How did you become a christian?

[edwinK0k]

I took an overdose of drugs about a month ago. As I lay in bed, I heard a voice in my head which told me to take my clothes and go outside. As I stayed outside for a while and things cooled down, I went to sit inside and I heard the voice again. This time it said: I am the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit (in my own language). So that's how I got my faith.

How about you guys? Did you always believe in God or was it caused by some event later on in life? Just curious.

 

[1watchman]

One can only become a true "born again" child and saint of God by receiving the Lord Jesus into one's heart as our Savior and Lord. One needs to be sure of this and not just religious. One should read John 1, John 3, and John 14 to see the Gospel message.

 

[freebiblelessons]

That's great to hear!! The Bible says in Romans 10:9 If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

 

[parsley]

Wow, very cool. I have learned to trust those nudges. There is much information about upcoming situations that I don't know; God's leading like that always proves to keep me from falling. Even in little things like "run an errand now," I find out later that the timing was perfect.

Your question -- I didn't always believe in God. My parents started taking us to church at my grandmother's request (who went on holidays) when we were around school-aged, and it seemed to be just another school to go to.

Then when I was middle school age, I had a great teacher who brought it all to life.

 

[Peripatetic]

Although some have dramatic conversion events, others of us have a simple story of slow growth in our walk of faith. As a young child, I learned about God from my parents, teachers, and Children's Bibles. I believed because I trusted those who taught me. As I god older, I slowly began to develop a more personal faith.

There were questions and some doubts amidst all the teen angst, but also new discoveries and deeper understanding. My life continues to be a journey with ups and downs, and gradual gains in life experience, maturity, wisdom, and perspective.

I've always felt like a member of God's family, even during life's darkest times. On the other hand, both of my parents had big "born again" stories. There's no right or wrong way to come to Christ.

 

[kevinwh]

Realizing the pain sinning causes, and that life could be better walking a different path!

 

[thertuthfollower]

People need to God. It is the nature of human especially if you are sick or have a problem.

" I am here, near you ". It is the Lord God`s voice. This voice comes from heart not from head. But how to answer? Or it is enough to listen.

If you know God, you will know the correct way to believe and the right way guarantees us happiness in this life and in the hereafter?

 

[Emmy]

Dear Matthew

 

[stevenfrancis]

As to how you get your initial tug or call from Christ, or what led you to seek Him, there are as many answers to your question as there are Christians. As to the rubrics once you have met Jesus Christ, and accepted Him in your life, to become a Christian within the world, you will get as many answers as their are Churches. A Pentecostal may tell you that you should respond to an alter call when you feel the Holy Spirit working in you. As a Catholic, I would tell you that you should respond to the call to Jesus through the sacraments of initiation, (Baptism, Confirmation, and Holy Eucharist). There is a wide pallet in between among Lutherans, Methodists, Presbyterians, etc.. My own conversion was a mix of the mystical and the inellectual. I was first "tugged" by the Holy Spirit to have a series of discussions with a Methodist Christian friend at work, and while I took no action based on these discussions, the seeds were planted. I then was "drawn" to buy an audio book while on a long drive across the country called "The Lamb's Supper" by a guy named Dr. Scott Hahn. Between these two experiences, I was given the impetus to seek out a Catholic Priest upon the arrival at my destination. I began attending Mass, and after a short while I enrolled in the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults (RCIA). Sometime between beginning my RCIA classes, and my confirmation nearly a year later, I began self identifying as a Christian. Though technically, I was a Christian in other views when I was Baptized by the Southern Baptists, during a very brief but passionate encounter with Christianity some 25 years prior. After my baptism, as a young man, I had returned to the practice of Buddhism, from which I had come, and didn't get tugged by the Holy Spirit in a real and permanent way until the encounter I described regarding the discussions with a friend at work, the audiobook "experience" on the road, and enrolling in RCIA, all in my late 40's.

So none of this is an answer to your question in general. It is the answer to your question for me as an individual Christian.

My "legal" belief, as an answer to your question, is once one begins the sacraments of initiation, which should start with Baptism in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

My "spiritual" answer to your question is at the moment when God has given you the desire to identify yourself as a Christian via the Holy Spirit.

By the way...............I love all the posts I've read on here, and in their way, they are all true. Just keep your eyes fixed on Jesus, and you can't go too wrong.

 

[Calmcacil]

This is the first time I'm posting this in public, so excuse the awkwardness.

Well, I was a Satanist. Not a devil-worshipper, but a LaVey Satanist. I was embracing sin and mocking G-d and Jesus and regarding the Bible as a work of fiction by power-hungry people.

Then I started thinking "Why am I embracing sin? If Jesus loves me, why am I so foolishly mocking Him in return?".
I also watched a video called "Satanist to Christian (Incredible Testimony)" (It's still on Youtube by the way). I came to accept the word of Christ as true a few months ago and I've never been happier or more comfortable religiously.

Excuse the bad English, I'm no native speaker. But take my story as evidence that anyone can come to Christ, and He welcomes you with open arms even if you have commited the worst of sins. You will be saved if you accept Jesus as your Lord and saviour. That is the promise of the Bible. (Romans 10:9)

 

[stevenfrancis]

This is the first time I'm posting this in public, so excuse the awkwardness.

Well, I was a Satanist. Not a devil-worshipper, but a LaVey Satanist. I was embracing sin and mocking G-d and Jesus and regarding the Bible as a work of fiction by power-hungry people.

Then I started thinking "Why am I embracing sin? If Jesus loves me, why am I so foolishly mocking Him in return?".
I also watched a video called "Satanist to Christian (Incredible Testimony)" (It's still on Youtube by the way). I came to accept the word of Christ as true a few months ago and I've never been happier or more comfortable religiously.

Excuse the bad English, I'm no native speaker. But take my story as evidence that anyone can come to Christ, and He welcomes you with open arms even if you have commited the worst of sins. You will be saved if you accept Jesus as your Lord and saviour. That is the promise of the Bible. (Romans 10:9)

God bless you, and thank you for your testimony. Praise be to Lord Jesus Christ.

 

[WisdomTree]

Little words as possible I was raised Reformed, baptized Baptist, then confirmed Catholic. Didn't have anything exciting or inspiring happen during my journey.

 

[thertuthfollower]

You must not say you was a Satanist Dear Calmcacil. You are a human. So you can not stop sins. That is normal. But you have not to plan to do a sin. If you did a sin because of your humanity, just go you pray and ask God to forgive you. Think about your purpose in life. Think about the rationale behind your life. And why do you live in this life?

People provide different answers to these questions. Some people believe the purpose of life is to accumulate wealth. But one may wonder: What is the purpose of life after one has collected colossal amounts of money? What then? What will the purpose be once money is gathered? If the purpose of life is to gain money, there will be no purpose after becoming wealthy. And in fact, here lies the problem of some disbelievers or misbelievers at some stage of their life, when collecting money is the target of their life. When they have collected the money they dreamt of, their life loses its purpose. They suffer from the panic of nothingness and they live in tension and restlessness.

 

[GodsGirlToday61]

I took an overdose of drugs about a month ago. As I lay in bed, I heard a voice in my head which told me to take my clothes and go outside. As I stayed outside for a while and things cooled down, I went to sit inside and I heard the voice again. This time it said: I am the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit (in my own language). So that's how I got my faith.

How about you guys? Did you always believe in God or was it caused by some event later on in life? Just curious.

No one always believes... Infants sense, feel, grasp, emote: real basics, and don't have the cognitive skills to belief or make a profession of Faith.

When I was eight-years-old, I was sitting at the kitchen table feeling troubled, which was nothing new--I came up a troubled conglomerate of persons called 'Family'. And my biological mom could read me, and asked if I wanted to accept Jesus into my heart (I don't remember the exact words), and I said, 'Yes!'

She knelt with me, or had me kneel and say 'The Jesus Prayer' that goes something like 'Jesus Christ, please forgive me for all the sins I committed... I repent of them all... Thank you for dying on the cross to save me."

Within months I got baptised at a Baptist church because my mom was Baptist---I wanted to become a Catholic, and a nun.

Then the spiritual struggle, not just natural conscience struggling began, because I was reading the Bible every day, especially The Sermon on the Mount, and then other than my mother, who used The Bible against me (to get her own way: Children obey your parents in the Lord...), no one else inside the family, neighborhood, school, anywhere, was a Christian: that was hard...

When I was 13, my Mom, the only other professed believer, and my role model, even my 'idol' fell, and when she fell, I mean oh, wow, was it sordid, protracted...

And because she had taught me to believe that I could only get to Jesus through her, or understand Jesus through her, when she fell, it was as though 'He' had let it happen; He had let 'us' become embarrassed 'as Christians', how could that be?

And my heart began to harden.

My mother stayed backslid for years--and I did, too: And we went toe-to-toe, until she married me off at 15 (the ceremony was official 8 days after my 16th birthday) to someone I did not love; someone who was not a Christian; to a drug addict...

That began a hellish period, punctuated by moments of something akin to clarity about ... Well, the existence of God, the Father.

I hadn't liked the image I had, what I read about God, the Father--and my own father was unloving, self-centered, drunk, frightening--so that made it harder, still, to believe in 'God IS Love'.

***

This spiritual struggle took me through an agnostic period, an atheist period in which I waited for God to strike me dead for blasphemy so I
don't suppose I really was an atheist--just really hateful toward the 'idea' I had of the kind of God who should intervene and bail me out of uncomfortable, even painful situations that I got myself into, or might in the long run (I would only find out later) prepare me to be a better Witness.

After many years of struggling to find a way to connect to inner peace, to Jesus, to Goodness... I found my way back through Buddhism, then Hinduism, then prayer to the Divine Mother, via The Catholic Church, praying to my Mother (crying, so much crying), and then 'Mother-Father-God' and finally 'Jesus'.

It's been enriching; it's been meandering; it's been terrifying; it's been exhausting, and it's been worth it:

God is The Creator; i am the created. God reveals to me what I need to know, I accept what He shows and shares with me through Classic Christian writers; through biblical passages; through The Sacraments of the Mass; through Eastern Orthodox spiritual guides, through the love of my husband who has stood by me for more than 25 years (the first 5 as a boyfriend), and now?

I wake up and say, 'You're God and I'm not, tell me, show me, reveal to me... well, you know, just give me what I need.'

And the goal is a Pure Heart, and my spiritual heart is located in my mind, and every pilgrim's journey has certain things in common but over all, we are unique, so no two walks are exacting the same:

God does not make duplicates--not even identical twins are exactly alike in every respect.

God is always 'being' God, 'being' Himself.

He calls us as Christians to grow UP to what He made us to be--in His image, and it's an arduous 'watch'; a regular 'get behind me, Satan' when the adversarial spirit of greed, of covetousness, or lust, or gluttony, of pride... gets between me and God:

With God's grace I can remove the block.

And I never forget that Jesus, the 2nd Person of the Triune God became man so we could have Eternal Life.

This song reminds me of what I live for; what dying to myself along with Christ will bring me:

Glorious Day Casting Crowns Worship Video with lyrics - YouTube

~ Carolyn

 

[AWorkInProgress]

My background
My Grandfather was addicted to his church, always there working on office work or sang in the chorus. When I was young I go to my Grandparents' old school Methodist Church. All I cared about was the snacks after service or get lost in the labyrinth of classrooms or the basement. At some point I wanted to know if there was something to all this, but as we came home. I would notice our family was no different from the family next door not going to church. After a while I decided to go my own path.

My Mom and I were on our own in different state and she did the best she could. Yet just nothing really held together. Became more of Christmas and Easter goer.

Years go by, and I had to deal with lot things my heart was not prepared for. As such struggle with lust and depression was common for me. I survived suicidal depression in High School. I was just lost about my identity and why I felt so different from everyone else I knew. I just had some big holes or voids in my heart.

Where it started
One thing lead to another, and I got a job working in Records department of an insurance company. One of my coworkers introduced meas introduced to conservative talk radio. Lot of what they said made lot sense to me and for a long time it was like a free education for me. They talked about God and how morals help hold the country together. How ordinary men and woman did the extraordinary. One of the talk show host got really personal and gave a testimony about his struggle with drugs and alcohol, and how he seeked out God. His testimony became like emotional bridge for me. His guiding light was a quote from Thomas Jefferson, 'If there be a God, He rather have honest questioning, than blind folded fear.'

My conversion
Over time my problems and a deep desire for something real in my life began to build. I believed there is a God, but I didn't know which was the true God. I wanted to read the bible to see if it was true or not, but I couldn't get myself to do it. Set of events happened with a long distance relationship, that went south. In my pain, I pushed everything away. I removed all the distractions. Just me, the bible, and the bed. I began to read it sincerely seeking.

Also there was the controversy about "Passion of the Christ". I went to see it for myself, and the memory is all a blur. All I remember was just tears. What happened after that I don't remember. My Mom tells me I was really different, I had all sorts of questions about Jesus.

My parents found out I was seeking, my Mom remarried a Christian husband, and just as I was entering the New Testament. They came up to me and gave me a New Living Translation bible with Life Application commentary. My step Dad struggled reading the bible and understanding it. He found this bible it helped him, so they bought me one.

They took me to local church, and I was sincere. I didn't participate in worship, I just sat down. I just wanted to hear what the preacher had to say. As the preacher did his thing, like he was talking directly to me. Like the message was totally geared for me to hear it.

My Salvation
Later in late January of 2007, in my bedroom. I struggled with my salvation. I knew I had to let him into my heart, but I didn't want him to come in with my heart such a mess. I tried to be perfect and clean, but I couldn't do it. Finally something whispered in my spirit, "this is why you need to let him in". I finally gave up trying to do it on my own and I let Jesus in my heart.

That night I tossed and turned. I woke up different. Like someone took an emotional barbells off my shoulders, like a heavy burden was taken off me. I never experienced anything like this before. Later that day I visited a friend of mine. On his computer screen was a naked girl, much like a cheerleader pose. There was something different about it, and I marveled at her beauty much like statue made by Michelangelo. First time I in my life I did not lust, instead I admired her beauty. Then I felt sad, what happened her life that brought her to a place where she giving away her God given beauty, and how many out there are doing disgusting things in their hearts with her body. I would have been one of them.

Over time the emotional weight slowly came back, and I struggled so hard to stay out of lust. Finally stressing event with my Step Dad caused me to throw it all away. I fell face first back into sin just full of anger, waving my fist to the heavens. After some time had passed, and my anger died down. I was sitting there with all these thoughts in my head. I really had a choice to make. I literally could not deny that something happened to me. Like scientific proof that I could not ignore of the truth to all of this. Something spoke to my spirit, God has been the ONLY one who truly been there for me. I fell apart and asked for forgiveness for my actions.

Later I found that I received the Holy Spirit, but over time I did things on my own strength instead of relying on God for strength. My outlook was that I got a taste of what I could have if I just held in there.

God became my teacher and father, and the rest is history.

 

[mbennett024]

I went to church as a young child, but stopped when my dad's job made us move around a lot. A little over a yr ago I was having bad anxiety attacks (I did some horrible things in a timeframe of a few yrs including being an atheist and blaspheming God) and was just really scared and down about life in general. I'll never forget this; I was at my fast food job carrying the ice bucket and all of the sudden all I could think about was Jesus. It was strange since I had turned my back on Him for so long, but he hadn't forgotten me. Then at my in-law's church when I was pregnant there was altar call and I just remember my heart pounding and I was like "no no no I don't want to go up there" but my baby suddenly kicked really hard, and I was only 4 months along with my first so she hadn't done that before and I went up there and from then on I can really feel that Jesus is real. So I am growing, slowly but surely. Now I go to church, read the bible and have purged most of the bad from my life. I'm very happy about it

 

[thesunisout]

My background is that I grew up in a household without any religion. God was never spoken of, for or against. There was a bible in the house, and I remember opening it once as a child. I started to read Genesis and I got to chapter 10 where it was giving the genealogy. I got to all of the begats and I guess I assumed that was the whole rest of the book and I gave up. hehe.

Fast forward to around 14 or so, and I remember praying to God once. I didn't know who He was and I never thought about him but there was something I really, really wanted so I turned to Him for the first time. I was trying to get hired by Nintendo to be a game play counselor, which is someone who helps people solve video games. It was just a simple prayer "God I have never asked you for anything before so could you please get me this job". I didn't end up getting the job so I forgot about it. I got an even better job though at a company called Squaresoft through very fortuitous circumstances a few years later, although I didn't connect the dots until more recently.

Fast forward to when I was around 27 years old. I was a full fledged agnostic with no belief in the spiritual realm when I started to have full fledged spiritual experiences. A few times I would see supernatural beauty in nature, impossibly beautiful scenes that couldn't be seen by the human eye alone. I started to understand there was a spiritual reality so I began to explore different religions and esoteric practices.

Before long, I was a member of the new age. I practiced my own brand of spirituality and I looked towards gurus and ancient sources of wisdom to guide me. I was having spiritual experiences all the time; you could really say my whole life was a spiritual experience. Things would keep happening to me though that I was having difficulty calling coincidence.

One night, everything just added up. I just had this sudden epiphany that there must be a God. The coincidences were too many and I came to the realization that there has to be an all powerful God up there controlling things. It wasn't dramatic at all, just kind of one of those "aha!" moments.

Later on, I had an "uh oh" moment when I realized that God knew everything I had ever done. This caused me to fear God and I felt like that for awhile until I finally decided that I believed God loved me and that He wouldn't judge me. This of course was only half-true but it was after that I told God that I would give my life to Him. I started to think of Him as my Father and it was in the middle of the night that I walked down to a local bible camp (I didn't know it was a bible camp) got on my knees and said those words.

After this, I started to pursue God. I desperately wanted to know Him but I didn't know how. I looked at every kind of religion, philosophy and practice and integrated something from all of them. The one I avoided looking at, of course, was Christianity. God didn't send anyone to witness to me either. Over the next 6 years I was on this journey, and I felt I was getting closer to God but really I was becoming more and more deceived.

However, God did help me and one thing He taught me was that He is a triune God. I didn't understand what He meant at the time, though. It wasn't until 2008 when I finally read the bible that it made sense to me what God was trying to tell me. I clearly saw the Trinity in the gospel of John and on that basis I knew the bible was His book.

Even with all of this I still didn't get saved at that time because of my delusions. It took a series of crazy incidents involving the demonic realm and my own delusions to reveal that I had to give my life to Jesus. God made it crystal clear to me. He brought the illusion crashing down all around me and showed me that I only had two choices. Either I could crawl back under my rock and willfully try to deceive myself and rebuild my fantasy world, or I could give my life to Jesus. Praise God I chose the later.

So, that is how I came to know the Lord. It is kind of an unusual story in that no one ever witnessed to me to bring me to Christ. In 2008, a couple of Christians approached me briefly, and I knew at the time at least one of them was from God, but they didn't explain the gospel to me. God had given me enough revelation, though, to know I should have visited the guys church. I'm convinced I would have gotten saved if I had gone but my life revolved around drugs at that point and I wasn't willing to give up my time. If I had gone I would have been spared two years of hellish circumstances. It shows me that God in His mercy provides the escape route for a lot of things but it's our stubborn hard heartedness that leads us past His help and into the devils snares. Then we get mad at God and ask Him why He didn't help us! Well, thanks for reading if you made it that far.

 

[AWorkInProgress]

...but my baby suddenly kicked really hard, and I was only 4 months along with my first so she hadn't done that before and I went up there and from then on I can really feel that Jesus is real. So I am growing, slowly but surely. Now I go to church, read the bible and have purged most of the bad from my life. I'm very happy about it

lol that's pretty cute. Awesome to hear about finding Jesus. ^^

 

[MLEN]

After hearing a sermon in church, I felt a tug on my heart to give my life to Jesus. I said a prayer to ask Jesus to come into my life, and he did.

 

[forGod1]

I took an overdose of drugs about a month ago. As I lay in bed, I heard a voice in my head which told me to take my clothes and go outside. As I stayed outside for a while and things cooled down, I went to sit inside and I heard the voice again. This time it said: I am the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit (in my own language). So that's how I got my faith.

How about you guys? Did you always believe in God or was it caused by some event later on in life? Just curious.

awesome!!!!!!!!!!

I was with these two guys and one guys sister.. they were like let's get you to accept Jesus into your heart. i kind of was thinking.. well, what will my friends think? like i always knew it was true.. and i never thought about it before. lol then bam.. MIRACLE IN THE ROOM. no testing.. God did it because he's awesome. i heard a voice too. awesome.