CHRISTIANS: Does anyone have any testimonies to share on how they came to know the Lord Jesus Christ?

Answer 1

Here's one that I wrote about a year ago. It probably needs some revision, but I hope that it will be sufficient to answer your question.

I was born in 1959 in Alameda, California. A long fallen away Catholic Mother and a long fallen away Jewish Father (her second husband) raised me. There was no recognition of God in my home save for the careless usage of Jesus' name. My mother would hastily add the names of Mary and Joseph, a habit she had apparently acquired as a little girl to avoid the sin of using the Lord's name in vain.

My mother taught me that the Bible was a great story book and that I didn't have to worry about going to hell because I had never been baptized so the worst thing that could happen to me was that I would end up in 'Limbo'. The only time I went to church was for someone else's wedding or to get out of cleaning duty while in training in the Air Force. If I ever heard the gospel message, it wasn't in a way that made an impression upon me as anything more than something interesting that religious people believed.

As I grew older into my 20's and 30's, I lived with the attitude of 'eat, drink & be merry - for tomorrow we may die'. I had some vague goal of leaving the world in a slightly better condition because of my existence in it and generally tried to be a good person who gave to charity, voted with insight, and wrote letters to the editor about social issues.

But as the years crept slowly past I grew despondent because I didn't see any meaningful purpose to my life. Any good thing that happened in this world was overwhelmed by a plethora of bad things happening too. I became reclusive and my latent alcoholism started to become a larger factor in my life. I stopped showing up for work, lost my job, developed a chemical addiction to alcohol and eventually became homeless around the age of 40.

Some time later I was literally living in a park in Alameda. I would borrow a friends sleeping bag at the end of the day and with my bottle of alcohol find a secluded spot to sleep where people couldn't see me and the automatic law sprinklers didn't reach. Each morning I would awaken before the liquor store opened and be there waiting with trembling hands for the proprietor to appear. Finally, some friends suggested I go into a rehabilitation program for Veterans. Since I was about to run out of money I had borrowed from my Mother, and I knew I would get sick without alcohol in my system, I agreed to their suggestion.

Now there were two programs available in the area. One was in the East Bay where I was living and one was on the peninsula in the City of Menlo Park. So, relying upon my own wisdom, I decided to go to the one that was closer to my home turf. My friends dropped me off, wished me good luck, and drove away. I went inside and spoke with a doctor who told me that my friends had made a mistake. You couldn't just show up and get into the program. He ended up giving me directions to the nearest liquor store and I walked away from the hospital, bought a bottle of liquor and found a nearby park to sleep in. It was October 30th, 2001. Halloween morning I woke up and a policeman who was passing by saw me and asked me what I was doing there. I told him my story and he drove me to a homeless shelter in the nearby town of Concord.

The people at the shelter were very nice, however since I was officially a resident of Alameda County, they told me I would have to leave in a couple of days. I figured it was just another one of the many defeats that had characterized my life in the past few years and resigned myself to life back on the streets. But God had a different plan for my life. A man who worked at the Veteran's facility in Menlo Park, 'just happened' to show up at that shelter while I was there. He had all of the information, including names and phone numbers, necessary to gain admittance to the VA system in Menlo Park. So with the last of my money I was able to catch a train and a bus to Menlo Park where I was taken into the emergency veteran's housing facility while I was waiting to enter the rehabilitation program.

Once I was in the program I was constantly in a state of stress. Although I now had a few months clean and sober, I knew in my heart that my life was unchanged and that as soon as I left there I was doomed to failure. One day a more senior resident asked me if I would go with him to take some aluminum cans back to a recycling center. As I was riding with him, I was thinking to myself "This guy's an old burned out hippie." It seemed like every couple of sentences he would say something about Jesus, and that just confirmed in my mind that he was some aging freak. Eventually he asked me if I wanted to go to church with him the coming Sunday. He said the church he had in mind was called the Abundant Life church. With my ignorance of the Bible, and my preconceived notions about what type of person I was talking to, I figured that this was probably some New Age church were women with long white robes and rings of flowers in their hair worshipped Gaia the Earth Mother, or something like that. So I made my polite excuses and forgot about it.

But God's plan for my life was still unfolding. About a month after that day, I got into an argument with someone in the rehab program. I decided that he needed to come before the community because he was always treating people with an arrogant and divisive attitude, so I brought him up in the general meeting. The result of that was a verdict that we should spend a couple of hours together on the weekend so that we could get to know each other better. We talked about what we would do and he suggested going to church. I asked him which one, and he suggested the Abundant Life church. So I asked him what kind of church it was, and he told me it was just a regular, Bible teaching church, so I agreed to go with him.

We went to the church that Sunday and sat in the back. I planned on sitting quietly, and returning to the program having fulfilled my obligation. Pastor Paul Sheppard started his sermon and I found myself intrigued by his style of preaching and the common sense and plain message that he was putting out. I was thinking "Wow! I didn't know that's what the Bible was all about. This makes a lot of sense."

After the sermon was over, Pastor Paul asked everyone to stand and I figured it was time to go. Then he started talking about having a relationship with Jesus. He started listing all of the benefits one could have through a relationship with Jesus, and as I was listening I was running a mental checklist of the things he was talking about. I kept thinking, "I want that! I want that! I want that!" finally he mentioned that a person would have supernatural guidance for their life and that's what tipped the scales in my mind. I knew that on my own I was doomed to failure and an early death. The Pastor said that if anyone wanted to receive Jesus into their life they should come up front so that the people from the church could pray with them.

I didn't know what he was talking about. People started to make their way forward and there was a lot of clapping. I didn't know what to do since I had never been to church before, but something was telling me that it didn't matter. That I wanted what this man was offering and to go up in front of all of these people and find out what he was talking about. So I walked forward, was taken into a prayer room, and I got on my knees and confessed Jesus as my Lord and Savior and opened my heart to receive the Holy Spirit.

After I left the church, with my new believer's Bible in my hand, I was wondering why I had gone up like that. It seemed like it was just another vain attempt to have something good happen in my life, but oddly enough, from that moment on, the overwhelming burden of stress seemed to have been lifted from my shoulders.

It's been about 4 years since that day at church. I have not had a drink of alcohol in all that time even though I don't go to AA meetings. I have a new life in Christ that is better than anything I have ever experienced before. I work for the Enduring Truth Radio Ministry. I serve in the Lay Biblical Counseling Ministry and the Safari Kids Children’s Ministry. I have many friends from church that live sober lifestyles and while there are always times of trials and testing, Jesus has me firmly by the hand. I have to smile when I write that down because it reminds me of how that 'old burnt out hippie' from the program sounded on that day long ago when according to my own wisdom, I turned down his invitation to come to church. But God…

Answer 2

It should be mentioned here that while Muslims believe that Jesus was given God's "Good News," they do not recognize the present "Four Gospels" as the utterances of Jesus. Even the Church agrees that the "Four gospels" were written by four different men, but they maintain that they were divinely inspired. This idea is rejected by Muslims. It can be argued that if the four writers were divinely inspired, then why are there so many serious discrepancies and omissions in their individual accounts of the life of Jesus? Moreover, the "Four Gospels" were written some 35 to 65 years after the ministry of Jesus, and represent merely a fraction of the so-called "Gospels" written at that time, the others being rejected by the Church.

http://www.islamthetruepath.got.to/

Answer 3

I came out of Catholicism with a knowledge about God and religion, but didn't have a personal relationship with Him. I spent 12 years in the wilderness. I was involved in drugs and drink, was a user and a dealer. There probably wasn't a day in those years that I wasn't stoned on something. Finally, God put me in a corner where I had no where to look but up. I hit rock bottom. A missionary here gave me the Gospel and I received Christ. I went home and threw away all my drugs and paraphernalia and never looked back. I enrolled in a Christian college, selling most of my possessions to pay for it. That is a thumbnail sketch, it is worse if I went into detail. I lost all my friends when I got saved and basically had to start over. It hasn't been an easy road, but a profitable one. The Christian road is a hard one, low pay, getting knocked around, seeing ourselves as God sees us, warts and all, but the rewards are great and the retirement plan is out of this world. I was once lost, but now I am found.

Answer 4

YEP! I was raised in an atheist household and was never taught about God. I always knew something was missing and every time I was driven by a church I would get this tugging feeling in my heart. I was actually afraid of going into any church for a long time because i knew I would cry. Well when I was 15 i dated a preacher's son and i loved going to his church. I didn't cry but felt overwhelmed at being there. My heart was full and I wanted to go back more than the church was open. One day they were asking people to come up and accept Jesus into their lives for the first time or the 20th time.... I just broke down and He grabbed a hold of me that day. I can not say that I have been a model Christan but I can say that I have had God in my heart for years and feel His presence and love to this day. This was27 years ago.

Answer 5

I was nine years old when I gave my life to Christ. I was at a Stockade meeting, which was kind of like the Boy Scouts, but was lead and influenced by the church. Since then, I have grown closer to God and even closer very recently. He has provided for me when I honestly did not know where my next meal would be coming from because I did not have the money for it.

Answer 6

you're able to be extra sparkling once you ask this form of question. Are you asking with reference to the Rapture or His 2nd Coming? In the two circumstances the Lord is stated alongside with clouds. The Rapture: I Thess. 4:13-18 (It would not say something approximately who will see Him different than the saints He has come for) 13 yet i do no longer choose you to be ignorant, brethren, related to those that've fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have not have been given any wish. 14 For if we've faith that Jesus died and rose back, however God will carry with Him people who sleep in Jesus. 15 For this we are saying to you by making use of the be responsive to the Lord, that we who're alive and proceed to be till the arriving of the Lord will by making use of no ability precede people who're asleep. sixteen For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the lifeless in Christ will upward push first. 17 THEN WE who're ALIVE AND proceed to be would be "caught UP" (Greek ?????? harpazo ~ to snatch up or grab away)inclusive of THEM interior the CLOUDS to fulfill THE LORD interior the AIR. And for that reason we will constantly be with the Lord. 18 consequently convenience one yet another with those words. The 2nd Coming: Rev. a million:7 Behold, he's coming with clouds, and each EYE WILL SEE HIM, even they who pierced Him. And each and all the tribes of the earth will mourn by way of fact of Him. however, Amen.

Answer 7

Sure......it started with my friend asking me what my thoughts were on certain passages. We saw these passages different than any of our other friends. She went to her fathers church with him a few times and then asked if I wanted to go with her. As we saw things the same I gladly went. I immediately felt at home there whereas I never had in any other church in my entire life.....except when I was wiccan. Then one night I had this dream.
I saw Christ in a dream, everything was white....two men, identical sat in identical thrones....or were they just standing? Can't quite remember now....all these people were coming, walking up slowly and going to the one on the right......but I knew they were wrong, it scared me to see so many unable to tell who was the true Christ. I went to Christ and kneeled next to him.....I knew they were decieved.....there were so few on our side.

Then next time I went to my friends fathers church I asked for a home in the church. My first visit was when she joined, she was baptised two weeks later, the same day I asked for a home in the church.

Answer 8

I was in darkness and a beautiful Christian couple told me how much Jesus loved me.I accepted him as my Savior and Lord and NEVER regretted it.God bless.

Answer 9

well a preacher came to the people and told them about them and preached the bible to them so i gess thats how

Answer 10

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1837525168870785121&q=deedat&hl=en