How did you find faith?

[Inbetween]

I'm looking for proof, I can't see it. How did you manage it? I really think there might be something bigger than all of us, up there, but I don't know how to find it.

Please tell me how you found your god.

 

[drich0150]

How did you find faith?

I prayed and asked for it, and a very small measure was given. I took what was given and reapplied it to God, and continued to do so till I had "proof" and no longer needed "Blind faith."

I'm looking for proof, I can't see it. How did you manage it?

Read the bible and found luke 11 and Christ promise starting at:

5 Then He said to them, “[d]Suppose one of you has a friend, and goes to him at midnight and says to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves; 6 for a friend of mine has come to me from a journey, and I have nothing to set before him’; 7 and from inside he answers and says, ‘Do not bother me; the door has already been shut and my children [e]and I are in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything.’ 8 I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet (D)because of his [f]persistence he will get up and give him as much as he needs. 9 “So I say to you, [g](E)ask, and it will be given to you; [h]seek, and you will find; [i]knock, and it will be opened to you. 10 For everyone who asks, receives; and he who seeks, finds; and to him who knocks, it will be opened. 11 Now [j]suppose one of you fathers is asked by his son for a [k]fish; he will not give him a snake instead of a fish, will he? 12 Or if he is asked for an egg, he will not give him a scorpion, will he? 13 (F)If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your [l]heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?”

I really think there might be something bigger than all of us, up there, but I don't know how to find it.

We ask in prayer, we seek in the bible church and asking questions in places like this one, we knock by repeating this process till we get what our heart wants.

Please tell me how you found your god.

By slowly learning to open my eyes ears and heart. It was not an over night process.

 

[elopez]

I'm looking for proof, I can't see it. How did you manage it? I really think there might be something bigger than all of us, up there, but I don't know how to find it.

Please tell me how you found your god.

Well first off if you're looking to have faith, you won't find any proof. Proof is not needed for faith, and faith is how we 'find' God.

 

[docpotter]

I agree with Elopez totally , you need to know that God is .

The only thing I would add is that if you truly want to find God then ask Him, from your heart, to shine His light into your life . But do so with confidence : )

God Bless

 

[Publius]

I'm looking for proof, I can't see it. How did you manage it? I really think there might be something bigger than all of us, up there, but I don't know how to find it.

Please tell me how you found your god.

I didn't find God. He found me.

 

[Mediakira]

It's hard to explain to some people about how they find God. Many people have there own belief system. Some Christians would say you might have imagined it.

I found God by being in intense pain in my heart. I was in a horrible state of a situation. I had no one else to turn to for help. I had no one else but turning to my faith.

This happened in the summer of 2010. I've learned the scripture that Jesus can be your Doctor in any field. So, one night after I learned this. I laid down on my bed to get some rest for the night. I prayed to God. "Please God, be my Doctor and heal me, heal any where in my body that is needed. Please, show yourself as proof that you do exist as you say. Many people say you don't exist. Please, show me and give me proof. I need you!"

Before I knew it, I felt this growing orb like light in my chest. It was gentle, but yet strong. It was really breath taking, but it was very calmly. It felt as if God/Jesus put His hand in my chest. It lasted till I fell asleep.

The experiance was interesting but yet frighting. Because I did not really expect it. But since then I believed He is there.

My advice will be it that. If you seek God, He will come to you. There is no doubt. It even says in Bible. If you seek Him. He'll show Himself. But there is times He'll test His seekers too. If your going to try, be on alert. lol This will happen to anyone before or after baptism. I'm a proof of that.

 

[docpotter]

Mediakira, that's an awesome story , and I believe you , and I think most true Christians would also : )

Many times when people are at their weakest point is when they can truly find God

 

[Mediakira]

Mediakira, that's an awesome story , and I believe you , and I think most true Christians would also : )

Many times when people are at their weakest point is when they can truly find God

Thanks, Docpotter! I do agree with you. God does come to people when there are not at there very best.

 

[Lukaris]

The cross convicted my conscience & I realized that my ability to try to do what is right in basic living (true respect for others, honesty, virtues etc.) was unsound (to say the least). Only the cross could set me straight and give guidance although I am still a sorry sinner, by grace I faithfully deal with my sin & am healed by ongoing confession (Psalm 51 for ex.). I truly believe there are many who God (by grace) will bring into His kingdom by the example of the Beatitudes (Matthew 5) but no one living can know this & without the cross, one's unrepented sin could prevent one from the salvation the Lord has prepared for us.

 

[bling]

Initially, I had a real need (I was burdened by my transgressions). I had tried other means of relieving my burden but nothing seemed to work.
When I finally gave up on myself (my own ability to solve my problems) and took what little ‘faith” (trust) I did have and put that in a Creator, He immediately jumped right in and took my burden away. It was kind of a neat way of taking the burden away, because all my past transgressions went from being burdens to assess. They became part of my witness (this is how I was) and I could tell what a difference Christ made.

 

[salida]

I knew there had to be more to life than eating,working and going to bed 40 hours a week and started searching when i was about 8 yrs old. A coworker was a happy vibrant person and I asked her how, when I was 19, and she said it was the Lord-at that point I knew spiritually this was it-you seek whole heartedly and you will find. Its been 32 years.

Proof-its a spiritual experience. You will know them by their desires.

There is intellectual proof-
There is overwhelming circumstantial evidence of the bible. This type of evidence is used in a court of law.
Visit: www.TheBibleProofBook.com, (you will need acrobat reader for this), read The Evidence That Demands A Verdict by Josh McDowell a former agnostic- (its overwhelming circumstantial evidence of bible) and Examine the Evidence by Muncaster a former athiest/The Case for Christ and The Real Jesus by Lee Strobel a former athiest.

100 fulfilled Bible prophecies
Fulfilled Prophecy: Evidence for the Reliability of the Bible | Reasons To Believe (science website)
Eyewitnesses to the Resurrection of Jesus Christ
Apologetics Study - Evidence For The Christian Faith
Bible Reliability: M-A-P-S to Guide You through Bible Reliability

Historical Accuracy
The bible is loaded with historical statements concerning events hundreds of years ago and has not
been proven incorrect in any.
(Bible compared to other ancient documents):
New Testament starts - at 25 years between original and first surviving copies
Homer - starts at 500 years
Demosthenes - at 1400 years
Plato - at 1200 years

 

[Sanerive]

Hello! I've been a Christian for 10 years now and I'm 28. If you want you can read my story of "finding" God... Or skip cuz it's heaps long and just believe that it was a good story!
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 [bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse]' 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!

 

[oi_antz]

@Sanerive - what is the name of that Christian school you attended? I have read your testimony before, it sounds like a very powerful experience.

OP: for me I was raised Christian and then when I went to university I had a fall-out with God because of an unholy addiction to lust. I gradually became more and more anti-Christian and then one day about 10 years later I watched the film "Religulous" which wound me up, I just had to get out there and do my best to help fix this mess that religion has made!

Then Google Buzz sent me a link to a thread where these guys were discussing "What if God is just the consciousness modelling itself" and I put my two cents in. Then over the next few days I actively engaged in that thread and thought about it at work and even in my sleep. One day someone asked me on that thread why don't I read the book "I don't have enough faith to be an atheist", and I replied "I'm not atheist, I love God".

Then I got frustrated, if I love God, why don't I know Him? It chewed me up so much I woke up one morning grabbed my head and muttered over and over epiphanies leading to a conclusion that maybe the Christians might be right and maybe I had been wrong all along. So I went back to the thread and asked them to prove to me the bible was true. They gave me a quote from the bible and everything suddenly made sense. This was an incredible experience, in less than a microsecond I understood Christianity and I knew it was true. I had a new understanding that everything in the bible was true so I started reading it and as I read it I could find things that explained to me what had happened to me and my faith. It was like lights going on.

Then a Christian colleague approached me and helped me in prayer to ask Jesus into my life. I was unable to continue working that day because I was so anxious about this new knowledge. I left work and went looking for a church that was open (I found one!) and the pastor listened to me confess that I had just discovered that the bible was true, and how I was terrified - all the blasphemy I have spoken.

Then she plucked a verse from thin air (I now know that Jesus would have told her that verse) and it told me the greatest sin in my life that I would need to overcome if I was to please God. I agreed to do it, but I felt powerless. I said "I can't do it straight away but over time it will get easier" and she said "Just ask Him".

Then the church creaked and I became aware of a demonic presence, it was the demon that was possessing me. She supported me as I spoke rebuke against the demon in Jesus' name and then Jesus spoke through me, I remember His exact words "You will not take this man", and the demon began to leave me.

Then that night the Holy Spirit fluttered down from heaven and said "I will never leave you". Then He began to speak to me and teach me through my thoughts. Satan approached me and naturally he wanted to be important but I put him second to Jesus. Then over the next few days God taught me a lot and after a couple of days He said "we are going to raise your consciousness up and up and up and up" and then my communication with God was more intuitive than a voice in my mind.

So that is how it happened for me. If I could summarize the method, it would be "give it your best effort, day and night, and be honest above all else." I wish you the best and hope you can find peace by esteeming Jesus to His rightful position.

 

[Sanerive]

I attended a school with Youth With A Mission. I joined on as a full time volunteer!

 

[oi_antz]

I attended a school with Youth With A Mission. I joined on as a full time volunteer!

Thanks, may the Lord keep you well