I enjoyed your paragraphs, even if one was a bit long. Thanks for sharing from your heart.

I am a Christian; a follower of Jesus Christ. From the depths of my heart I am determined to know him, love him and obey him in all matters of life and death. Regardless of how miserably or frequently I fail, I will make amends and rise to the task again.

My parents were Christians, and my father as a member of Campus Crusade for Christ witnessed to me as a 5 year old child. I prayed as earnestly for God to save me from hell because I had sinned against him and Jesus had died for my sins. As I grew, I had many forays into evil followed frequently by tearful repentance. Eventually the tears stopped and I entered vehemently upon what I call my “dark and wayward Youth.” In those dark days I once told another Campus Crusader who came to my dorm room to “share Christ” to leave me alone. I knew it was real and it worked for my Father and Mother, but not for me. The spring before the summer I was going to turn 25 years old, I found myself in a dark corner of life with little prospect of recovery, and probably a short life span given my acquired life style and companions. For instance, one had acquired three incurable diseases and lay dying in a hospital and another’s car was blown up in the parking lot by adversaries. I found myself wondering why Christianity had been so real for my parents but not for me? By this time of my life, I had seriously squandered all the advantages of life that had come my way and rebelled profusely against church and Christians… the bunch of hypocrites! But that spring, I realized there had also always been a sincere, loving, and kind group of followers of Christ such as my Father and Mother among others. I realized I was wrong, really wrong. My sin became really sinful. Sinners born in sin, living all their lives in sin surrounded by sin, spend their lives fabricating explanations of how harmless and innocent is sin. But one sin ruptures the perfect fabric of righteousness and mars the beauty of holiness such that the only remedy for the preservation of right is the eradication of what is evil. It is the office and work of the Holy Spirit to shine the light of truth upon the sins of men and their wages. I deserved hell for my willful rebellion against God’s goodness, such hateful arrogance and defiance of such love and generosity. There was no hope in me of redemption, but I knew I should stop doing wrong. I determined that as best I could for my remaining days I would obey God’s law, until I died and God put me in hell which I had so eagerly and earnestly earned. In those moments I found myself desiring that God would show me, just for a moment, the truth of the reality of God himself. Remove the blindness for a few seconds, open the door just a crack, and let me see the God of eternity in his glory, and then close it and put me in hell where I belonged. No great epiphany occurred; no lightning, no visions. However, I arose and set about to do as I had vowed. I knew I needed to read the Bible to freshen up on what I needed to do, so I picked a small book, the epistle of James, and started stopping my evil ways, making amends with those I had offended, and going back to church. Mysteriously and curiously, I found that I now enjoyed doing what the Bible said. I found great desire to find out what the Bible required, and do it. I thought this would be as temporary as the other reformations I had experienced in earlier life, but found a certain peace and determined to enjoy it until I fell again into sin or died. I was pleasantly confused. I was enjoying being an obedient Christian, but I had not asked God to save me, nor had I made any profuse tearful repentance as in former years. Yet I continued to enjoy forsaking the ways of the world and pursuing the truth of Jesus Christ. At first I did not share this with anyone because I feared it might be temporary as before and I did not want to shame the gospel of Christ again. I finally started telling people “that God had given me a new stability as a Christian I had never known before.” God was speaking to me through his word and my prayers seemed to be heard and answered.

Eventually I understood from reading the book of Hebrews, and the preaching of the Psalms, that I had been saved by the Grace of God. When I was five, I was trying to save myself from trouble. When I was 25, I just wanted to see Him. I just wanted to know God, if only for a few moments.

In that moment, God knew me in a way I have not been able to explain, but I have lived and enjoyed for these thirty years and will for all eternity. I thought something was different when I arose that night, I have been discovering how great that difference is ever since. God has given me a wonderful life, wife and children, education and prosperity. Nearly fifteen years ago, I was ordained and served as a elder/pastor for ten years.

About three years ago, in the heat of some things, I felt that the best choice was to resign my eldership and leave that church. I joined another very small church. I realized a very shocking thing about my relationship with Christ and my practice of Christianity. I have been a very conservative and Bible-believing Christian, but I found that I had become the very hypocrite that I despised as a youth. Though I was not living a perfect life, I was not living a double life as many think of hypocrisy today. My hypocrisy was that of Matthew 7. I was Biblical in belief, but I was not Christ-like in practice! As the Pharisees had become so “Biblically correct” and full of themselves they had no time for sinners or for God; so I had become very self-righteous and condemning of others. If our lives were glasses of water, I was very good at seeing the half-empty portion of another person’s glass, but could only see the full portion of my glass. While I have not forsaken one whit of the truth of the Bible, I have seriously modified my approach to individuals and the truth. God has always seen my empty portion, and yet he has been faithful and compassionate to me all these years. Should I not do the same with others? How can I put water in other people’s glasses? How can I bless their lives as God has blessed mine? I somewhat shocked the Adult Bible Study class of the church I left when I told them that “Christ didn’t die for the truth, he died for sinners. “ If I use the truth in a brutal manner and alienate sinners from Christ, then I am ‘truthfully’ contrary to the purpose of the cross. While I was a ‘truthful’ Christian, I was not a loving and compassionate Christian. May God have mercy upon me and those I affected. The objective is not just to declare the truth, but to see souls embrace the truth and be saved from their sins.

My great dilemma is that telling the truth alone does not change the heart of men. God’s Grace must be given. The Father must draw them. The Spirit of God must open their hearts, quicken the heart and soul of a man. Contemporary Christianity, in both its liberal and conservative forms is desperately lacking the presence and the power of the Spirit of God. I pray for the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Finding God is not an argument of the intellect. Though the rational debate of the existence of God might be won by the theologian, spiritual life is not a scientific pursuit. Sin is not a problem of the mind, but of the heart. It is out of the heart that evil proceeds. Though with the mind, we learn of God from His Word, the Holy Spirit works in the innermost secret recesses of the heart and finding God is a search in the solitude of one’s own heart. When you search for God with all your heart, then you find him.

The God who simply said “Let there be light” and there was light has enough power to make bumps grow on our head when we became Christians. This would plainly solve the dilemma of who is saved and who is not. We would not tell another person, “He got saved,” we probably would say “He has a bump, Hallelujah!” I myself had been something a professing Christian without really being a Christian. A bump would have done me good. But that is not how God has done it. You can literally have two individuals that by all external evidence are doing the same thing, living the same way, and yet one is saved and one is not. Why is that?

I cannot really answer for God on this question I have posed, but I will give my thinking. I think it is because God is love. I believe God loves his children personally and privately. As sin is a private thing of the heart, so knowing God is a private thing of the heart. It is not in great theatrical manifestations that the love of God is known in the heart. It is in the quite silence and solitude of one’s own heart and thoughts that the reality of God is known and felt. It is that presence and peace in the heart that causes us to prevail in great trials, even a trial of death! When I have messed up, I eventually realize that my heart is lonely and cold. Where is my God? O GOD!! Where are you and what have I done? I seclude and humble myself. I read the Bible and pray. I wait on Him until he answers. He shows me my fault, I see it in His Word, I repent and fellowship is restored.

One day I will see Him face to face. I will know him as He has known me. I will, as we all will, give an account for every thought, word, and deed of this life. I will cast myself at his feet. My faith will be sight. I will be in the presence of the one I love, and I will no longer have a problem being obedient.

In my professional life, I am an engineer and work with science and numbers hour after hour. But many will not grant this post of my personal experience and belief the benefit of being scientific. So I knew at the beginning, and I am grateful for those that have read it to this point. With the mind, we perceive God and his truth. We comprehend and know the truth. But it is with the heart we know him and love him. Who can scientifically show their heart and love?

It is exceedingly ironic that the one who created the eye and ear cannot be seen or heard by them. The one who created the mind cannot be comprehended by it. Indeed, the one who created the heart is not loved by it unless the Spirit of God quickens the truth to that person. I pray someone will be quickened. May God know you as He has known me.

As for Larry Bates, I suspect he has a heart like mine; quickened but not perfect; right on some things; wrong on others. As for his positions, I share your concern over the economy. I think the current economic developments may dwarf all the events of the twentieth century. I suspect a global struggle is afoot in the shadows of the government and financial corridors of the world. However, my hope is in the Lord God Almighty that made heaven and earth. I have been praying for the whole world, my generation, to have their hearts touched by the living word. I am asking my God for souls to be saved on a scale that can only be measured by His own great power and love for mankind as demonstrated by the death and resurrection of His Own Son for sinners. This may be the beginning of the best of times and of the worst of times.

So you can only know what it is you’ve converted to if you’re already converted?

Actually, Lisa, the “reason for the season” is the winter solstice. Long before Christianity existed, pagans were celebrating the winter solstice…with decorations that included holly, mistletoe and evergreen trees. Christians merely adopted these traditions and co-opted them into their beliefs. The truth is that nobody knows what time of year Jesus was born, if he ever existed.