N
newtothefaith
Guest
Greetings,
About 2 weeks ago, after 5 years of searching for truth, I gave my life over to Jesus Christ. I am starting to write down my testimony/conversion story because many people have asked me to do so. I am just now starting the 2nd draft, and I need some feedback. Good and Bad, dont hold back. Please comment about it though, any aspect, it would be greatly appreciated. Hope this may help someone.
-
I offer this short story as hope for those who feel there is none, as truth for those who seek it, and as clarity for those who feel so confused. I am not writing this to tell anyone about how sinful they are, or what they are doing wrong or right, I am writing this so that those who are confused and desire truth can see what has happened to me, and take that for whatever its worth to them.
The search for God is, in my opinion, the greatest search that exsists. Some people find him, some people dont, and for some it takes a lifetime. The question of origin, the mystery of an afterlife, and the possbility of a realm of beings we cannot even physically see always makes me people wonder, and unfortunatley, even for myself, causes them to be skeptical. A good friend of mine once said, "I dont know why we are here, and I dont care why we are here, I just want to know where the hell we are going when this is done", and that really is the question at hand. You can do nothing about God exsisting, for he does, but where you go after this life IS something you can control. When I stopped being so selfish, I realized I had the power to choose, and maybe this will give some insight to a few people.
When I was just completing my 8th grade year, I began to question the idea of christianity, as most due at some point or another. I wont go into vivid detail, but due to certain things that had occured at my "church", the way "christians" had treated me, and the somewhat distorted version of christianity I was taught, along with other things, I decided that there was no reasonable explanation for the christian "religion" to be the truth. Pherhaps for some it worked, but not myself. I declared myself an atheist, thought that anyone who was a Christian was a illogical, un-educated moron, and lived my life accordingly.
The idea of God still weighed heavy on my mind, which I found interesting. Sometime in 9th grade, after more studying and consideration, I decided that this view of atheism was a bit too baised, as one could not really prove that God wasnt there, they could only choose to beleive he is or isnt off of faith. After I took this into consideration, I decided that I didnt know if God was there (even though I still believed he was not), so I was introduced and accepted the philosiphy of agnosticism. I agreed that this was a more safe, correct, and fair way to view the idea of God.
I spent the majority of my remaining highschool years a militant agnostic. Though I was satisfied most of this time with this, I was not happy. I was always used to seeing the typical hypocrit christian pass me a wry "oh hey" every morning, but occasionly I would see people that calimed to be "Christians", but they really would be different than other "christians" I would see. I would see them show a kind of love to people that I had never seen. I would see them be content with only their belief and be satisfied, and I would desire this kind of happiness, because as I said, though I was an agnostic, I was not happy. I yearned for something more, I wanted there to be something more, I just couldnt fathom or believe that there indeed was. I began to become interested not in Christianity, but merely in why those few people acted in the way that they did. And when I would ask them, "why?", i would be surprised to hear them all reply "jesus" when they were giving the explination. After a long time of witnessing that, I decided that pherhaps I had really not given this so called "loving God" a fair chance, that I had formed an unfair baised opinion about him, and that pherhaps I should just listen to what they had to say.
When I decided that, I made a vow to myself that I was honestly going to seek God this time, instead of just toying with the idea and giving it barley any thought as I previously had. I was going to try to see if there was a God there, and see if he cares about me. I woud leave all past ideas and preconitations behind, and make a fair, but most importantly, LOGICAL, conclusion to all of this, and that outcome would be my belief. ( At the time I thought this would just give me more knowledge as to why God was fake so I could continue to trash Christians).
I began to do self study of the bible, the people in the bible, and the events in the bible. I began to spend hours upon hours every night reading, searching, discovering new things about chrisitinity that I had never been told or taught. I wasnt even always doing it for my own self benefit, some of it was just intersting (fatima appiration, end times, the anti-christ). I began to realize that alot of the ideas of the athiestic belief were weak, faulty, incorrect assumptions that had no back bone to them. I looked into many religions that had god/godessed/gods involved, but I was surprised to learn that most of the ideas behind those religions had no real argument or evidence, but that christianity was the only one that I could see the evidence in. As I made progress, I would also sometimes say a quick prayer to a God I didnt even know was there, but when I said it, I meant it. All I would say is, God, if you are there, reveal yourself to me. When I honestly started considering the possibility that God might care about me, and when I honestly began to seek him, he began to answer me. I cant fully describe what would happen to me, but I would have knowledge revealed to me not though talking or reading, just though thinking and logic. It was almost like a revelation. My thoughts would be influenced with ideas that would start to make sense to me. I began to come to a logical idea that the idea of God could be true, I would think of things in way I never had before..."The deisgn to the universe is too complex to be an accident, so humans and all of creation must have been designed by a creator. If the creations (the people) desire to know this higher being, then the creator must have inteded it to be that way, thusly also wanting the relationship. People around us are obviously sinful (watch the news or look out your window), thusly God has no reason to give us that relationship if we act like we arent interested." Thinks like that. Those thoughts I had heard before shined in a new life, and they became my proof, because they all made logical sense to me. It was I who was making them illogical. When I got to the point about us humans not being worthy of the relationship with God, that is where started to get into Jesus, and boy I was skeptical! A higher being, a "god", OK, maybe...a human sacrifise that bears every mans sin, no way. Jesus was supposedly the reason that this realtionship exsisted, because he was the ultimate sacrafise between God and man for the relationship. That idea seemed so far fatched, but I looked in the to the historical background of a man named Jesus Christ, and was wildly surpirsed at the proof for his exsistence. I already thought there could be a God, on a level of exsistence higher than I could ever understand, is it possible that this man was the son of God? I began to wonder if all of these things really could be the ultimate truth.
As I began to see and understand these things, it scared me because I realized that they infact might be true, and I would have to change. Because of that fear, I began to pretend like it wasnt real, and that the explanation behind that thinking was just me irrationally thinking about things, and wishfully thinking. I could not cope with that idea for long. I have never been one to lie, espescially to myself, and I was not about to deny what was standing right infront of me. I realized that after all that time, I was really going out of my way to make myself believe that God wasnt there, so that I would be more comfortable. To ignore the facts and evdience standing infront of me. I asked for revelation, recived it, but didnt accept it. After I humbled myself to this fact, and admitted that I could be wrong, I realized that I was infact wrong. I realized that there was a God that created everything, and that the reason I was interested in learning about him in the first place was because he wanted a realtionship with me, and I realized that I was not wothy of it, but that the only way it was possible for me to attain that relationship was through Jesus Christ. I wanted to put God into a formula so I could completey understand him, but I had forgetten that part of God's beauty is that you cant fully understand him, and that the real proof of his exsistense is in the people that love him the most.
Friends, what I have just told you does not even due justice to what all happened. The years of athiesm and agnosticism were long, I was more skeptical than anyone you can even imagine, I never imgained I would ever want to know God or love Jesus Christ. I have been an atheist, an Agnostic, looked into Wicca and Islam, I have cursed God, Cursed Jesus, Prayed to Satan, openly told chrisitians I hate them and wished them to die, told christians they are wasting there time and discouraged them from continuing there belief, tryed to deconvert people, thrown away bibles, and played with witchcraft, and after all that, God has still forgiven me. People often downplay the thought of God due to the things of their past. No way, God forgives EVERYTHING.
A big part of the reason I couldnt except the truth about God and Christ was because of my pride. I didnt want to be wrong, and I didnt want to change. I also didnt want to be associated with most of the christian groups that I had seen, I had little in common with alot of them, and they were the complete opposite of what I liked and desired for myself. The beautiful thing I realized though is that NONE of that mattered, and it took me 5 years to realize that. The church is not whats important, the people are not what is important, the label is not what is important, the groups are not what is important! Christianiy is not ABOUT the church, for it is corrupt, its not ABOUT the people, for they are hypocrites, and its not ABOUT the label, because everyone has one, its not about the idea that everyone has about Christianity now days, its not about the false idea that christianity makes yours life perfect, its not about all the people I didnt like that were "Christians"... its about developing a relationship with your creator, and the only way to attain that is through Jesus Christ. And when you realize that that is the only important thing, you realize that they way you feel about those other things are of 0 importance. Nothing else matters except that you have a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ. It is sad that Christianity is plagued with the label it has today, that people make it seem like you cant be who you are and still love Jesus Christ, because you can. Jesus was not some person that was seeking to tell everyone how bad of a person they were, he wasnt trying to take away their freedom of thought, or the ability to be open-minded, or the ability to be who they want to be, he was all about love. He sat at a table with harlots and thieves and loved them the same as everyone else, and that is truly amazing. What kind of regular human being would tell you that if you slugged him on the right cheek, he would stand and offer his left to you? That is not a human thought, and that is what brought people to him, and that is what changed the face of Rome at that time, the love that Christ showed. If anyone could even come close to showing that kind of love, what would happen to the community where that person lived in. What about if 10 people did. Or 100? Or 1000? or even a million? Noone will EVER be able to show love like Christ did, but all God wants is an honest effort, and if you truly believe, Christ WILL show throw you, and that is ultimatley what brings people to God, is the love of Christ inside of them.
I hope that I have shed some light to some people. I spent 5 years searching for the truth, and at the end of the search, Jesus Christ was waiting for me with open arms. God Bless.
About 2 weeks ago, after 5 years of searching for truth, I gave my life over to Jesus Christ. I am starting to write down my testimony/conversion story because many people have asked me to do so. I am just now starting the 2nd draft, and I need some feedback. Good and Bad, dont hold back. Please comment about it though, any aspect, it would be greatly appreciated. Hope this may help someone.
-
I offer this short story as hope for those who feel there is none, as truth for those who seek it, and as clarity for those who feel so confused. I am not writing this to tell anyone about how sinful they are, or what they are doing wrong or right, I am writing this so that those who are confused and desire truth can see what has happened to me, and take that for whatever its worth to them.
The search for God is, in my opinion, the greatest search that exsists. Some people find him, some people dont, and for some it takes a lifetime. The question of origin, the mystery of an afterlife, and the possbility of a realm of beings we cannot even physically see always makes me people wonder, and unfortunatley, even for myself, causes them to be skeptical. A good friend of mine once said, "I dont know why we are here, and I dont care why we are here, I just want to know where the hell we are going when this is done", and that really is the question at hand. You can do nothing about God exsisting, for he does, but where you go after this life IS something you can control. When I stopped being so selfish, I realized I had the power to choose, and maybe this will give some insight to a few people.
When I was just completing my 8th grade year, I began to question the idea of christianity, as most due at some point or another. I wont go into vivid detail, but due to certain things that had occured at my "church", the way "christians" had treated me, and the somewhat distorted version of christianity I was taught, along with other things, I decided that there was no reasonable explanation for the christian "religion" to be the truth. Pherhaps for some it worked, but not myself. I declared myself an atheist, thought that anyone who was a Christian was a illogical, un-educated moron, and lived my life accordingly.
The idea of God still weighed heavy on my mind, which I found interesting. Sometime in 9th grade, after more studying and consideration, I decided that this view of atheism was a bit too baised, as one could not really prove that God wasnt there, they could only choose to beleive he is or isnt off of faith. After I took this into consideration, I decided that I didnt know if God was there (even though I still believed he was not), so I was introduced and accepted the philosiphy of agnosticism. I agreed that this was a more safe, correct, and fair way to view the idea of God.
I spent the majority of my remaining highschool years a militant agnostic. Though I was satisfied most of this time with this, I was not happy. I was always used to seeing the typical hypocrit christian pass me a wry "oh hey" every morning, but occasionly I would see people that calimed to be "Christians", but they really would be different than other "christians" I would see. I would see them show a kind of love to people that I had never seen. I would see them be content with only their belief and be satisfied, and I would desire this kind of happiness, because as I said, though I was an agnostic, I was not happy. I yearned for something more, I wanted there to be something more, I just couldnt fathom or believe that there indeed was. I began to become interested not in Christianity, but merely in why those few people acted in the way that they did. And when I would ask them, "why?", i would be surprised to hear them all reply "jesus" when they were giving the explination. After a long time of witnessing that, I decided that pherhaps I had really not given this so called "loving God" a fair chance, that I had formed an unfair baised opinion about him, and that pherhaps I should just listen to what they had to say.
When I decided that, I made a vow to myself that I was honestly going to seek God this time, instead of just toying with the idea and giving it barley any thought as I previously had. I was going to try to see if there was a God there, and see if he cares about me. I woud leave all past ideas and preconitations behind, and make a fair, but most importantly, LOGICAL, conclusion to all of this, and that outcome would be my belief. ( At the time I thought this would just give me more knowledge as to why God was fake so I could continue to trash Christians).
I began to do self study of the bible, the people in the bible, and the events in the bible. I began to spend hours upon hours every night reading, searching, discovering new things about chrisitinity that I had never been told or taught. I wasnt even always doing it for my own self benefit, some of it was just intersting (fatima appiration, end times, the anti-christ). I began to realize that alot of the ideas of the athiestic belief were weak, faulty, incorrect assumptions that had no back bone to them. I looked into many religions that had god/godessed/gods involved, but I was surprised to learn that most of the ideas behind those religions had no real argument or evidence, but that christianity was the only one that I could see the evidence in. As I made progress, I would also sometimes say a quick prayer to a God I didnt even know was there, but when I said it, I meant it. All I would say is, God, if you are there, reveal yourself to me. When I honestly started considering the possibility that God might care about me, and when I honestly began to seek him, he began to answer me. I cant fully describe what would happen to me, but I would have knowledge revealed to me not though talking or reading, just though thinking and logic. It was almost like a revelation. My thoughts would be influenced with ideas that would start to make sense to me. I began to come to a logical idea that the idea of God could be true, I would think of things in way I never had before..."The deisgn to the universe is too complex to be an accident, so humans and all of creation must have been designed by a creator. If the creations (the people) desire to know this higher being, then the creator must have inteded it to be that way, thusly also wanting the relationship. People around us are obviously sinful (watch the news or look out your window), thusly God has no reason to give us that relationship if we act like we arent interested." Thinks like that. Those thoughts I had heard before shined in a new life, and they became my proof, because they all made logical sense to me. It was I who was making them illogical. When I got to the point about us humans not being worthy of the relationship with God, that is where started to get into Jesus, and boy I was skeptical! A higher being, a "god", OK, maybe...a human sacrifise that bears every mans sin, no way. Jesus was supposedly the reason that this realtionship exsisted, because he was the ultimate sacrafise between God and man for the relationship. That idea seemed so far fatched, but I looked in the to the historical background of a man named Jesus Christ, and was wildly surpirsed at the proof for his exsistence. I already thought there could be a God, on a level of exsistence higher than I could ever understand, is it possible that this man was the son of God? I began to wonder if all of these things really could be the ultimate truth.
As I began to see and understand these things, it scared me because I realized that they infact might be true, and I would have to change. Because of that fear, I began to pretend like it wasnt real, and that the explanation behind that thinking was just me irrationally thinking about things, and wishfully thinking. I could not cope with that idea for long. I have never been one to lie, espescially to myself, and I was not about to deny what was standing right infront of me. I realized that after all that time, I was really going out of my way to make myself believe that God wasnt there, so that I would be more comfortable. To ignore the facts and evdience standing infront of me. I asked for revelation, recived it, but didnt accept it. After I humbled myself to this fact, and admitted that I could be wrong, I realized that I was infact wrong. I realized that there was a God that created everything, and that the reason I was interested in learning about him in the first place was because he wanted a realtionship with me, and I realized that I was not wothy of it, but that the only way it was possible for me to attain that relationship was through Jesus Christ. I wanted to put God into a formula so I could completey understand him, but I had forgetten that part of God's beauty is that you cant fully understand him, and that the real proof of his exsistense is in the people that love him the most.
Friends, what I have just told you does not even due justice to what all happened. The years of athiesm and agnosticism were long, I was more skeptical than anyone you can even imagine, I never imgained I would ever want to know God or love Jesus Christ. I have been an atheist, an Agnostic, looked into Wicca and Islam, I have cursed God, Cursed Jesus, Prayed to Satan, openly told chrisitians I hate them and wished them to die, told christians they are wasting there time and discouraged them from continuing there belief, tryed to deconvert people, thrown away bibles, and played with witchcraft, and after all that, God has still forgiven me. People often downplay the thought of God due to the things of their past. No way, God forgives EVERYTHING.
A big part of the reason I couldnt except the truth about God and Christ was because of my pride. I didnt want to be wrong, and I didnt want to change. I also didnt want to be associated with most of the christian groups that I had seen, I had little in common with alot of them, and they were the complete opposite of what I liked and desired for myself. The beautiful thing I realized though is that NONE of that mattered, and it took me 5 years to realize that. The church is not whats important, the people are not what is important, the label is not what is important, the groups are not what is important! Christianiy is not ABOUT the church, for it is corrupt, its not ABOUT the people, for they are hypocrites, and its not ABOUT the label, because everyone has one, its not about the idea that everyone has about Christianity now days, its not about the false idea that christianity makes yours life perfect, its not about all the people I didnt like that were "Christians"... its about developing a relationship with your creator, and the only way to attain that is through Jesus Christ. And when you realize that that is the only important thing, you realize that they way you feel about those other things are of 0 importance. Nothing else matters except that you have a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ. It is sad that Christianity is plagued with the label it has today, that people make it seem like you cant be who you are and still love Jesus Christ, because you can. Jesus was not some person that was seeking to tell everyone how bad of a person they were, he wasnt trying to take away their freedom of thought, or the ability to be open-minded, or the ability to be who they want to be, he was all about love. He sat at a table with harlots and thieves and loved them the same as everyone else, and that is truly amazing. What kind of regular human being would tell you that if you slugged him on the right cheek, he would stand and offer his left to you? That is not a human thought, and that is what brought people to him, and that is what changed the face of Rome at that time, the love that Christ showed. If anyone could even come close to showing that kind of love, what would happen to the community where that person lived in. What about if 10 people did. Or 100? Or 1000? or even a million? Noone will EVER be able to show love like Christ did, but all God wants is an honest effort, and if you truly believe, Christ WILL show throw you, and that is ultimatley what brings people to God, is the love of Christ inside of them.
I hope that I have shed some light to some people. I spent 5 years searching for the truth, and at the end of the search, Jesus Christ was waiting for me with open arms. God Bless.
