What Made You Decide To Be A Christian?

[NB408]

What made you in awe and completely surrender to him?

[other one]

I met the devil...

 

[Billiards Ball]

On 12/7/2018 at 11:20 PM, NB408 said:

What made you in awe and completely surrender to him?

We are not saved by "completely surrendering to Him". Many people sincerely trust Jesus for salvation and learn to trust Him more, after.

I "gave up" though and trusted Jesus based on experiences with God and reading the NT.

[Still Alive]

I was saved around midnight on a day in 1981 after reading a book. The fascinating thing is that on the very next day my sister (who I rarely talked with) called to invite me to her church. I became a member there for 18 years.

The book I was reading I no longer consider valid, and I've since caught its author in a bald faced lie, but It still brought me to acceptance. The book was titled, "The 1980's, countdown to Armageddon."

And what was the "lie"? It was the caption of a photo. I did an internet search just now and actually found someone posting that very photo including the "lie" caption. https://www.christianforums.com/threads/holy-ghost-on-camera.3043413/#post-24479014

And the specific lie is in the caption: "Many experts examined the 35mm camera, the negative, and the print, but were unable to explain the phenomena logically."

I was a serious amateur photographer back then, and even before I read the caption it was obvious what had happened: Slow shutter speed with flash. The flash is fast (usually at least as high as 1/500th of a second) and takes a clear photo of whatever is primarily lit by the flash. But any ambient light is slave to the shutter speed. So a 1/15 second shutter speed with a wobbly hand and a flash would make all the detail in the dark room clear, but the sunlight hitting the wall would be streaked in the pattern of the hand movement during the time the shutter was opened.

And in this case it included the reverse of that - the iron railing is replicated to look a little like a cross being held (it is very faint and hard to see, but it is there). And the bright sunlight pattern of the window is streaked to look like an angel's wing. 

The reason the caption is a lie is that any experienced photographer would have seen that in a matter of a few seconds. So, maybe those "many experts" were experts in transmission repair, but not photography - if he even ran it by any experts.

People really have to watch very carefully who their bible teachers are.

 

[dr3032]

To be honest, it's rather messy. While I spent a few years at church when I was little, drama between my parents and the other parishioners had my parents leaving the church. As a kid, much of the complexity that makes Christianity what it is just kind of misses the mark. I didn't quite understand it back then.

When atheism became a bit of a fad, and being a bookworm with a scientific mind myself, I bought into it when I was still quite young. I thought any and all answers could be found through science and believing in any sort of holy text made a person stupid - I was an edgy teenager, if you couldn't tell. However, the more that you read and learn, the more you realize just how much you haven't read and haven't learned. I came to realize that I would never know everything, and my intellectual arrogance began to fade. Science is nice, but it's rife with human error and bias. Thinking on the meaning of life and creation, divine creation came to make much more sense than the universe inexplicably exploding and somehow forming existence in all of it's complexity as a complete coincidence. So I sought out possible "divinity".

I first tried looking into spirituality, but it seemed like a bunch of hippie stoner nonsense. I tried applying Buddhist principles to my life for a decent while, with much more of a focus on trying to eliminate my desires. I wished to live my life alone and so I needed to get rid of my sexual urges. All it really did, near as I can recall, was make me a bit kooky. Made those desires worse, really.

Next on my list was Christianity, more on the practicality of having a Bible i'd been given as a child just laying around than much else. I had been reading front cover to back cover, and while still in the OT, I was struggling with those desires deeply. I tried to use willpower to fight it as I lay in bed late one night, to the point of being restless and trembling. I then had an experience that, in my fatigue, I wasn't quite sure if it was a dream or not. I felt a hand on my head, and feeling soothed from it, fell asleep. As I read the OT the next day, it mentioned the laying of hands, and it then the path became clear to me.

So, yeah. It wasn't nearly so noble so much as it was... The scientific process. At least that experience kept me here, lol.

[Jayne]

Let me tell you a story.

I was saved as a child - age 9 - 1970.

I was one of those who went to church all the time.  My parents were heavily involved in our church at the time: Bible studies, singing in the choir, reaching the lost in the community, putting resources into aiding those in the community who needed help, teaching classes to both young people and adults.

Church and the purpose of the church was huge in my family in those days.  Ergo, I was at church or helping out with helping out those in need all of the time.  My dad had to prepare the Lord's Supper?  I was there with him, pouring grape juice into all the little cups as he broke up the crackers.  My mom and some ladies in her Sunday School class were sorting out food for the needy to take to them?  I was there, too, making sure each box got a can of corn.

But I never considered myself as part of the fellowship of those believers.  Why?  I knew that I was just a kid and that all of these activities both inside the church structure and beyond into the community were "adult" things.  I was just a tag-a-long because there was no babysitter.  That's what was in my mind.  

This was my parents' gig - I thought.  I believed there was a God - wholeheartedly.  I knew stories about  Jesus, how he died to save us from our sins, and the Holy Spirit.  I thought, "When I'm an adult....when I'm grown, I'll be a part of all this for my own self."  I was absolutely clueless.  I thought church was like a club you joined when you turned 18.

Then one day, a hot August Sunday in 1970, we had a revival - a youth led revival.  One of the older teens, a boy of 16 who had felt the call to preach, was invited to preach.  Another, led the congregation in singing.  Young ones took up the offering.  Etc.

I remember sitting next to my mother and watching that young man preach.  He must not have had a suit of his own because the one he wore was way too big for him.  "Maybe it was his dad's," I thought.  I also thought, "He can't preach - he's too young.  He's not an adult.  Why is he up there?"

That's when God spoke to me - not audibly, but nonetheless crystal clearly.

He said to me, "No, that's not right.  I can call whoever I want to and today I am calling you."

As I sat there, as understanding began to flood over me, and I pondered that.  Then, I felt another distinct voice - again, not audibly.  It was the Holy Spirit saying, "Now that you know this, what are you going to do?"

During the invitation call, I tugged on my mother's neon green polyester dress [It was 1970, folks].  She bent over and I whispered in her ear, "Mama, I think Jesus wants me to be a Christian.".  She just said, "Well, go tell the preacher that."  [Our regular pastor was standing in front as everyone sang a hymn.] So I walked the aisle [that didn't save me] and shook his hand while he said with a very broad smile, "Well, Kim!" [That didn't save me either]

We talked and prayed.  [Nope, that didn't save me]  And I was baptized later. [You guessed it, getting dunked didn't save me].

Well, when was I saved?  I was saved the moment that I believed what I was told by God and the Holy Spirit and understood that Jesus died for MY sins.  Me!  I believed he was asking ME to follow him.  I believed in and on him, now.  Trusting him.  All of that happened before I tugged on my mother's dress.  The rest was just traditions of men with one command of God [baptism].

I'm 57 now.  That seems like a long time ago and like yesterday.  

I've had to learn a lot.  Like learning about sanctification, daily walking with Christ, growing in the Lord, and more.

I'm still learning.  I hope I always will.

Oh, and that 16-year-old youth preacher?  He's had a decade's long experience as a great man of God, preaching as God calls him to.

[ravindran]

On 12/7/2018 at 11:20 PM, NB408 said:

What made you in awe and completely surrender to him?

God's Grace and Mercy.

[Willa]

God had drawn me to donate to a church that reached out to kids on drugs.  I had never given to any church or group.  The real mystery is that the church had no idea of their urgent need.  I searched for them and found them, and gave them the money.  Afterwards I sat for a bit pondering the problem.  Someone came to the wife of the pastor with a notice that they were overdrawn at the bank.  On the way home I was in awe that God would use me to help provide for them when they didn't even know the extent of their need.  I surrendered to Him right there on the highway, giving Him all my doubts and arguments and all of me.  I could do nothing but make a mess of my life in my own strength.  It was much better to make Him Lord and Master to straighten out the mess and use His word to keep me out of trouble.  

Overwhelming joy suddenly flooded over me till I wept.  Waking up early each morning flooded with joy I would take the Bible outside and read it searching for something that would express what I was feeling.  This went on for days.

[Spookycolt]

When I was 17 I went to a Christian rock concert and in the middle they stopped and asked who wanted to be saved. 

 

I walked down the aisle and accepted Jesus and I don't remember much except for the man saying that once I did that Jesus would NEVER leave me. 

 

The Footprints poem comes to mind. 

 

Fastforward about 4 decades and following a divorce my life was completely gone. I had abandoned God at that point and, well lets just say that it was a dangerous moment for me. 

 

Through the course of a week there were things going on that I can only attribute to God. He stopped certain bad things and literally pulled me out. I looked over it and there is no other explanation for what happened to me other than God. 

 

Even coincidences don't cover it because there were so many. 

 

I literally should not be here now except He wasn't ready for me yet. 

 

After that week I remember what that pastor so long ago said, "he will never leave you", and He didn't when I needed Him the most. 

 

It is at that point that I became a true believer. I can't prove it but I saw His works with my own eyes and I know 100% that He is there. 

[His_Dandelion]

In 1982, My husband and I used to attend a church in Northern Ireland and when it was communion, he would have the bread and the wine and I would get a hand on my head and a blessing.  I used to look at my husband and think, it’s not fair, he is no better than me. ? So I decided to get confirmed.

Confirmed I was, and that same day I flew to England to visit my mum.  She took me to a Pentecostal church, and my ears, eyes and heart heard the gospel for the first time, and received Him as Saviour.  I was saved the same day as I got confirmed.  There must have been a smile on the face of God.  I just love Him!  My husband came to Christ a year later!