I hope you all don't mind me asking...........(this was done ages ago, but now we have lots more new christians joined us from then, so its good to get some new feed back)

For those of you that once idn't really follow God / Jesus, then one day decide to be christian

What was it that gave you that lil extra push? What made you finally decide - this is for me ?

Care to share your story??

I for one will be fully intrested in your posts, because it helps me and maybe a few others here too, understand as to WHY one all of a sudden can make a decision and run with it...how it makes them feel ect.......................................


thanks

PS I dont want any wise cracks from non believers lol

It would have been if you would have also asked the opposite question:

What turned you from a believer to a disbeliever?

Anyway does this only apply to christians or just anyone who believes in God?

Make a new thread for that then

No I'll leave that up to you

Why did I decide to become a Christian? I guess the short answer is I ran out of effective arguments for why I wasn't a sinner. I argued myself in circles and lost. The arguments didn't fit together, too much was missing. I was vaguely aware of the Christian teachings of sin, although my family were never Christian I guess I picked it up secondhand somewhere, and some time into this process I began to suspect that it was relevant to me and what I was doing, but I did not accept it. When I finally stopped arguing and realized that there was no way around it, I was a sinner, God revealed Himself to me one night. I don't know quite how to explain it but I'll try. I was quite miserable with this newfound knowledge that I was mired in wrong and would never be able to change, completely, as my best efforts fell short after so long. During a conversation with a friend about death, I had to admit that I was bound for Hell. Later, He manifested Himself to me in a way that made the air crackle around me (remember, no wisecracks, I realize this is hard to swallow) and I asked Him to do what He promised to and make me a new person.

I had reached the point where I was not trying to bargain with God anymore or buy my way into His graces with deeds. My conscience could not avoid anymore what was going on. He was speaking to me for a while before I knew who He was or what was going on. I only perceived it as a troubled conscience and general displeasure with my life that I was not able to explain away or satisfy. My heart was such (humbled) that it was ready to respond to His call, so I knew Him when He showed Himself.

Uh... I'm probably leaving out something important but I'm trying to get the little scallywags in bed right now, so I'm distracted. I'll log off for a while and come back in a half-hour or so.

I know it sounds kooky, but there you have it.

I became a Christian because God "made" me. I'm glad he did. I didn't believe in him. I hated those who did and thought them to be "ignorant and stupid." Than one day God slapped me in the face, knocked me on the ground, and we had a nice little (but slightly painful) heart to heart....since then I've been on his side...I will be forever. It's one of the reasons I laugh at those who try to convince me that he doesn't exist...like in the movie Flightplan, when the lady's daughter is kidnapped, and everyone says that she didn't come on the plane with a little girl. And she searches for her daughter. And they called her crazy, and tried desperately to convince her that her daughter was never with her when she KNOWS she brought her daughter on the plane...I won't spoil the end, but it's a good movie to watch...

Growing up, I didn't go to church very often, only once or twice a year. I learned about God through my parents and the Catholic school I attended. (Not catholic, parents didn't want to send me to public school) Then came my dad's death (I was 14) and I literally hated God for taking him away from me. For many years I avoided God and anything associated with Him. I partied a lot and ran around with a tough crowd. Fast forward 10 years...I was w/my mom while she was paying her rent at the church across the street from her house. While she was talking to the secretary, I decided to have a little walk and wandered into the sanctuary. Within a few moments, I felt something deep inside of me. The only way I know how to describe it is homesickness. I felt that something had been missing in my life and I now knew what that was. For the next 3 yrs., I studied with different religions, going to various churches, all to quench my sudden desire to know God and be close to Him. I found a wonderful church that I've been attending for 13 yrs. now. I am so in awe that God still loves me, even though I ran so far from Him.

I was brought up in a Catholic home... sort of. Back in the 60s, Mexicans were basically Catholic by default, but we rarely went to church. My father, who I have always loved and respected was always looking for something... he knew there was something in his life missing, so we tried the Mormon church, but my father found things he disagreed with. And we basically, went back to "being" Catholic.

I was never a bad kid, but I was also far from perfect. Being the oldest of four I was expected to be a good example, so I was, and I just was careful not to do "bad" things where my younger siblings could see. I started drinking at 13, and hid it well from my parents and brothers, if it hadn't been for one of my older cousins who made sure I got amazingly drunk at his wedding, I would have probably continued drinking, but even at 13, the absolutely horrible feelings I had were enough to convince me I would never EVER do that again.

When I was 14, my mother was invited to attend a church, a Protestant church! We attended, but my Dad was unable to because he was out of town. The day we attended, the 8th Grade group, which I was invited to attend, happened to be talking about the week leading up to Christ's crucifixion. Although I had been a "Christian" all my life, I had never even opened a Bible. But when we read that day, I completely understood! I actually went home and found our King James Version Bible (we actually had one) and I read the whole book of Matthew! I knew this was true! Knew it in a way I could not understand or explain. But I didn't do anything about it. We went back to the church the next Sunday, and the one after that, and on the fourth visit, my father was able to go with us and he enjoyed it. So, we continued attending as a family. About 2 months after we began to attend ( I had now read the 4 Gospels on my own and was reading Acts), my father sat us all down and told us that his whole life he had known that there was something missing in his life and that he had finally found out what it was, a relationship with God! He told us that he and my mom had accepted Christ as their Savior. He encouraged us to consider doing so, but did not pressure us at all. Several nights later, in my bed, I began to think about what my Dad had said, and about how I had felt the first time I read the Bible, how I had KNOWN it was true, and I could feel that something was happening (if I had been in a movie, there would have been a musical crescendo at this point), and then I found myself talking to God, and just feeling His presence all around me, palpably so, and I asked Him to forgive me, and I asked Him to come into my life. I KNOW God is real, know it with every fiber of my being, I KNOW He forgave my sins and is part of my life.

Well, most people became Christians because they took someone's word for it. The day when Christians will pick up the Bible as one of many history books to prove their faith and back up their claims will be the day when Christianity will become more logical. Taking a stranger's word is naive and it is un-biblical. The Bible says in 1st Thessalonians 5:21 "Prove all things" So, please do so the next time you attempt to convert an independent mind who desires honest answers.

The church has skeletons, but there is hope for a new beginning.

I used to have no direction to my life. I was happy going to my friend's house every weekend (and sometimes weekdays too) and get stoned and/or drunk (from about 15 or 16 yrs old onward). I would go through Fairfield (where I live) and damage stuff just for the sake of it (one time, there was a bin one block away from the fire station and I set it on fire, just to see how long it would take for them to come. Another time, I went to the lawnbowls facility at Fairfield RSL, pulled the spokes up from the buckets that held the bowls, and on a whim tore the well-tended lawn up with the metal spokes. And this is just a little taste - graffitti, throwing bins on my schoolyard roof and more).

I continued to take pot and alcohol. Then my girlfriend died on me in December 1998, along with a friend of mine at a beach when a rip formed. I dropped out of uni midway through my first year in 1999. I got off the pot, but increased my alcohol intake and moved into speed and ecstacy and acid. I was swearing every second word, going to nightclubs and getting trashed, looking for the next big high in life. Except that the next big high never came. I would quite often enjoy myself, but I found myself being generally a miserable person. I was in an ever-downward spiral of harm and self-loathing.

I found myself asking myself - What am I doing with my life? Where is it going? Am I making the world a better place? Silence answered me.

And then God answered me. All the bad that I've done. All the evil, all the wrongs I've caused. As some of you know, I grew up believing in God, but not in any particular version and not really caring about this creator-force (I guess you could say I was Deist, though I didn't know the term at the time). Then I asked myself where I was going. This God who I believed in, what would he think of me?

Thinking back to my knowledge of the Bible, which was primarily Old Testament stuff - my parents followed a belief structure heavily influenced by the Jews and their Holy festivals such as Passover, Tabernacles, Trumpets, Unleavened Bread, etc.... my parents never mentioned Jesus or anything about him - they were primarily concerned with a works based doctrine and looking to the coming kingdom of God.

Anyhow, what I'd heard about this Jesus bloke made sense to me. I'd heard about Jesus through a couple of Christian friends of mine (they weren't friends at the time, not really - I barely knew them, I became good friends later though). What struck me was their completely selfless attitudes. It was so different to my own. Everything they did, they did for other people. They also were at this beach when the rip formed, they also lost friends (they were probably closer to them than I was). And while I was busy self-destructing, they were there, taking time out of their lives to help me. ME. Someone they neither knew, nor had any reason to care about. They put their own feelings aside, to concentrate on the well-being of what was essentially a stranger to them.

They embodied everything it was to be Christian. In among this, I read the Bible properly. By "properly", I mean actually reading the text, not just skimming through it to find contradictions to argue with people who were stupid enough to believe in it (that's what I used to think of the Bible). To cut a long story short, I came to the conclsuion that what I was reading made sense. The overriding theme I saw was that god was a loving being who was willing to forgive me, despite all the wrongs I had done (using drugs, drinking heavily, graffiti, vandalism and more, I had done some pretty terrible things). So I made the decision to dedicate my life to God.

From that day on, I've been a changed person. Instead of getting angry and hating people, I'm more tolerant and loving of them and their needs. rather than thinking of myself, i think of others. I've gone back to uni to complete a different degree and am now studying to be a Drama Teacher. I have direction again. My life is not driven by money or desire for status, or seeking the next big thrill, but rather it is driven by the wants and needs of others.

Would I still be down that destructive path without God? I don't know. I think I probably would be, but I can't say for sure. I know people will say that God was just a way my psyche used to get itself out of a situation that it could easily have gotten out of on its own, and yes, I know that others have done just that, without God in the picture. The point is that for me, it was God, and I thank God every single day that He pulled me from that wreck that was my old life.

Sorry for the long post, my testimony is not something that can be gone over quickly. Hope this helped

Regards, PA

Well, I don't see any thing saying current non-believers can't answer, so I'll say how I once became a Christian before becoming an atheist again.

My parents were taking me to church since age 1. The longest ago I can actually remember Church is when I was 4-5 years old. Our church had what they call "Kids Kingdom" which would be a bunch of classes based on age groups that went on while the adults were in service.
Typically, you would go to kids kingdom, study the Bible for an hour, have a snack, study it for another hour, then your parents would come and pick you up (This is why, even though I'm an atheist.. well, 9 years or so of Bible studying 5 or 6 hours a week gives you a bit of knowledge of what the thing says).
So.. I grew up going to church twice a week, and a local group of families in the church that would meet for a Bible study every week for 2 hours.
Around when I was 10 or 11 my parents began telling me to read the Bible on a daily basis, if I missed Bible reading one day it would be like not doing a chore, I didn't like reading the Bible all the time like that because I didn't yet have much of an attention span or interest in history.
Then about 12 and 13 I was getting to the point where I had to study the Bible even more often with our church's teen leaders. This was when you're supposed to be preparing to get baptized, or "born again", and most people did so at 13 or 14. When you got baptized everyone treated it as some sacred thing and a very big deal, you'd have to prepare a short speech and you'd do it and they'd ask "what is your confession?" And you'd answer "Jesus is lord". Then they'd dunk you into a tank of water and everyone would cry and clap.

But all awhile, throughout my experiences at Church, something didn't feel right. I didn't enjoy going to church, the people at church were all very uptight and not personable or "fun" type of people. It wasn't a good atmosphere to me, and I wondered why a place of worship would feel like that. I didn't like church, I didn't like the summer church camps, I didn't like the monthly teen activities, nor the weekly Bible talks. I didn't like compulsory bible reading, prayers began to feel one-sided. I still believed in God, it just began to seem that everything "godly" was beginning to be undesirable to me, although I still had no doubt that God exists. Then, eventually... I finally began to doubt whether God was real or not. After all, everyone was telling me to have a relationship with him, but I felt like he wasn't there. All Christians say they have a "relationship with God", but I couldn't see anything that appeared to be God in my life. no signs, no signals, nothing.

So, after a while, with the help of doubt, I was able to pull the blinders off and read the Bible without a bias. It was quickly evident at that this Jehovah I had spent my life worshiping was a myth.

There's my little tale of there and back again , sorry if you didn't want this kind of thing BM, I just thought I'd share a little more of my story with Christianity.

I was never the church type person ..did not grow up in any type of christain home . around the age of 15 -16 or so parents started going to church and I never could get "into" it it bored me to death. never was a nice person to any one but never was in to much trouble like steeling damaging things .. got into trouble for fighting and skipping school. left home round the age of 18 quit school got involved with weed and drinking.my life was now focused on getting stoned.how high could i get. whatever it took to stay high and not come down. it just didnt satisfy me hunger for it. Got wrapped up in a online video game it was all i could think of was totally addicted to it.years went by kept seeking for more couldnt quince it. on a Run one day hunting some smoke something came over me and I told myself i gotta go to church.why i didnt know.just at the oddest time in my life..that same night i went.i had no intention of changing my life.my ways my habits..my pleasures.i went back im not sure why i just did, conviction hit me..i layed at an alter forever it seemed..i needed God and only God could satisfiy my hunger..i didnt want the ways of god when i went but before i left the second time i knew i couldnt live without him..i had to have God and i wasnt leaveing untill i got what i wanted..ive been deliverd from weed tobacco wrath and bitterness since then my life has been nothing but joy .i have trails and tribualtions but i know God can bring me through no matter what comes my way..

WOW some really great stories there from you all..I am glad you all took the time to post it....

Now all I have to do is get through each one and get back here

at the moment i dont have much time..so much to do, so lil time to do it

i'll be back

Can i ask you Heather, when talking with your friend about death...what brought the subject of death into your head??

And if you dont mind, what made you think, you were bound for hell??

Intresting Joe...you went to a different church, invited by your mom..............you began for the 1st time in your life, pick up a bible

Can I ask why did you never bother with the bible when you were catholic ..(before you went to a prod church)

cheers

That's a good question, BM. One reason I had never read the Bible was because, at least in Mexico, the Catholic Church discouraged people from reading it. They said it was not understood by "uneducated" people and would only result in confusion. (Which, I have to say they were sort of right about, but instead of discouraging reading the Bible, they should have switched from Latin to Spanish and actually done some Bible study). So, add to that the fact that I was only 14 years old, not an age where one is particularly interested in reading books written in Old English, and it becomes easy to see why I had never read it. The reason I became so excited about reading the Bible was because someone was actually explaining it to me, it was a New International Version Bible written in more modern English, and I was being encouraged to read and ask questions! I have now read the Bible from cover to cover several times, actually found resources that help understand the Bible, and have the Holy Spirit to provide understanding.

Thats terrible Joe....really is..not to forget INSULTING..........I can't believe they didn't want you to read the bible...it is as if they were trying to hide stuff

Any wonder you took to another christian faith

I was made read the bible in religious studies in catholic school...thats when i got kicked out for questioning it...bummer! LOL

Well my friend brought it up, it was just one of those really philosophical conversations, you know... "Where do you think you'll go when you die, what do you think happens?" The best way I can think to relate what took place inside of me when asked that question (even though I had given it thought and talked about it at length with many people, both in a sober condition and... otherwise) is, to say that something that had been hovering around my conscious awareness and trying to get in, got through that time. It was more that I stopped pretending to myself that it wasn't so, and admitted the truth to myself on a conscious level, and it completely reorganized and restructured my understanding of EVERYTHING in a moment. It was the truest thing I ever realized, and I understood that I had been fooling myself before that moment. And I had never been exposed to church really, or "religious" people, like everyone else I had gleaned the basics from reading and such, but it was never a valid "belief system" to me and I completely discounted it for my whole life. I saw the whole world with more clarity than I had before.

Why did I think I was bound for hell? I don't know, I just did. It was a conviction, a voice that came from inside me. It was a gut knowledge. It was either Him speaking to me, or my conscience acknowledging the obvious. I knew, I guess, that I had not been good enough to be near God.

All I can say is WOW...kinna like a calling??

It could have been both Heather, God speaking to you through your conscience?? Me thinks it was..IMO of course

you did what I did, you followed a gut feeling

I never used to mind talking about death, because death never used to bother me...EVER!!

untill now...only because I am a mother now and am fully responcible for someone elses life..that I believe was granted by God

I have answered this in considerable detail elsewhere, but it seems to be a fairly rare experience, so just briefly.

God, and particularly his angels, didn't really give me any choice about it. They came busting into my life over the years, saving it on occasion, showing alternate futures on others, and changing the outcomes of those futures when they felt like it. God is as real as the air I breathe.

I am not sure if he is "just' a christian god, although his actions mirror the experiences of those actions and interventions you read about in the bible. In other cultures different aspects of him may predominate.

He can manipulate space, time and energy, and from my experience is not only capable of, but choses to, intervene in the lives of individuals.

Why did I make the decision?

Hmm, well, I certainly wasn't brought up in religion, I was doing fine without it frankly, no drug problems, no depression, no sadness, no empty feeling etc... but yet, I still decided.

I guess I just felt somehow compelled. Compelled that there was more than I was understanding, compelled to find a deeper part of me. Some part of me became aware that there was a guiding force I didn't understand at all, and I was interested enough to find out what that was.

I shopped around at churches, found little that answered the call. Eventually I did make a phone call to my grandmother on my mother's recommendation and she found me a Friend meeting in my area (grandma was a Friend as well although I'm pretty sure I wasn't really aware of that until mom suggested I call her). Once I visited the meeting, I realized that I'd found what I'd been looking for. I haven't found anything new at church, it's just a tool to help me focus and hear the Word. It's simple, clean, and efficient. **shrug**