What convinced you?

[Trajork]

So, I signed up a while back meaning to ask this question, but never got around to it. I'm sure this question has been asked many times before, but I'd really like to know. What convinces people to go from being a nonbeliever to being a Christian? I'm especially interested to hear stories from people on these forums who were once nonreligious but eventually converted to Christianity.

For some background about myself, I've been agnostic for pretty much all my life. I suppose I've always wanted to believe in something, but I can't find any reason to do so. I've had the occasional spiritual feeling from time to time, but every time I attempt to explore religion, I come back disillusioned, finding no reason to think it's not just a psychological thing. That said, I'm not trying to disprove Christianity (or any other religion) either - it seems like an amazing experience, but I just can't convince myself of its validity.

I'll probably have more specific questions later. Thanks in advance!

 

[Joveia]

I grew up in a loving non-Christian family, and have no Christian relatives. My only contact with Christianity was the Christian private school I was sent to, but wasn't friends with any of the kids there who were 'actively religious'. I became very sick (won't go into it) and I dropped out of school. At this time I had a huge interest in science fiction. One day I was randomly browsing the Internet and I read a comic about the end times in Christianity that someone had drawn. Apart from the religious bits near the end I thought it sounded like a cool science fiction story of a future one-world dictatorship. Kind of like '1984' by Orwell. I decided to read Revelations to see whether it really had a cool sci fi 'dystopia' plot. I decided that I should probably read more of the Bible to get a clear understanding of what it was about - you don't read the last chapter of a novel. I didn't start at the Old Testament because I knew it was boring, so I decided to read the Gospel of Matthew to contextualise Revelation. I found what I read really amazing and felt that I should become a Christian. I suddenly realised I really wanted to become one. So I became a Christian then and started going to church four years later.

 

[Bible2]

What convinces people to go from being a nonbeliever to being a Christian?

What convinces people to become Christians is their reading (or hearing) what God says in the Bible: "So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God" (Romans 10:17). But when reading (or hearing) what God says in the Bible, people must be careful not to harden their hearts (or minds) against him: "While it is said, To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts" (Hebrews 3:15). God himself then convinces people (they can never convince themselves) by giving them his miraculous gift of faith: "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God" (Ephesians 2:8); "Therefore said I [Jesus Christ] unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father" (John 6:65).

Jesus himself then comes and lives within the hearts of believers and they know without any doubt how much he and God the Father love them: "That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God" (Ephesians 3:17-19).

 

[Van]

Hi Trajork, my testimony misses your mark because I was raised in a Christian home. I had had little or no experience with people who publicly said they did NOT believe in God. So while many I suppose actually did not, I was unaware. But what I was aware of was that I did not measure up to Christ's standard of character.

When I was 15 years old, at a church camp, I shared a cabin with others attending the camp. At one end of the cabin, 3 or 4 of us from my church were in a room, then in a middle room, were two strangers, and at the far end another larger room with four others. Just before we went to sleep, as our Pastor was praying with us, the two boys started giggling. So the Pastor spoke louder so we could hear, and boys just laughed louder. After the prayer, the Pastor opened the door to the laughing boys room and said, "If you were my boys, I would beat the tar out of you." I smiled and thought to myself, Right on! Well the next morning, the Pastor went into those boys room, and apologized, telling them how sorry he was. I was blown away. Our Pastor was "different" from me, because the way I saw it, it was the boys who should have apologized. I knew that our Pastor was "really" a Christian, and I was not.

So it was not being convinced God existed and had revealed Himself through what He had made and His Word, because I did not question that part of my "faith" but rather is was being convicted of my "wretched" character, and desiring to become Christ-like that convinced me not only to trust in Christ as my savior, but to follow Christ as my Lord, forsaking my self-centeredness.

 

[kevlite2020]

So, I signed up a while back meaning to ask this question, but never got around to it. I'm sure this question has been asked many times before, but I'd really like to know. What convinces people to go from being a nonbeliever to being a Christian? I'm especially interested to hear stories from people on these forums who were once nonreligious but eventually converted to Christianity.

For some background about myself, I've been agnostic for pretty much all my life. I suppose I've always wanted to believe in something, but I can't find any reason to do so. I've had the occasional spiritual feeling from time to time, but every time I attempt to explore religion, I come back disillusioned, finding no reason to think it's not just a psychological thing. That said, I'm not trying to disprove Christianity (or any other religion) either - it seems like an amazing experience, but I just can't convince myself of its validity.

I'll probably have more specific questions later. Thanks in advance!

Hello Trajork,

I think my testimony may be helpful to you here, or at least close to what you're looking for. I was actually raised Jewish. They never pushed their faith on me though or really taught me much about Judiasm so my belief wasn't strong in any way. I did get Bar-mitzvahed at 13, but never went to a temple after that. I don't want to say I was a non-believer at any point in my life, because I think I've always believed there was a God. Just at that point in my life, I didn't care about this God at all, I wasn't willing to read even one verse of the Bible to figure out who this God is. I thought He was some distant thing that created the world and disappeared as fast as He made it.

So I never asked the big questions about life and I never talked religion with anyone. In fact, if people started talking about religion, I would literally just walk out of wherever I was at. Total avoidance. I went to college, did miserable. I started abusing substances to try and find happiness and fell flat. I eventually dropped out of my first college. I then fell in love with a girl and moved in with her, hoping that loving her and maybe marrying her would bring me happiness. But because of my attitude and lack of purpose for anything in life, the relationship fell apart after 3 years and again I was lost. I had also enrolled in another college which I flunked out of. I then moved in with a friend from high school, and I got addicted to world of warcraft and other similar type games. I looked for happiness there and was completely miserable with my life, but unwilling to do anything about it.

Eventually, my roommate came to know Jesus and I watched quietly as his life changed from all partying and getting trashed and having so many regrets, to being a leader, a strong, happy man, who was just satisfied with life no matter what was going on around him. I wanted that. I still didn't trust religious people though, so I did not allow him to talk to me about religion. But finally my curiosity had been peaked enough to check it out for myself.

From there, I read the Bible. I also read many articles from Jewish rabbis and many articles from atheists. I read everything I could find about creation and evolution. I approached it all as unbiasedly as I could.

After 1 1/2 years, maybe closer to 2, I finally came to a point where I was so overwhelmed in believing Jesus Christ is the Lord and the things it says about God and Jesus in the Bible are not just fairy tales, but actually real. I understood that I did sin, and that it wasn't okay to just let those sins go unnoticed but that I needed forgiveness for them. It was then I brought Jesus Christ into my life. That was slightly over a year ago. Since then, my life has changed completely and I'm more happy and satisfied then I ever have been.

If this helps you to understand my point of view, let me put it like this. When I did all that research, I THOUGHT Jesus Christ was probably real. When I actually accepted Him into my life, and the feelings, emotions, and everything that immediately followed that decision, I KNEW Jesus Christ is real.

Feel free to ask me any questions about any of this on here or via PM Hope this was helpful friend!

 

[Criada]

I was an atheist until I was 19. I was brought up in a nominally Christian home, but by a father who was very interested in eastern religions, and who valued an 'open mind' above everything else.
I read a lot of literature from many religions as a teenager, and developed a vague sense in the 'mystical' without any particular religious affiliation. At about 18 I started seriously exploring different religions in an attempt to find the truth.
Christianity was the one I kept coming back to, because it seemed to be the only one that really worked. Everything else I read talked about 'earning' a place in paradise, enlightenment etc, and as far as I could see, there was no way I could ever do that. As a fallible human, I seemed to be doomed to failure.
Christianity was the only faith that recognised my humanity, and provided a way out, a God who loved me enough to sacrifice Himself because He knew I couldn't make it. I needed a saviour, I knew that, and everyone else seemed to expect me to make it on my own.
So, really, it was the only one that made sense... and my conversion was more an intellectual decision than an act of faith. Faith grew slowly afterwards, as I saw more and more that Jesus really did keep the promises He made, and the Bible made sense.

I hope that makes some sense to you... everyone's journey is very different, and the experiences of another are not always helpful.

 

[98cwitr]

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