How did you come to the faith?

What's your testimony? I love listening to other people's journeys and how they came to be believers.

Lol I just finished weighting mine on the prayors and such thread at the end of page 3. I'm a slow typer , I proly won't type it again hear, but I'm anxious to fallow this thread.

In my DNA-Irish Catholic.

I new you had the same DNA as Joe Biden. lol. Just teasin Boco. Joe just likes to throw that out there accasationaly.

That's what provoked me to start this thread. I'm always interested in hearing about the way God worked in someone's heart to bring them to faith.

Praise God for that, I like hearing and reading about peaples testimonies olso.

And also.

Your editing skills are second only to my own.

For me it came later in life. Was raised Catholic but got away from it all for a while. Always believed but never understood the meaning. To sum it up. Good friends, a small church and the Holy Spirit.

I was raised Presbyterian. I always believed in God but never knew anything about repenting on my sin and deciding to follow Jesus. I've been hung over many times in church with no conviction. Then one day in my early 20's I watched a preacher on the local tv station. He was presenting the Gospel in a way I had never heard it. I watched him several Thursday nights in a row and got up one Sunday morning and called the number i had written down. I drove about 15 miles to his church and saw people praising the Lord as if they really knew him and as if they were really thankful to him for giving them life. It was a shock to me. It took a couple months for me to decide i had been raised religious but did not have life, eternal life. I decided to follow Jesus and began to be convicted of sin. I would repent of my sins one by one and developed a real relationship with my Savior. I would read the Bible for hours every day. I started sharing my faith and the Gospel every time I had a chance. Now I can praise and worship Jesus because I know him and am truly thankful for giving me life!

Holy Spirit convicted me of my sin. I realized if I died I’d go straight to (This word is unacceptable on Trapperman). I asked Jesus to save me from my sin, and accepted by faith His gift of salvation “believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved” Acts 16:31

When I realized I did not need to thank God but be thankful that put the spirit and the journey where it belonged. "Religion is for those that fear their is a H%$$. Spirituality is for those of us who have been there and made it back."

Bryce

Glad you made it back.

Can’t ever remember not believing. We had a Sunday school teacher in the teen group that always asked if someone wanted to give an opening prayer. I found myself standing without knowing what I was going to say. I recited the Lord’s Prayer and there was total silence from my classmates after. Something was happening, but what? I found myself “tuning” in on Sundays and sticking around for church services after Sunday school. One Sunday Us youth were performing and the song was short so one of the girls recited the 23 Psalm in between the 2 verses of the song. Midway through it she had “a moment” and began to weep. Standing right next to her, I could feel it. Can’t explain it, but I sure felt it. Those early years I wasn’t much of a Christian but leaned on Him plenty knowing He was there.

Hind sight is 20/20 and I have seen too much for coincidence. I have also asked knowing it would happen.

I'm not going to go into too much detail on here.

I grew up believing, then had a period that I did not believe.

Then I was at my lowest for quite some time. During that time I again started to believe, but only so that I could have something to focus my anger on.

One night I broke down... crying, praying, begging for forgiveness and making promises I knew I probably could not keep.

The next day the exact opposite of what I had prayed for happened.

After that, I had some time to spend thinking about it all and I started to wonder if what I prayed for was wrong, and what happened instead was right,

In the end, after a few hiccups, and in a round about way, the prayer I prayed that night WAS answered. It just took some discomfort before it happened.

Since then I've never doubted the existence of God or Jesus, but still am somewhat envious of the close relationship some of y'all seem to have with Him. I know He saved me in this world, and have faith He will in the next... but still don't feel a daily Presence much.

I was raised Lutheran by a German mother and Irish/English father. Went to Sunday school and afterwards church service since I was born and baptized. When I was a teen I started teaching Sunday school with a girl that would end up being my sister in law. When I went to college I slowly questioned my faith and grew away from the church and God. I got married and had a daughter. Me and my wife divorced when I was working two jobs and she found comfort in another man's arms. My daughter continued to be the love of my life and I went back to one job to spend more time with her. My daughter had juvenile diabetes since bith and always struggled keeping her sugar levels right. She was the first one in our area to get an insulin pump put in her. When she was twelve she was at her mother's and her sugar bottomed out and I was called to hospital. Spent two months in two different hospitals with her and never went home. She turned thirteen years old when she was in an induced coma. She died a week later. I went through #ell. I shook my first at God and swore Him off. It took many years for me to reconsile with my beliefs. One day I had an epiphany and realized it was God will. I still struggle sometimes I admit but without my faith I think I would have joined her by my own hand. I'm crying as I write this thinking about her. My mom and dad are both still alive and very old. My parents still put a remembering picture in the local paper on her birthday. My daughter brought me back to Christ

Turtledale,
Your last sentence is a sentence that lives in your heart, as a man and a brother in the faith who I do not know, but with which I also become emotional as I read your post also.
Broken hearts and love for others will do that to us, and for you and your daughters being so short, I'm so sorry.

God's Promise is true and so you and your daughter will have much to talk about when you both meet again on that indescribable New Day.
It is, and always has been, the Hope of the Gospel.
How it all happens is written in several texts to us by God, but perhaps the most concise is the Apostle Paul's letter to the believers in Corinth.
1 Corinthians 15:1-26 is our Gospel Hope.

Blessings,
Mark

I was saved at 10 but not obedient until my late 20's. Didn't come to the awareness I was a sinner in a church setting but at home alone with Christ. Didn't get baptized because I didn't understand its importance because I didn't read my bible.
Lost a friend to a boating accident and it got my attention. Had never read the bible, just bits and pieces, but was convicted to read it all the way through. That's when I discovered obedience and the wonderful relationship that comes with it.
Now I'm still not perfect in the eyes of man. A dirty soul. Heck instead of going to learn to be fishers of men this a.m. I'm heading to the river shortly to try to be a fisher of fish. Praise the Lord, by the blood of Christ, I'm made clean in the eyes of God.

Posco
How about your testimony. Would like to see it .
Rich

I will, Rich. I've been thinking about it and want to whittle it down to a Reader's Digest version and avoid a novel. I appreciate all of you who have posted yours. There are some great stories out there, I hope more chime in.

I grew up in a home where we went to church most Sunday’s, because that’s what we were supposed to do, faith was something I was supposed to have but we couldn’t really explain why, we recited prayers, kind of just an obligation versus something we really took joy in etc(this is what I saw as a kid, so maybe I just didnt see that there was more to it). But at the age of ten I had decided I did not want to spend eternity apart from God, experiencing His just wrath...went through a baptism class and was baptized, then basically just tried to be what I thought was a good Christian, but honestly spent most of my teens and early twenties partying and drunk and trying to pick up women, then trying to pray for forgiveness and reconciling my “fun” with the conviction I felt, convincing myself that at least I wasn’t doing drugs, or stealing, or ruining anybody’s marriage etc...but I didn’t feel right and just kept telling myself I’d stop when I was older.

This is what I was doing when I met my wife, at a bar in Manhattan KS after a KSTATE fb game, I talked with her and tried like crazy to get a kiss and she wouldn’t give me one, but we started dating. She had been very active in her youth group and then had been hurt and was a little bitter towards her church experience, but as we became more serious in our relationship we began to talk about faith more deeply and she introduced me to Matt Chandler from The Village Church’s sermons online and I heard him preach a sermon he called “the explicit Gospel” in 2011 and was struck by the genuine passion in his preaching and the radical (to me) life that Christians are called to in the Bible. It hit me hard that this was what I had believed in but had never had explained or modeled for me, that faith was more than saying you were a Christian and trying your best to act right, and I was overwhelmed by a conviction of the sin id been not only living in but justifying for so long. Then the beauty of the cross really began to set in, I was in tears that a God so holy, so righteous, so worthy of obedience and praise, would have so much grace to pursue me and place people and songs and situations and sermons in my life and draw me to Him, an idolatrous, rebellious, foolish, arrogant sinner like me. I immediately began to read my Bible for hours at night, would sometimes read a verse I had learned in Sunday school and it was like seeing it for the first time, and I’d be crying and praying.

That same year my wife(girlfriend at the time) was diagnosed with stage 3 Hodgkin’s lymphoma and watching her faith grow through the trials of her chemotherapy and radiation therapy for months just encouraged me to dive in even deeper, that she could be going through something like this and have not just an obligatory but a joyous faith was so powerful. It was then that I read Desiring God for the first time and that book has been such a big impact on my faith walk, and I couldn’t recommend it more.

There are always new sins being revealed in my life and old battles I thought were over raise thier ugly heads every now and again, but I know now it’s not about what I do but about what Christ has done, and what He has done motivates me to pick up my cross each day and my goal now as a father is to model humble, obedient, seriously joyful faith, the kind Paul talks about in 2 Corinthians 6:3-13, and make my home a place where my kids can see and hear me talk to God in prayer in a way I never witnessed growing up, and where the fruit of the Spirit is visible in my life, that I would run the race with endurance.


This was a long post but I couldn’t cut out anything that was so important to my testimony and I think this was the point of the thread, so may as well be thorough.

Now that's deep! I can't even conceive what you've been through.

I had to get away front the church

My mother made us attend church.Some happy she did.

Great testimony Derek, thanks for sharing.

The pandemic, Phil Robertson, Trapperman. In that order. Haven't arrived yet, but it's a journey, right?

I was actually, really, finally, and forever saved some 2000 years ago on a hill outside Jerusalem. Jesus really died specifically for me and my sins on that black day.

I grew up in a Christian family, church, and high school. When I was five years old I said a prayer asking Jesus to come into my heart.

In my high school years I had to reject Christianity because I figured it didn't make any sense. Christianity claims God is all-powerful, all-knowing, and sovereign over the events of this world. It claims God created me as an individual and is in control of the world around me. I determined that a just God could not create a person and put them in an environment where they never hear of Jesus Christ, or are taught all their life that he is a fraud, and then condemn them to (This word is unacceptable on Trapperman) for not believing in him. God couldn't justly do that to someone while he gave me all the advantages of a Christian upbringing, parents, friends, teachers... and then reward me with eternal life. It's not even close to fair that I should have all the rewards of union with Christ because I took the easiest route of choosing to follow him while someone else who is trained by God's world NOT to believe is sent to Hades.

One day I explained this to a pastor friend and he showed me where the Bible says that unregenerate man is the enemy of God, dead in his sins, and unable to choose to follow Christ unless God gives him a new heart. He showed me where the Bible says that faith is a gift of God, not something that comes from within ourselves. He showed me that I would never choose to follow Christ out of my own natural choice. He helped me understand that all the Sunday school classes and Bible memory verses in the world would never be enough to make me submit to Jesus Christ as Lord. And THAT is exactly the moment it hit me like a freight train that I didn't need to make the right decision to put my faith in God and follow Christ. NO! What I needed was a SAVIOR to rescue me from my depravity. I realized that it wasn't that I just committed some sinful acts sometimes that I needed to apologize for. I realized I was a fallen human being in my very nature and I needed to be transformed and changed. And that's when it all started to make sense.

So, when did I become a child of God? I don't know. Was it when I was five years old and had a child-like faith? Was it when I was in my early twenties and realized that in my core I was truly a sinner in need of a savior? Or, was it the day they crucified my Lord? Maybe it was all of them.

Amen Kart29

Reminds me of Jesse Ventura's comment on religion. He agreed with your first sentence, but went on to say that religion was a crutch for weak-minded people.

Was the OP's question related to a "come to the faith" of Christianity?

Blessings,
Mark

Pretty safe assumption, Mark.

I was just wondering as some of the answers don't reflect the relational aspect of the Christian faith which is the one New Man = Jew + Gentile = made effectual by the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus the Christ.
If someone says they are saved by grace through faith in Jesus as the Christ and then they follow that up with they don't need anyone else in that circumstance, they miss the entirety of Jesus' Gospel, which is a wine branch without the vine stem or wine dresser.

The Body of Christ, is all believers, and is New Man of Ephesians 2:15, which was foretold in all the OT.
An individual faith with no need for anyone else would be called a modern spiritist theology, not Christianity.
To not know this is fine and would need to be corrected (2 Tim 3:16), but to declare it as your brand of Christianity... well, there's no such thing because in elevating such a theology, a person then minimizes the sacrifice of the Lamb on the Cross.

Blessings,
Mark

Mark I’m not challenging you just trying to figure out what you are saying. Isn’t a personal testimony what God did in your life, grafting you into the new plant, adopting you into the family? The thread was sharing that life changing testimony. Like Paul meeting Jesus and being struck blind on the Damascus road, or Luther in the storm on his way back to law school, or Augustine hearing a voice saying “take up and read”.

I don’t question for a second the importance of the body of the church after that salvation, we are part of a body and what good is a foot without a leg, only unified is the body fully functional, and it is called out that we should not neglect to meet as some are apt to do. It is so critical in the life of a believer that they be in fellowship with other believers! And the body transcends city, state, and national borders, we are one body of believers with Christians the world over.

So maybe I misunderstand, but I thought we were just telling the part about our eyes being opened, the first step of a long journey we take with fellow believers. Like I said I’m not really questioning you, I agree, just explaining what I understood the intent of the op to be. Thanks for your input as always

I also want to clarify I can’t say it enough how important worshiping together with the body of believers is. It is our purpose, what we were made for.

Spot on.

Maybe Mark will share his so we can see what a real one looks like. If he's not to humble to talk about himself.

I spent 30 some years of my life thinking I was strong enough and smart enough to make life live by my terms. The Holy Spirit started opening my eyes and softening my heart preparing me for what was coming next in life. God saw me through 4 pretty tough years after that and I haven't turned my back since.If my eyes had been opened i would have never seen what i need saved from. I've lived on both sides of the road and can clearly see the difference. I couldn't imagine going back.

Easy y'all. I am not the redeemer so I have no say in the redemption process or who is or isn't justified or sanctified depending on your theological stance.
But I see from the bows and arrows shot at me, that the modern teaching of our faith (Christianity) is on full display. Which is fine. I work in a pluralist - all roads lead to Jesus hospital setting most days, so I'm used to it.

But, I was digging deeper into a theme I was reading here on Tman;

Which is that Christianity is something we do alone or is done to us alone.

God pricking and circumcising hearts one by one? Sure. That's written all over the Old and New Testament.
But.... me and my Bible, and my God, and my way of life without any other believers?
That is not biblical and that is not the Gospel of Jesus Christ at its core. What that thinking is and always will be is a constructed conspiracy of falsehood of the flesh (I don't care for those people), the world (why would you want to be with those people?), and Satan (did God really say you have to be with other people?).

My testimony of coming to faith? I'm still living it. And by God's grace I'll die to this life able to do the same.
Because I'm not a lamp with a shade over it I pray.
A coming to faith implies a continuing testimony of it, empowered by the same God that retooled our hearts in the 1st place.

Question y'all and it's a solid one:
Who sold us on the fact that the Christian faith is a one and done?

There is no faith called Christianity that includes a one and done. That is a false teaching.
Not to be confused with the circumcision of someone's heart that allows people who are called one by one by God, and gifted by the power of His Spirit, to do a task.
That's biblical y'all.
We who are called by God's Grace are now part of a Body.
Why would we need the Holy Spirit within us anyway if it was a one and done?

What is the Spirit's purpose?
Ah, there's the book of Romans, Ephesians and ALL the New Covenant writings!
The Spirit was given in Acts 2, to empower the Apostles to teach those whom God was gathering (and still is) the teachings of the Gospel until such time as Jesus comes back the 2nd time.
When's He coming back?
We're not sure right, but until that time we are called for a reason and that reason is can not be for a one and done and "I got my heaven!".... "Good luck to y'all. Hope y'all make it to heaven like me!"
Because that is all false teachings Paul and Peter and John wrote extensively about.

Hope this clarifies.
Blessings,
Mark

If saved but not discipled, one can go astray. Been there done that. So the body is of the highest importance as long as the body does what it is called to do.

Wow.....

Agree JS. The deceiver does his best work if he keeps us as loners.

Here's big picture 30,000 foot view Q;
Why do we think Jesus called in Scripture = the Bridegroom even came to earth as the Godman?
Do I think the God who made me sent Jesus to save me?
That's the 6'1" vision. Me.
Let's think about the 30,000 view even though my flesh like the 6'1" bestest, best, and best.

We need to understand that there is a Bride for the Bridegroom and at a time called the Day of the Lord, the Bride will be given to the Bridegroom.
One man and one woman = one flesh covenant (Genesis 2:24) is a glimpse of what is to come.
Because the one flesh covenant of the Ephesians 2:15 One Humanity (Jew and Gentile = that's all of us) with Christ as the Head above it (Ephesians 1:22) is key.
This IS the Bride = the Body of believers. With a One-Flesh relationship to Jesus as the Head.
As man is the head of the woman one flesh.

You know, it's all laid out if we'd only listen and respond to the Word of our Father in Heaven.
But I don't all the time so I need the Spirit's leading.

UNITY. It's what the Bride was/is all about. Perfection? It can't be.
So that the world would see - in us who are believers - the unity the unbelievers wish... and hopefully some day pray for.

We're all not much different than those 1st believers y'all. And God knows that. Unity of the Faith is important to pray about often.
We pray for one another. You see it here on this forum as it is in heaven.
We stand no chance agains the flesh, the world, and Satan alone. And God knows that also.

Ephesians 4:11-16;
And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers,
for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ;
until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.
As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming;
but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ,
from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.

Blessings,
Mark

Not sure how any trapperman was ever saved without Mark June and DTS

lol

Cut him some slack. He’s getting a knoggin’ full of knowledge and his cup runnith over. Being saved isn’t as difficult as it can sound.

I've tried

An example of non-edification brother.
Which is not glorifying to God.
Pure and simple.

2 Tim 3:16 is in play.

Blessings,
Mark

We practice every day with each other here on campus what's called theological reflection.
They're awesome sessions.
90 nations going back and forth and back and forth.
As followers of Jesus who is the Christ.

Now, are they easy sessions?
Well.... no.
But they're great non-the-less. Shows me my blind spots for sure!

Q: How many believers use their faith to seek understanding as Augustine reflected theologically we should be doing based on God's imperatives?

Oh and I don't mind the back and forth at all - it's all good - because we are all (believers) are the Universal Church of our Lord and by the power of the Spirit, it was written for us to reproof, correct, and teach the Truth of the Word for training in righteousness.
Some folks still read that and realize in humility and meekness we don't know very much.
Others claim they don't even need to read it because they know very much.

Jesus had a really good sermon on a Mount about that.
May the Lord keep you and bless y'all!
Blessings,
Mark

That’s all well and good but a bit over whelming for someone who just wants to know how you keep it together when there is no hope.

We all can witness without appearing greater than, which you often do btw. Save it for when you are in the pulpit. The girl crying at a gas pump just needs the short version.

Posco,

My apologies for my participation in taking the purpose of the thread off the rails.

Good comment.
But a sincere brotherly Q, "Why would we assume everyone is like us and prefer the version we prefer?"
Maybe the "long" version, as my PM box tells me, is helpful to some trappers at that moment moment in "their" life.

Blessings,
Mark

I probably did that HT. Not you.
When I asked a clarifying question.

I went thru a divorce at a young age and I turned to God (prayer) to heal me and take me to a better place!!! I later married over my head!! Still married 30 years later! I’m one of those guys that you look at and say “what does she see in him”.

Short version;
God held onto me through the majesty and wonder of His Creation
until by grace,
and nothing I did or wanted to do,
God helped me not hate Him like I did.

Blessings,
Mark

You were doing so good and then you put a booger on it. lol

Boogers are good HT. They serve a purpose

KsTrapper88,
You brother, are tracking and then some!
In response to the HUGE exodus of Americans from the pews of their churches, preachers, pastors, and priests alike made valiant attempts to "get 'em back" into the pews and so in the late 1800's the fiery preaching began and in that came a very constricted Gospel message, which was.....
Choose.
Heaven or
Sheol.

That's not what our Lord taught. He taught what the OT Scripture always taught;
Love God. Love Others.

That's Christianity. How do we know?
The Bible.

Great post. C. S. Lewis has some of the finest reflective writings and I visit him often.

Blessings,
Mark

“One of our great allies at present is the Church itself. Do not misunderstand me. I do not mean the Church as we see her spread out through all time and space and rooted in eternity, terrible as an army with banners. That, I confess, is a spectacle which makes our boldest tempters uneasy. But fortunately it is quite invisible to these humans. All your patient sees is the half-finished, sham Gothic erection on the new building estate. When he goes inside, he sees the local grocer with rather an oily expression on his face bustling up to offer him one shiny little book containing a liturgy which neither of them understands, and one shabby little book containing corrupt texts of a number of religious lyrics, mostly bad, and in very small print. When he gets to his pew and looks round him he sees just that selection of his neighbours whom he has hitherto avoided. You want to lean pretty heavily on those neighbours. Make his mind flit to and fro between an expression like ‘the body of Christ’ and the actual faces in the next pew.... “

In self consciousness I deleted my previous post thinking I was getting too far off of the main point but i will post the screw tape letters quote again. It’s so common the enemy attacks our faith in this way or isolates us this way

That's a great book. No one needs to apologize for where a thread tracks.

If someone hasn't read CS Lewis, you are missing some of the most insightful commentary from this atheist turned follower of Christ that the last 100 years has produced.
I own almost all that he has written and relish them all.

Here is the website.
https://www.cslewis.com/us/

Thanks Posco I wish I could undelete it now lol. Bad thing about these conversations in text format is that words matter and as I’m typing on my phone I keep rereading what I typed looking for mistakes or something that would be unintentionally misleading or confusing...and by the time I click post there may have been a drastic turn in the conversation.

Mark is absolutely right, CS Lewis is so good and accessible for Christians new and old, of all levels of understanding, I have a big book called “the complete works of CS Lewis”, it starts with “mere Christianity” and “screwtape lettters” then “on miracles” “surprised by joy” so many more in this one big book. I highly recommend it as well.

Before I became a Christian, I viewed most Christians as kooks. The same way a lot of you guys view us. I understand the thinking.

When I was just a kid, I'd watch Billy Graham or any number of other televangelists on the TV. They'd offer that invitation to "accept" Christ and as best I knew how, I'd do what they suggested. I'd wait for the lightning strike to hit and change me but it never came. I can't remember how many times I did this but nothing ever changed. I came to the conclusion that God didn't want me, it was something you were born into and not for everyone. I figured God didn't like me and the feeling became mutual.

I grew up in an alcoholic home that was abusive. Mostly verbal abuse but sometimes physical. Most of the physical abuse was directed at my siblings, I seemed to get a pass on most of that. I never understood why.

As the years went on, I became increasing hostile toward God. I blamed him for the bad things that had befallen me in life and viewed myself as a victim, not a sinner in need of redemption. I had a terrible chip on my shoulder and a self-righteous streak a mile wide. I hurled the vilest blasphemies toward God my mind could think of. Those would come to haunt me later on.

As I entered into my early twenties, some of the hostility went by the wayside and I decided I'd go to church and gain a bit of respectability. A friend at work invited me out to a service and having nothing better to do that Sunday I went.

I'll continue in a bit.

Don't feel that way. I appreciate what you write.