Posted on 06/23/2021 1:48:10 PM PDT by CondoleezzaProtege
I know I speak for many a believer who feels a burden for a loved one, neighbor/colleague/friend to come to the fullness of faith in Christ.
The dynamics at work in the spiritual lives of children and adults are different for obvious reasons...Simply by virtue of adults having had more life experience, more ideas to consider, etc...
So for those of you who are willing, can you summarize what made you ultimately decide to be a Christian? And if there were any individuals who played a role, how so? And vice versa: what or who may have contributed to your initial hesitancy, if any.
This is an ecumenical thread so Catholic, Orthodox Protestant/Evangelical all apply.
Yes the LORD YESHUA appeared to me in a dream, and called me to follow him at 35.
Messianic Jew(ess - in keeping with)
If you have a minute please read my profile page.
😉
Christ found/saved me in 1993 at age 41.
I went from a strong Catholic to a hedonsistic/Atheist lifestyle for 15 years from age 18 to 33, now back to Christianity.
I have some lapses now and then but going in the right direction.
I went from a Catholic Christian to a non-Catholic Christian as a teen but was always a Christian.
The Bible is full of characters that stumbled in their walk my friend.
King David and Peter “The Rock” come to mind, so do not be deterred brother.
And as we like to say in our church...ME TOO.
I didn’t know Jesus until I got married at 33. My wife was the one who introduced us. I knew she was a Holy-Roller when I married her, but she never forced me to go to church. She just got up and went every Sunday and then to her church groups through the week. She only asked that I keep the cursing and drinking to a minimum (I had been on active duty for 15 years by the time we married).
My last deployment was a tough one. Not only did I leave her with two littles, but that deployment was a rough.
I started going to church with her and the kids when I got home. Can’t explain it, but it felt like I was trespassing.
At one point the Pastor started talking about sin and how Jesus paid the price for it, but as humans we have a hard time letting it go, so he had us write our deepest darkest stuff on a 4 x 8 card and then come up to the front of the church. He had the prayer team up there and we prayed and then that card, with all that hurt and embarrassment, went right into an industrial shredder.
It was a glorious experience and it took a ton of weight off my shoulders. I gave my life to Jesus right then and there and was baptized about two weeks later.
Loving everyday!
Messianic Jew....could you educate me?
I became a Christian in college (1980). Not sure if you consider that an adult conversion. I was raised in a very liberal protestant denomination and assumed I was a Christian, so I joined a Christian fellowship group on campus at the beginning of my freshman year. I very quickly noticed a huge difference between these people and the people I grew up with in the church my family attended. I realized that I really didn’t even believe in God. I started meeting with the person who ran the group and started asking lots of questions. I read Josh McDowell and CS Lewis and other Christian apologists who were popular at the time. At some point in the middle of all that God tugged on my heart and I gave my life to Him.
Raised Roman Catholic.
Left in 1995.
Don’t get caught up in legalism or denominations.
Believe and be Saved!
Romans 10:9-13
John 6:29
Acts 16:31
Mark 16:16
As with many, a personal crises brought me back to God and Christ.
For whatever reason, 40 years seems almost a biblical theme...
Christ was invited into my heart at around 22 years of age.
Salvation in Messianic Judaism is achieved only through acceptance of Jesus as one's savior, and Jewish law does not contribute to salvation.
Belief in Jesus as a messiah and divine is considered by Jews to be the defining distinction between Christianity and Judaism. Evangelical groups usually accept Messianic Judaism as a form of Christianity.
Adherents of Messianic Judaism believe that the movement is a sect of Judaism. In Hebrew they tend to refer to themselves as maaminim ("believers"), not converts, and yehudim ("Jews"), not notzrim ("Christians"). Jewish organizations reject this framing, and the Supreme Court of Israel has rejected this claim in cases related to the Law of Return, and instead consider Messianic Judaism to be a form of Christianity.
I hope this helped.
Nice, thanks!
I actually both reasoned and empirically tested myself back to Christianity / Catholicism.
I learned the wages of sin are indeed death
God’s commandments, through the Bible, are the only path towards a stable society which minimizes human suffering
The natural law is written on the hearts of all people in the same way, even those in Asia and Africa I met who never knew Christianity
If absolute good/God exists, then evil/Satan must exist also. The forces of evil work in the same way now as they did when the Bible was written.
The ultimate sacrifice of Jesus Christ is a kind of spiritual, philosophical, as well as historical apotheosis of religion. Nothing in human thought or experience has bested this since.
What a testimony bro!
My WWII vet grandfather just could not accept that a loving God could forgive him for lord knows whatever he did throughout life.
Pride is a major tool the enemy uses.
I really believe your testimony could help out Vets.
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