How long have you been a Christian? What led you to make that decision(be specific please)? Do you ever have doubts about your faith?
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Being a Christian
- Thread starter SPB1987
- Start date
oi_antz
Opposed to Untruth.
Broad questions, I am interested to see where this thread goes. I was raised by a Christian family and baptized at age 17, then I drifted away from church and Christ and eventually got pulled back to it at age 31. What made me originally become Christian and become baptized? I'm not entirely certain. What made me rededicate my life to Christ at age 31? Because He showed me that I had the option to believe what God says or not to. So I chose to believe what God says and the lights went on. Do I have doubts about my faith? No. I have gone through times where God seemed "closer" and "further", but I couldn't ever turn my back on the truth about Jesus, even when people express their false preconceptions about Christianity. The truth is worth more than a sense of pride.
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Sanerive
Newbie
I've been a Christian for 10 years now! Just realized that while typing... I'm 28.
My parents became Christians when I was 14 and they had forced me to go to church with them until they gave up on making me go. Because most of the time I was hung over from Saturday night.
I wasn't with the best of crowds and it was getting pretty gnarly when my friends were getting arrested more and more. I felt like I really needed to leave the scene I was in and wanted to do something that would challenge me as a young person and travel a bit. Up until I was 18 I had lived on an island with a population of 6,000 in Alaska. So you pretty much knew everyone and saw everything there was to see. So that's why I was hungry for new experiences.
I traveled overseas to Australia right after high school after conning my parents into buying me a ticket. I told them that I wanted to try this Christian vocational school because I knew they would pay for everything. But I wanted to drink legally, hook up with beach bunnies and skateboard!
Attending the school meant living in room and board that was provided. So I arrived and there were 34 people who came in from over 10 countries to be at this school. I was the only non-Christian (but that's a story in itself) and everyone else was my age including the staff for the school. It was weird because I had never known Christians that were my age and who were actually cool! They were covered in sleeve tats and piercings all over them.
What was really attractive to me at the time was how patient people were of me and how accepted I was no matter how much of a punk I was to everyone. I was for sure weirded out by some things. But then there was this time we had on the school and it was the 4th week. The teaching was on the cross and what it meant for Jesus to die for mankind. People on the school started sharing these mental things that they had done in their life. They were praying out to God to forgive them of these sins that they were a part of. People were confessing orgies, homosexual experiences, bestiality, masturbation, and all kinds of other things that would just heap shame upon your conscious. Things that you force yourself to forget. And the wild part was- the ones who seemed super normal to me were the ones with gnarly secrets. Everyone shared out one by one. And it wasn't that they had to- they wanted to! I thought to myself as they all went before me 'I've done that! You're sharing THAT!? No WAY!! I forgot that I did that... if I speak this out then people will think I'm disgusting!' It's not like anyone went into great detail.
I wasn't pressured to share. No one talked to me about it but I felt like there was something very significant in what was happening. So I was the last to share. And my list was LONG. After we were done the teacher shared that those and more were exactly what Jesus had come to the earth to die on the cross for. That no matter what we did, if seek forgiveness over these things with God that He'll forgive us. So I prayed out and asked God to forgive me and set me free from shame that I had. I had a powerful sense that I was forgiven and I literally felt physically lighter. I couldn't believe it. And so after that our teacher asked that if we wanted to submit our life to Jesus as our Lord that we could speak it out. I remember calculating in my mind that if I'm really going to believe this stuff then I don't just want to believe it partly and be like one of the fake Christians that I've seen and you cant tell that they're Christians. I wanted to be full on sold out for Jesus as my Saviour AND my Lord.
Soooo, as I prayed out I knew and felt that I had something enter into my body, mind, chest. What I would find out to be called the Holy Spirit. Then I started speaking in what's called 'tongues' and it tripped me out because I heard my parents speaking like this when I walked in on them praying for me. I for sure thought they were going nuts but then there I was, standing in a room for of people all speaking in 'tongues'. I am not making this up- I started dancing around the room like a fool singing out to God and everyone else did their own thing dancing too but what happened next was INCREDIBLE! The class room we were in started shuddering and after a few times of that happening I went outside to see what was going (this will be hard for people to believe buuut, whatever) there was a thunder cloud that was directly over the building and everywhere else it was clear and sunny! I called everyone out to check it out and they did but as soon as we stopped I watched the clouds break up so fast and travel in different directions. When everyone went back in the class to pray out and sing to God I was outside still thinking 'what a weird coincidence'. But then I watched the clouds come back and form right over the building then watched it thunder and rumble and shook the ground I was standing on again. So I bolted back in the classroom because I just couldn't help but think 'dude, God is flippin' real and He's here right now!' and our teacher had said something about His glory being with us (I didn't get that until I read it happening in the Bible).
Have I ever doubted that God is real since then? Hell no!! God has been actively demonstrating His love, presence, forgiveness, voice, promises in/through/around my life since then!
2 months after that I went to India and I saw miracle after miracle after miracle like what you would read in the book of Acts! Being a new Christian and seeing that a lifestyle of faith in God is real has definitely ruined me from EVER living the way I used to live. Heaps of stories mate. Heaps of personal stories of what God's done that I read about in the Bible.
Now I live as a full time missionary in Australia and just about to move into the Pacific islands to mobilize believers into Asia to share the word of God to those who have never had a chance to hear it, to help meet physical needs, and disciple people even deeper in the word of God if they have it already!
Blessings!
My parents became Christians when I was 14 and they had forced me to go to church with them until they gave up on making me go. Because most of the time I was hung over from Saturday night.
I wasn't with the best of crowds and it was getting pretty gnarly when my friends were getting arrested more and more. I felt like I really needed to leave the scene I was in and wanted to do something that would challenge me as a young person and travel a bit. Up until I was 18 I had lived on an island with a population of 6,000 in Alaska. So you pretty much knew everyone and saw everything there was to see. So that's why I was hungry for new experiences.
I traveled overseas to Australia right after high school after conning my parents into buying me a ticket. I told them that I wanted to try this Christian vocational school because I knew they would pay for everything. But I wanted to drink legally, hook up with beach bunnies and skateboard!
Attending the school meant living in room and board that was provided. So I arrived and there were 34 people who came in from over 10 countries to be at this school. I was the only non-Christian (but that's a story in itself) and everyone else was my age including the staff for the school. It was weird because I had never known Christians that were my age and who were actually cool! They were covered in sleeve tats and piercings all over them.
What was really attractive to me at the time was how patient people were of me and how accepted I was no matter how much of a punk I was to everyone. I was for sure weirded out by some things. But then there was this time we had on the school and it was the 4th week. The teaching was on the cross and what it meant for Jesus to die for mankind. People on the school started sharing these mental things that they had done in their life. They were praying out to God to forgive them of these sins that they were a part of. People were confessing orgies, homosexual experiences, bestiality, masturbation, and all kinds of other things that would just heap shame upon your conscious. Things that you force yourself to forget. And the wild part was- the ones who seemed super normal to me were the ones with gnarly secrets. Everyone shared out one by one. And it wasn't that they had to- they wanted to! I thought to myself as they all went before me 'I've done that! You're sharing THAT!? No WAY!! I forgot that I did that... if I speak this out then people will think I'm disgusting!' It's not like anyone went into great detail.
I wasn't pressured to share. No one talked to me about it but I felt like there was something very significant in what was happening. So I was the last to share. And my list was LONG. After we were done the teacher shared that those and more were exactly what Jesus had come to the earth to die on the cross for. That no matter what we did, if seek forgiveness over these things with God that He'll forgive us. So I prayed out and asked God to forgive me and set me free from shame that I had. I had a powerful sense that I was forgiven and I literally felt physically lighter. I couldn't believe it. And so after that our teacher asked that if we wanted to submit our life to Jesus as our Lord that we could speak it out. I remember calculating in my mind that if I'm really going to believe this stuff then I don't just want to believe it partly and be like one of the fake Christians that I've seen and you cant tell that they're Christians. I wanted to be full on sold out for Jesus as my Saviour AND my Lord.
Soooo, as I prayed out I knew and felt that I had something enter into my body, mind, chest. What I would find out to be called the Holy Spirit. Then I started speaking in what's called 'tongues' and it tripped me out because I heard my parents speaking like this when I walked in on them praying for me. I for sure thought they were going nuts but then there I was, standing in a room for of people all speaking in 'tongues'. I am not making this up- I started dancing around the room like a fool singing out to God and everyone else did their own thing dancing too but what happened next was INCREDIBLE! The class room we were in started shuddering and after a few times of that happening I went outside to see what was going (this will be hard for people to believe buuut, whatever) there was a thunder cloud that was directly over the building and everywhere else it was clear and sunny! I called everyone out to check it out and they did but as soon as we stopped I watched the clouds break up so fast and travel in different directions. When everyone went back in the class to pray out and sing to God I was outside still thinking 'what a weird coincidence'. But then I watched the clouds come back and form right over the building then watched it thunder and rumble and shook the ground I was standing on again. So I bolted back in the classroom because I just couldn't help but think 'dude, God is flippin' real and He's here right now!' and our teacher had said something about His glory being with us (I didn't get that until I read it happening in the Bible).
Have I ever doubted that God is real since then? Hell no!! God has been actively demonstrating His love, presence, forgiveness, voice, promises in/through/around my life since then!
2 months after that I went to India and I saw miracle after miracle after miracle like what you would read in the book of Acts! Being a new Christian and seeing that a lifestyle of faith in God is real has definitely ruined me from EVER living the way I used to live. Heaps of stories mate. Heaps of personal stories of what God's done that I read about in the Bible.
Now I live as a full time missionary in Australia and just about to move into the Pacific islands to mobilize believers into Asia to share the word of God to those who have never had a chance to hear it, to help meet physical needs, and disciple people even deeper in the word of God if they have it already!
Blessings!
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N
Nanopants
Guest
Proof.
I was an agnostic, but I reasoned that if God exists, then God can prove his own existence. So he did, and now I believe.
There have been times that I have my doubts like anyone else, but I was fortunate enough that this experiential proof he gave me was profound enough to keep me around.
I was an agnostic, but I reasoned that if God exists, then God can prove his own existence. So he did, and now I believe.
There have been times that I have my doubts like anyone else, but I was fortunate enough that this experiential proof he gave me was profound enough to keep me around.
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P
Publius
Guest
SPB1987 said:
Since 18 Aug 1988.
At the risk of sounding like I'm trying to avoid your question, it wasn't a decision I made. I was spiritually dead. I wasn't even capable of making such a decision. It was all the work of the Holy Spirit.
Do I have doubts about my faith? All the time. Do I have doubts about Christ's faithfulness? Never.
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TheProject
If it lives in water, I don't eat it...
I can't say exactly how long I've been a Christian. I was baptized last December after having a confession of faith, but I now realize that I was pretty much just going through the motions.
I never went to church often as a kid, even though both of my Grandfathers were preachers (one Holiness/Pentecostal and the other Baptist). After I started dating the girl that would eventually become my wife, I started going to a Methodist Church fairly regularly, then regularly once we got married. I was never really moved by anything I heard and held the opinion that I was a good person and that was more than enough. I was about 24 or so at that time.
About 3.5 years ago, my wife wanted to change churches and start going to a church that had just been formed by a friend of her best friend. I did get more of a message there, but it wasn't until last July or August (2010) that my life begin to seriously take on a new shape. It was at that time that, thanks to a Facebook post (of all things), that our pastor started counseling my wife. It took some time, but they eventually formed a very close bond, almost mother/daughter (our pastor is of the female persuasion). My wife mentioned that I had been a Theater major in college and our pastor requested my help with our Youth Group.
I presented them with the Lifehouse Everything skit (Youtube it if you haven't seen it, it is remakable) and we prepared it for December. It was during this time that I was baptized and such, but that was mainly b/c I felt I should do it since I was working with the youth. I did recall that after doing all of this, our pastor made the mention that I might find myself losing interest in certain things that I had once been interest in. This didn't happen, which bothered me.
I became a fixture in working with the youth, but didn't go during May b/c they were doing some extended lessons and I wasn't needed for the 2nd hour (in hindsight, I can't believe I wasn't there anyway, but then, I wasn't the same person then that I am now). When I started going again in June, I tried to truly dedicate myself to God. I began descipleship training with our pastor and, as we went through the Bible, I recall being truly moved by the Book of Malachi. It is not a very happy book, and shows the wrathfulness of God, but then that is why it appealed to me so much. For the first time in my life, God became real to me in a way I had never experienced before. I can't really explain this, but suddenly I could see so much more in books of both the old and new testament. It was also around this time that I began to lose interest in some TV shows I normally watched and music I like to listen to. The wild thing about that is that it wasn't a conscious decision to stop any of this. I just realized one day that I hadn't watched _______ show in a month or two.
I truly feel I've been growing ever since.
Do I ever have doubts? Sometimes. They can be bad, but then I remind myself of the work I've seen done in my wife and others at church, and I get through it.
I never went to church often as a kid, even though both of my Grandfathers were preachers (one Holiness/Pentecostal and the other Baptist). After I started dating the girl that would eventually become my wife, I started going to a Methodist Church fairly regularly, then regularly once we got married. I was never really moved by anything I heard and held the opinion that I was a good person and that was more than enough. I was about 24 or so at that time.
About 3.5 years ago, my wife wanted to change churches and start going to a church that had just been formed by a friend of her best friend. I did get more of a message there, but it wasn't until last July or August (2010) that my life begin to seriously take on a new shape. It was at that time that, thanks to a Facebook post (of all things), that our pastor started counseling my wife. It took some time, but they eventually formed a very close bond, almost mother/daughter (our pastor is of the female persuasion). My wife mentioned that I had been a Theater major in college and our pastor requested my help with our Youth Group.
I presented them with the Lifehouse Everything skit (Youtube it if you haven't seen it, it is remakable) and we prepared it for December. It was during this time that I was baptized and such, but that was mainly b/c I felt I should do it since I was working with the youth. I did recall that after doing all of this, our pastor made the mention that I might find myself losing interest in certain things that I had once been interest in. This didn't happen, which bothered me.
I became a fixture in working with the youth, but didn't go during May b/c they were doing some extended lessons and I wasn't needed for the 2nd hour (in hindsight, I can't believe I wasn't there anyway, but then, I wasn't the same person then that I am now). When I started going again in June, I tried to truly dedicate myself to God. I began descipleship training with our pastor and, as we went through the Bible, I recall being truly moved by the Book of Malachi. It is not a very happy book, and shows the wrathfulness of God, but then that is why it appealed to me so much. For the first time in my life, God became real to me in a way I had never experienced before. I can't really explain this, but suddenly I could see so much more in books of both the old and new testament. It was also around this time that I began to lose interest in some TV shows I normally watched and music I like to listen to. The wild thing about that is that it wasn't a conscious decision to stop any of this. I just realized one day that I hadn't watched _______ show in a month or two.
I truly feel I've been growing ever since.
Do I ever have doubts? Sometimes. They can be bad, but then I remind myself of the work I've seen done in my wife and others at church, and I get through it.
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Baptised at 3months old.
Confirmed at 8yo. Catholics get confirmed between 7-9 as that is the age of reason. Shortly after that I was fortunate enough to meet Pope JPII the Great and shake his hand. I wasn't expecting the overwhelming emotion and peace that went through me like a jolt. I will never forget it.
I got confirmed because basically it was a rite of passage for all Catholics. All my friends were getting confirmed.
Personally, I made the conscious and informed decision at about 15 years of age because Christ asked me to follow him in a dream/vision, I'm still not sure which it was. I woke up the next morning and I knew my life had changed forever.
Prior to that event I was like any other 15yo girl at a Catholic boarding school, going through the motions of attending Mass, Confession etc. After the event I found I had an inexplicable driving urge to attend Mass and receive Christ in the Eucharist.
I have had doubts about my faith, but it has held strong in some tough periods. I have been seriously training for the Christian olympics for 10 years now and it keeps getting stronger.
Redemption is a lifelong process not a one time event.
Lets put it this way, I may have let Christ down on occasions but he has never let me down.
He has always answered my prayers according to his will: sometimes it's a 'no', sometimes it's a 'yes' and sometimes it's a 'not yet'. I have learned to accept all answers with humility and grace.
Blessings
Confirmed at 8yo. Catholics get confirmed between 7-9 as that is the age of reason. Shortly after that I was fortunate enough to meet Pope JPII the Great and shake his hand. I wasn't expecting the overwhelming emotion and peace that went through me like a jolt. I will never forget it.
I got confirmed because basically it was a rite of passage for all Catholics. All my friends were getting confirmed.
Personally, I made the conscious and informed decision at about 15 years of age because Christ asked me to follow him in a dream/vision, I'm still not sure which it was. I woke up the next morning and I knew my life had changed forever.
Prior to that event I was like any other 15yo girl at a Catholic boarding school, going through the motions of attending Mass, Confession etc. After the event I found I had an inexplicable driving urge to attend Mass and receive Christ in the Eucharist.
I have had doubts about my faith, but it has held strong in some tough periods. I have been seriously training for the Christian olympics for 10 years now and it keeps getting stronger.
Redemption is a lifelong process not a one time event.
Lets put it this way, I may have let Christ down on occasions but he has never let me down.
He has always answered my prayers according to his will: sometimes it's a 'no', sometimes it's a 'yes' and sometimes it's a 'not yet'. I have learned to accept all answers with humility and grace.
Blessings
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ViaCrucis
Confessional Lutheran
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I've been a Christian my whole life. There's never been a time that I didn't believe. If one wants to count from the time I received Holy Baptism, that happened when I was 17.
I make the decision to be a Christian every day, though some days are harder than others.
The process of simply having my parents'/community's faith to making it my own has been a life-long journey. I went through a significant theological adventure beginning in high school that took me in several directions before I ended up here in Lutheran territory (I grew up Evangelical/Pentecostal).
-CryptoLutheran
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razeontherock
Well-Known Member
By who's definition? Jesus came into my Life in miraculous fashion, 31 years ago. I got Baptized 3 1/2 years later, and also filled with the Holy Spirit. That is when a real change occurred in my life!
A lifetime of experience led up to that decision. I'm not trying to be funny, nor avoiding the question. Seriously, I think that would be the case for anybody; but maybe I'm wrong and it's merely my own experience?
The world in which I live has presented itself to me in such a fashion that I know G-d exists. I came to Him as the G-d and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, via pure logic. From there, the Lord's prayer is indisputable in it's Wisdom.
About my Faith? Sure, all the time. There are many, many little details of things I just don't know, and CF is a great resource by which to probe such things. Welcome aboard!
Doubting G-d's existence, His Love for mankind and His provision of Salvation for us, and me specifically? No, doubting those things is foolishness I've been healed of long ago.
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