LANCE BERKMAN

Playing baseball in the major leagues is very challenging. There is a lot of pressure riding on every at-bat. In addition to your own desire to do well, there is the constant evaluation of the coaches, team and media. Those evaluations determine my value to the team and provide security to my career.

Living the Christian life is also challenging but for different reasons. The same desire to do well exists - to live a consistent life that honors and pleases the Lord. The big difference is that God isn't evaluating my actions and basing His love on how well I "perform". His love for me is unconditional. Even when I mess up He doesn't threaten to trade me off His team.

At a young age, I learned that we are all born with sin and that Jesus paid the price for our sins (Romans 3:23-24). It wasn't enough to have knowledge, I had to do something with what I knew and make a personal decision to place my trust in Jesus Christ as my Savior. Jesus said, "I am the way the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me" (John 14:6).

Berkman grew up in Texas. He was raised in a Christian home and was baptized when he was 11.

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He went to Rice University in Houston. "I had a great college situation because I had some really good friends, and we were all kind of searching for the meaning of Christianity," Lance says. "We had all been raised in Christian environments, but when you get into college you start trying to think for yourself and challenge the views you were brought up with. I definitely went through a period of time when I was testing the waters, exploring whether this was for real." Berkman and his buddies did the bar scene and used foul language. "We thought we were cool," he says. But they were empty.

"I looked at myself, and there wasn't enough evidence to convict me of being a Christian." Berkman had a choice to make. "I wanted my beliefs to line up with the way I lived my life," he says. "That's when I made the conversion and started to truly understand what it means to be a follower of Christ."

"The Apostle John wrote, 'to all who received Him, to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become the children of God' (John 1:12). Since I received Jesus as my Savior I know I am a child of God and will go to heaven and spend eternity with Him. I am able to live each day with peace in my heart, living a life that seeks to please God for His gift of eternal life - not because I'm trying to earn His approval, but because I love Him and desire to do His will."

VIDEO: Lance Berkman on Living Beyond Belief.