Have you always been a Calvinist or did you convert?

[Bono]

If you converted, would you mind sharing your story?

I'm interested in how everyone came to Calvinism, since I myself am a recent convert.

 

[Reformationist]

If you converted, would you mind sharing your story?

I'm interested in how everyone came to Calvinism, since I myself am a recent convert.

First, congratulations. Now, to my story...

First, let me explain that I had been a Christian for a few years prior to becoming reformed, bouncing from church to church, trying to find a church that taught something that made sense of the Gospel. I had probably attended about 50 different churches, anything from AoG to Mormon and none of their views ever set well with me. Even before my exposure to the reformed faith it had always sounded like a bunch of nonsense. I guess there was good reason for that. It was nonsense. Anyway, on to my particular exposure to the faith...

I have a daughter with a woman whom I was not married to. About 2½ years after my daughter was born I married my beautiful wife. My wife and I were already Christians but we had not been exposed to the reformed faith. Because of our beliefs we desparately wanted to enroll our daughter in a Christian school but I was encountering some friction on the issue from my daughter's mother. Anyway, one day my daughter's mother called me to let me know she had enrolled our daughter in a private Christian preschool and thought we might want to check it out and see if we were okay with the school. Well, needless to say me and my wife were thrilled, even before we looked into the school. My daughter's mother told me the general vicinity of the school and so I went to go check it out. I rode up and down the road it was supposed to be on but couldn't find it. I called my daughter's mother and asked her what the place looked like. She told me the school was behind a great big Spanish style adobe house. Well, there was only one of those on the street so I stopped at the house and rung the bell. A lady came to the door and I asked if they ran a school there. She said, very sweetly, "Why yes, we do. We also run a church and a men's and women's discipleship program." So, the lady showed me around and during the course of the tour asked if I was a Christian. I told her I was. She asked what church I went to so I informed her that I was church hunting. She said that I was welcome to talk to her husband about their church as he was the Pastor. So, we finished the tour and then I met with the Pastor. He was not like any other Pastor I had ever encountered. He wasn't stiff in his personality, nor was he some kooky religious zealot like a lot of them are. We just sat down, had some coffe and spoke about the Bible. He asked me if I had ever heard of the reformed faith and I said "no." He briefly outlined the various differences between the reformed faith and the Arminian theology that pervades the evangelical church of today. He was not mean but he also didn't pull any punches. At one point he told me of Christ's limited atonement. Do you want to know what the first thing that sprang to my mind was? I said, "Well, that's not really fair. If He only died for some but not all then He was being unfair to those He didn't die for." He simply said, "Well Don, what would have been fair for Him to do?" I thought for a minute and said, "Well, I guess it would have been fair if He had saved none of us." He just smiled and said that these types of thoughts do not come natural to our minds because, by nature, we are all Pelagians. That set off a whole new string of questions and so he suggested that we come to the service on Sunday. The "service" turned out to be about 30 people, in an extremely informal setting, though the Pastor was up at the front on a stool, reading out of a Bible that rested on a music stand. Everyone was laid back and everyone was interested. Everyone paid attention and asked questions and everything was addressed. My wife and I said nothing about it until we got home and then I asked her, "So, what did you think?" She said, with tears in her eyes, "I feel as though I've come home." My wife was never reformed, nor did she ever attend any reformed services so I realized what she meant was that it felt like home. The Bible was no longer just some difficult to understand collection of stories. It was real. I told her I agreed and then we started to go regularly. Twice on Sundays and once on Wednesday evening. On top of that, my wife and I would go and cook dinner about 3 or 4 times a week at the dining hall for the guys that were on the discipleship program.

All in all it was the most spiritually rewarding time in my life and I have never doubted the truth of what I heard in that little church.

God bless and welcome to the reformed faith,
Don

 

[Reformationist]

If you converted, would you mind sharing your story?

I'm interested in how everyone came to Calvinism, since I myself am a recent convert.

By the way, how did you come to convert?

God bless

 

[theseed]

I converted, after studying the Scriptures and looking over the course of my life, I realized that God was preparing me for Christian work while I was still in diapers. I had to accept the fact that there was nothing I did to deserve God's blessing.

 

[BBAS 64]

If you converted, would you mind sharing your story?

I'm interested in how everyone came to Calvinism, since I myself am a recent convert.

Good Day, Bono

I have been saved for some 20 years and spent many of them in a misunderstanding of what the doctrines of Grace were. I was all ways told they were un Scriptural and represted a God that was unloving and unjust.

Then one day I was listening to a internet show with RC Sproul, and some of the things he said seemed to make me go AHhhh. The road was not easy for me as I picked up a few books and joined this here fourm. People like Don, CC Woody and Fru and many others, made me go nuts as I read though their posts in silence.

But, I contuined to read listen to reformed people, such as RC Sproul, Piper, White, Spurgeon. Read many artiles on the web and books that I could find. When it became an untenable position that I held, because my arguments seemed to lack the intent of the Scripture and held God as being compatable with the wants and will of men I dropped my Tradition of men as in error given the Scriptural evidence to the contray and that put God in a new light, it was Romans 9, Hebrews, and John 6, 8 that did it for me.

I still attend a church that is lacking in the fundementals of the nature of the Gospel, and that has help me to learn as these things are discussed between me and others in my church.


For His Glory Alone!

Bill

 

[cajunhillbilly]

I was saved in 1971. I think I started becoming Reformed shortly after that as I read Scripture and books by men like J I Packer, etc. I was fully Reformed within only 2 or 3 years of my conversion to Christ. I cannot understand how anyone cannot believe in predistination. Even Thomas Aquinus, THE Catholic theologian, believed in it.

 

[StAnselm]

I rejoice that all of you have come to appreciate what we sometimes call the 'doctrines of Grace'. I'd be happy yo go out on a limb and say the Reformed faith is the true faith. :crosself:

But I must say, I get kinda jittery when people talking about "converting" to Calvinism. Makes it sound like a second blessing, or something...

 

[theseed]

But I must say, I get kinda jittery when people talking about "converting" to Calvinism. Makes it sound like a second blessing, or something...

When one fully realizes that love that God hath for him, he becomes empowered by the truth of God's word.

 

[StAnselm]

When one fully realizes that love that God hath for him, he becomes empowered by the truth of God's word.

Is that in the Bible? The word "hath" suggests that it might be, but I can't remember it from anywhere...

But in what way is it a 'conversion'? And even if it is, shouldn't we drop the phrase to avoid confusion with 'real' conversion...?

 

[theseed]

Actually, I think the phrase "the love God hath for him" or something like that came from a sermon I heard or read from Spurgeon.

 

[theseed]

Yes, I heard it from Spurgeon

http://www.google.com/custom?num=100&hl=en&lr=lang_en%7Clang_fr&ie=ISO-8859-1&safe=off&cof=AWFID%3Ac1f14744a68aa917%3BL%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.spurgeon.org%2Fimages%2Farchiv25.gif%3BLH%3A63%3BLW%3A507%3BBGC%3A%23FFFFFF%3BT%3A%23004080%3BLC%3A%23FF0000%3BVLC%3A%23800000%3BALC%3A%23808000%3BAH%3Aleft%3BS%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.spurgeon.org%3B&domains=www.spurgeon.org%3Bwww.gty.org&q=%22loved+with+an+everlasting+love%22&sitesearch=www.spurgeon.org

And it comes from the bible.

Jeremiah 31
3 The LORD hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee.

 

[BBAS 64]

Actually, I think the phrase "the love God hath for him" or something like that came from a sermon I heard or read from Spurgeon.

Good Day, Seed

http://www.spurgeon.org/sermons/1008.htm

Loves Logic;

1Jo 4:19 We love him, because he first loved us.

For His Glory Alone!

Bill

 

[theseed]

Good Day, Seed

http://www.spurgeon.org/sermons/1008.htm

Loves Logic;

1Jo 4:19 We love him, because he first loved us.

For His Glory Alone!

Bill

Thank you

 

[Reformationist]

But I must say, I get kinda jittery when people talking about "converting" to Calvinism. Makes it sound like a second blessing, or something...

Yeah, I understand what you mean. It can come across wrong but the truth is that it really is a conversion. It's not a conversion to Christianity but a conversion to the Truth of Christianity. God, for His own reasons, has chosen to allow many of His children to be misled. This, of course, does not make them not His children. It is simply one of those things that we must trust He has ordained to bring about His plan in a way that we might not understand. We can guess as to His methods but that's all we're doing, guessing. For us the bottom line comes from how we respond to semi-Pelagians when we encounter them. If we truly embrace the truth of what we believe then we will not be puffed up and will truly be able to approach our brethren in the spirit of love. I think our witness will go a lot further if we can grow in that area.

God bless

 

[Bulldog]

I was (and am) raised an Arminian, I have only been a Calvinist for about ten months.

 

[theseed]

In all my studies in psychology, I had come to the conclusion that some people were beyond salvation because of the determination of thier own psyche and thier own agency. Now that I realize that God changes the human psyche to produce faith in believers, no one is beyond God's power. Family members I thought were doomed to damnation now have the chance to be saved. Salvation no longer depends on the "freedom" of will but the freeness of grace (cf Spurgeon). Even the deadest of the dead can be brought to life by the of power of the Holy Spirit and the preaching of the Gospel (Ezek. 37).

 

[Imblessed]

I was raised with Arminian views and just learned of Calvinism a few months ago(here at CF). It was like Don had said. I felt like I had "come home".

I've been a Christian all my life, and I attend an awesome church right now(unfortunately not reformed, but it's ok right now), yet reading the bible was the hardest thing for me. I just didn't like to do it, because I couldn't really get it. There was all these verses that just didn't match up with what I was being taught, and everytime I read the bible I would just get frustrated and quit. I just felt like I wasn't real smart because what I was reading and what I was being taught were 2 different things.
Then I came to CF and starting lurking around, trying to find out what other people believed, etc, and I found this room. Calvinism? What's that? Reformed? Reformed from what? I didn't even KNOW people thought this way...but when I read the different threads on here, I was totally blown away. I started seeing things totally differently and now reading the bible is amazing. All those verses I was having trouble with just opened right up to me. It's really incredible. It's hard to call it a conversion when for me it was just a fuller understanding. I believe I can see why God chooses to let people be "blinded" by Arminianism. Calvinism is hard to accept. And I think Arminianism has some good points to it, I could never look down on those who hold to it. I know many really great christians who are Arminian. I don't think I could ever go back to thinking that way though. It's still a struggle for me though, my "independent" side wants a say in things, you know? But I just cannot ignore what seems to me to be very clear teachings on predestination, etc.

 

[StAnselm]

This is great to hear, Imblessed!!! It's a testimony to the people here in the Reformed area, a testimony to CF, and most of all a testimony to the amazing grace of God!!

 

[Imblessed]

This is great to hear, Imblessed!!! It's a testimony to the people here in the Reformed area, a testimony to CF, and most of all a testimony to the amazing grace of God!!

Thank you, and I just want ALL of you here in the reformed room to know that you are ALL awesome and I love coming here and reading and learning from you!!!!

 

[Reformationist]

Thank you, and I just want ALL of you here in the reformed room to know that you are ALL awesome and I love coming here and reading and learning from you!!!!

Even though you may not realize it we also learn from newly reformed Christians, like yourself. I know that I have personally read things you have written and been strengthened in my faith and edified on a number of occasions.

We love having you with us. Soon you'll be teaching us all.

God bless,
Don