For Easter - - A Testimony - - Mine

A week from this next Tuesday (April 21), I will be celebrating my 46th spiritual birthday. I grew up in a liberal Protestant PCUSA-type of church (liberal Presbyterian) and didn't hear the gospel there. You might hear bits and pieces of the gospel in liberal Protestant churches, but most people, espeically children, would be hard pressed to put the few pieces together and fill in all the cracks.
I wanted to do what God wanted, not to be saved or anything, but just thought it would be a good idea to please God and work with Him instead of against Him. Since I was getting practically nothing in my church I explored other religious faiths. I noticed one common characeristic with all of them - you had to do something (i.e. keep laws) or achieve something (i.e. karma). I decided that none of these religions offered much, so I decided to become an atheist in my freshman year of college. I'm not sure I got to the point where I really didn't believe in God, but I tried and was a good evangelistic atheist. In other words, I was a good debater opposing those who did beleive in God and wanted to argue their case. It was interesting that only Christians argued the case. In my sophomore year, I sat next to a Baptist girl in one of my classes and we became friends. I argued my atheism with her and she told me the gospel. I remember never hearing what she told me before and it really struck me because it wasn't like any of the other religions that I had studied. You didn't have to do ANYTHING?? You just accepted the sacrifice of Jesus for you? That was so novel to me I had really nothing to retort back to her. I had never heard this before and thought perhaps it was some type of Baptist doctrine. Where I grew up - in suburban, affluent Southern California - there were few Baptists. They seemed to live in mostly blue collar/working class towns. She told me that no, it wasn't Baptist doctrine; it was in the Bible. She showed me a few New Testament verses and I was astonished as I had never heard these Bible passages in my liberal Protestant church.

I didn't go to church with her or any of the other Christians in my dorm who were trying to proselyte me (the difference between them and my friend was they never told me the gospel). I wasn't manipulated as I don't allow myself to be manipulated. And since I tend to be a thinker, I just thought this out to a logical conclusion and in a funny sort of way, it seemed to be logical. So, at 11:15 PM in Whittier, California on April 21, 1963, I decided* to receive Christ as my Saviour. I've never had to search for any other religion, faith or belief system since then. I could. I just don't want to.

And that's my story.

*My apologies to Calvinist readers who are irked by the phrase, "I decided to receive Christ." To me it was as if I decided. Perhaps I really didn't and the Holy Spirit did the deciding. I don't know. I just expressed it the way I felt it at that time.