!
I left that night feeling victorious, believing I had won the argument.
But something about Jim’s convictions unsettled me.
Over time, he continued challenging me–not to believe what he did, but to truly examine my own faith.
When I told him we had no future because my parents expected me to marry a Catholic, he didn’t try to argue or convince me otherwise.
Instead, Jim simply said:
“If you say you’re Catholic, you should know what it means to be Catholic.”
He gave me a Bible and encouraged me to read it for myself.
I had never truly read Scripture before.
When I read for the first time, I encountered the gospel–not as a set of rules, but as the story of God’s love and redemption.
In February 2007, everything changed.
Jim and I attended a missions conference at his church in Boston.
That night, we had a painful argument about our future, and I was convinced we had to end our relationship.
As we sat in the service, a speaker–someone we had never met–walked up to us.
He said God had put it on his heart to pray for us.
He spoke words that cut straight to my heart, addressing the exact fears and struggles I had been wrestling with.
He prayed that I would trust in God and in Jim, and that I would let go of my own expectations and surrender to God’s plan.
I wept.
It was the first time I truly felt the presence of God speaking personally into my life.
At that moment, I realized how much I had been trying to control everything.
I realized I had been placing my trust in my own wisdom rather than in God’s.
That night, I surrendered my life to Jesus.
I let go of my need for certainty, for my family’s approval, for the future I had meticulously planned.
Instead, I chose to trust in God.
A year later, Jim asked me to marry him.
Despite the fear of disappointing my family, I said yes.
It was a turning point–not just in my relationship with Jim, but in my faith.
Marriage was something I had never imagined as part of my future.
But God used marriage to humble me and draw me closer to Him.
Even after coming to faith, I continued to struggle with self-reliance.
In 2016, Jim and I took a discipleship course called Sonship at our church.
At first, I resisted.
With a two-month-old baby at home, I thought I had a valid excuse to skip the class.
But our pastors graciously allowed us to bring our daughter to class, removing any excuses I had.
What I didn’t realize was that this course would expose just how much I was still trying to live the Christian life on my own terms.
I was doing all the right things–going to church, reading Scripture, and serving.
But I wasn’t fully depending on God.
I was relying on my own righteousness, seeking approval from others, and trying to control outcomes rather than resting in His grace.
Through the Sonship class, God revealed my deep-rooted pride and self-sufficiency.
He showed me that while I claimed to trust in His love and acceptance, I was still living like an orphan.
An orphan tries to earn God’s favor, instead of resting in His finished work.
I came to see how I had turned my own rules and expectations into a false gospel.
I discovered that I valued being “right” more than being forgiven.
And I deeply craved recognition and control.
But through His grace, God freed me from these burdens and false messages.
He reminded me that my identity is secure in Christ.
I don’t need to prove myself, because His love is not conditional on my performance.
Learning to rest in this truth has been both humbling and liberating.
God has been so patient with me.
He has pursued me even when I was running from Him.
He used an unexpected relationship to draw me to Himself, and He continues to refine me daily.
I am still learning to let go of control, to surrender my fears and desires to Him, to trust Him in all things.
But I know that His grace is sufficient, that He is faithful, and that He is making me more like Christ.
This doesn’t happen through my own effort, but through His Spirit at work in me.
My journey is a testimony to His unrelenting love.
Where I once sought success in the world, I now find joy in knowing that my greatest treasure is Christ Himself.
I am His daughter, fully loved and fully accepted–not because of what I have done, but because of what He has done for me.

Titus 3:4–7
4 But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared,
5 he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy.
He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit,
6 whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior,

7 so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life.


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