I was brought up part of my life in a Methodist Church and part of my life in a Lutheran Church. My family took me to church regularly, and we prayed and had evening devotions. I also went to a Lutheran school from Kindergarten until the 5th grade. I believed I was a Christian for the first 18 years of my life, but Jesus Christ was neither my greatest treasure nor Savior. I had no real, vital, living relationship with Him. I worshiped Him, sometimes, with my lips, but my heart was far from Him. I was a very good, self-righteous pharisee type. I didn't party, drink, do drugs, mess around with women or anything like that. I studied hard, made good grades, worked hard playing sports (football and wrestling), and strove for excellence in everything I did. I even thought it was very important to be in church every Sunday. But alas, I did not know God, and He did not know me . . . yet. In all of this striving for excellence, I attained a great measure of success, but I began to realize all that success was finally empty and could not satisfy the longings of my heart.
During my senior year of high school, I took a class about world cultures that God used to change my life. In the class we studied world religions. We watched movies like The Seventh Sign, Malcolm X, and Ghandi. These movies challenged my belief in the Gospel because I saw people who believed in other religions just as strongly as I thought I believed in what my parents had taught me about the Christian faith. I began to wonder if what I was taught growing up really was the truth. How did I know Islam was a false religion? How did I know Hinduism was the wrong way to God? Furthermore, I thought that if what I had learned in the Bible was true, all these billions and billions of people all over the world who don’t believe in Christ are going to hell for eternity. I wondered if this was fair?
One day in this world cultures class, a guest teacher was teaching that all the different world religions were simply different roads to the same God. From my upbringing, I knew this was not what the Bible taught. The Bible taught Jesus is the only way to God. At that point, I had no answer for this teacher because I began to wonder if the Bible actually was the truth for all people. God blessed me with a friend, Sam Cho, who actually spoke up during that class and said that all religions don’t lead to the same God, but that Jesus is the only way to God. I knew I could not say this with all my heart and with conviction like my friend Sam.
For the next three or four months I went through an intense period of great fear, struggle, and turmoil. Even though I was questioning the truth of the Bible itself, its judgments put fear into my heart. I knew what John 3:16 said - if I believed in Jesus I would have everlasting life. If I didn’t believe in Jesus, I knew I would go to hell forever when I died because of my sin against a holy God. I thought for sure I was going to hell because I was questioning what I had been taught my whole life from the Bible. How could I know if the Gospel of Jesus Christ was the only true way to God and all other religions were false? I didn’t have much confidence that I believed what I had grown up learning. I began to read a little bit about other religions. I talked with my friends - God had put another Christian brother, Stephen Boyd, in my life as well as Sam, who spoke up in my world cultures class. I read a book that answered critical questions about the Christian faith and explained the uniqueness of Jesus Christ and Christianity in comparison to other religions.
I remember walking down the halls of my high school (Newton-Conover High School in Newton, North Carolina) repeating over and over again, “I believe Jesus died for my sins. I believe Jesus died for my sins.” I was desperately trying to convince myself that I truly believed! After months of struggle like this, at some point, God came to me and gave me a new heart and granted me faith and repentance. I don’t know the exact time, but I began to realize that Jesus Christ is the only Savior from sin. I became assured that He is the only way to be reconciled to a holy God for all people all over the world. John 14:6 was crucial for me: “Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.’” I felt like Peter after Jesus asked the disciples if they would turn away from following Him like others. He said, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. . .” (John 6:68). God had impressed upon me that Jesus Christ was my only hope, and He gave me a trust in and a love for Jesus I had never had before. I realized I was a sinner who had broken God's commandments and that Jesus Christ, the God-Man, was the only One Who could take away my sins by His death on that cross where He bore the wrath of God and then rose up from the dead. This is the Gospel - the good news of Jesus Christ! Other books helped me see more clearly the absolute uniqueness of Jesus Christ, and I, by His grace, began to follow Him as a true Christian and disciple.
For more information on the Gospel of Jesus Christ, please watch American Gospel: Christ Alone.
The extended version can be seen here with a free trial.
No comments:
Post a Comment