If someone asks me why I am a Christian, the first answer I am obligated to give is a personal answer.
Before I can give more brainy answers like the Cosmological argument for the existence of God or detailed arguments on why I trust the Bible or why Naturalism is bankrupt, I first have to show that all of this is very, very personal.
What was it that first made me even consider God at all? What was it that drove me initially to Him?
The answer to these questions is indeed personal. God has made a promise to me as an individual. He has promised to meet my greatest need. My greatest need (and yours too), is to be forgiven for sin and to be reconciled to God. Therefore through His enablement I ran to Him and threw myself at His feet pleading for His sweet mercy. This is the primary reason I am a Christian. He has turned my “mourning into dancing.”
Psalm 30:8-12 To you, O LORD, I cry, and to the Lord I plead for mercy: “What profit is there in my death, if I go down to the pit? Will the dust praise you? Will it tell of your faithfulness? Hear, O LORD, and be merciful to me! O LORD, be my helper!” You have turned for me my mourning into dancing; you have loosed my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness, that my glory may sing your praise and not be silent. O LORD my God, I will give thanks to you forever! (ESV)
See, even as a child I knew that I was bad. I could sense my heart leaning toward the dark side. I felt much like Anakin Skywalker, who desperately struggled with his true nature. Was Anakin good or bad? Most of us know the story. He started out as good, or at least as a “good guy.” But eventually the man that was Anakin Skywalker became the dreaded killer Darth Vader, mostly machine and seared conscience. The pull towards evil was much too powerful for Skywalker to resist.
I felt those same evil urges in my own life, but this was no movie – it was real. What is worse, I liked it. To me it was more fun lying, cussing, stealing, cheating and thinking dirty thoughts than it was to be good and obedient.
As a pre-teen my “friends” and I were already smoking cigarettes. But that is not all. We obtained our cigarettes by going on a “run.” We would say, “Well, we’re out of cigarettes, it’s time to take a run.” The run was actually a ride – on our bicycles down to Jitney Jungle, our local supermarket.
We would walk smoothly through the electric sliding doors (the ones we used to open and close over and over again while waiting on our parents to bag the groceries). Then we would calmly walk past the cigarettes, which at that time were not yet out of reach behind the counter, as they are in most stores today. Instead, they were right in the open were anybody could grab them.
I reached my hand out and took two or three packs or Marlboro Lights, usually three. My friends did the same. Then we would walk down an obscure and abandoned aisle and, while walking, we would stuff the cigarettes down our pants – not our best moments. Then we would walk out of the store as quickly as we came in. We never got caught. But God had caught my heart.
Oh, I knew I was bad. And it wasn’t just the normal kind of badness that could be justified with words like, “Everybody does it.” No, I sensed a deep badness that went all the way down to my soul. I knew I was bad and I knew that I was in trouble with God. Perhaps you know exactly what I’m talking about.
There were times (and still are) when the sense of guilt was intense and sometimes overwhelming. I remember when my parents caught me sneaking out of our apartment in the middle of the night. I felt so awful. I really had let them down and they let me know about it as only parents can do. Something was terribly wrong in my heart and soul and I knew it and even as a young teenager I desperately wanted that problem repaired. I could not stand living with it.
Plus, I knew that it wasn’t just the Bible that called me bad. I really did not care at all about church or the Bible or anything related to those things. So it wasn’t like I was conditioned to think I was bad, but I knew that I was really and actually bad. And that scared me.
God Sent Me a Note
God is a God of grace and mercy beyond our wildest imaginations. And He works in ways that blow our minds. As I struggled through my own badness and how I planned to deal with it, God put a little letter in my pathway. God sent me a note.
The note was a tract, which is a small booklet that has the message of Jesus Christ printed on it. I was only eleven or twelve years old when I stumbled across the note on the side of the road. Ironically, I found the tract on the same street I walked down on the night I was caught sneaking out of our apartment. God does work in mysterious ways.
I read the tract while standing there on the curb. I always had believed in the existence of God, but this was new information I was reading. I was being exposed to truth I had not encountered before, or at least had never cared to listen to before. I was deeply interested in and intrigued by what this little note from God said.
If you are familiar with the gospel or with gospel tracts at least, you might be able to guess the first thing I read. It said that all people are “sinners and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).
Wow! This little booklet identified my heart! The Bible confirmed the truth that I already knew – I am bad and badly in need of some help and so is everyone else.
People are special creations of God, formed in His image, and yet there is a profound problem with us. There was a Fall in our race (go back and read Genesis 3 again). There is a devastating brokenness that infiltrates every area of our being.
This sin, deeply imbedded within us, reveals its grotesque face clearly as we abandon God and turn to worship idols. We worship primarily the idols of me-and-my-stuff. Rather than loving and obeying and rejoicing in God, we attempt to please our own hearts by spending the majority of our days focused on ourselves and the stuff we can get our hands on. We are self-centered, self-worshipping materialists (look that word up).
I kept reading the tract. I saw that a great Day of Judgment was coming; a Day on which God would take His seat upon His throne and books would be opened. The Lamb’s Book of Life would be among them. The little note from God made it clear to me that anyone who did not have their name recorded in the Lamb’s Book of Life would be cast into a lake of fire and be forever punished for their sin.
Revelation 20:12; 15 And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done…And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire. (ESV)
My heart was gripped and it was melting. I did not desire to face this holy Judge in my condition and I was afraid. Perhaps you are reading these words right now and you understand the fear I felt, because you are feeling it too. If this is you, my prayer is that reading the next section will move you from fear to joy.
Christianity Provides a Definitive and Permanent Answer
As I continued to read the note from God I begin to sense the wonder of the gospel message. Jesus Christ had come to earth, not as a mere ethical teacher to show us how to be good, but rather to pay a high and permanent price to redeem us from our “badness.”
It was becoming clear to me – Jesus had come to repair my heart problem! He could take my evil and wicked heart and trade it out for a heart of love, peace, and joy. He could take my empty and bankrupt moral account and replace it with His own righteousness.
I could not rid myself of the guilt and sin that was implanted within me, but His atoning life, death, and resurrection was sufficient to get the job done!
Christ provided for me a personal answer to my biggest problem! This is what is so enticing to me about Jesus Christ. He is a glorious, ever-existing, all powerful being who concerned Himself with my problem and provided a permanent solution.
Even if there were no other defenses of the Christian faith, I would still be convinced that Jesus is Savior because I can sing with personal confidence that “I once was lost, but now I’m found.” I also can sing, “I need no other argument; I need no other plea. It is enough that Jesus died and that He died for me!”
Even further (as if this could get any better), I cannot be re-lost again! The Bible makes it clear that Christ holds me in His hand. I do not hold myself in His hand, rather He holds me.
John 10:28-29 I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. (ESV)
This is really good news! It means my cleansing and salvation is definitive. It is a life-change from now throughout eternity. In other words, my badness can longer be grounds for my punishment in Hell because I am securely hidden in Christ. He is my newfound goodness and righteousness.
Other Worldviews and Religions Are Insufficient Answers
After my conversion to Christ I began to notice over a period of years that other religions could not have done for me what Christ did. If I had remained in the more-or-less agnostic state I was in, I would have continued to suffer under my own shame and guilt. I don’t know how long I could have held out that way. Suicide would probably have been a serious option for me.
But suppose I had attempted to find peace with God through some other religious framework. Think about what would have happened in the following scenarios.
If I had joined the Jehovah’s Witnesses, I would have been taught that salvation was not an act of pure grace, but also involved my own righteous works. I would have been extremely frustrated trying to please God by my own works in order to earn salvation. After all, I am bad to the core of my being. How terribly irritating it would have been for me trying to produce righteous fruits from a dead and unholy heart!
If I had joined the Mormon Church I would have been required to keep Mormon Law faithfully. If I had joined Islam I would have been required to keep Islamic Law faithfully. These two options would have been similar to the Jehovah’s Witnesses option. Frustration, frustration, frustration!
If I had fled to eastern religions, such as Hinduism or Buddhism, I would have been told that, contrary to what I feel, I am not actually bad. In fact, all of reality is an illusion. This is why the little fellow on The Matrix is able to bend the spoon, because after all, the spoon is not really there at all. You just think it is.
My guru would have taught me that I need to work diligently to escape the brutal cycles of reincarnation that I am entrapped in, than the illusion that I am bad would go away forever.
I think this type of belief system would have driven me insane! In spite of the denial of evil in my heart, I would sill have felt the evil there. A person can deny they have cancer, but if they really have it, the denial is ridiculous. Eastern religions do not fix the problem that resides in every human heart. They just simply deny that a problem exists.
Only biblical Christianity dealt with my problem! Christianity alone provides a solution to man’s deepest need and solves our biggest problem. Christ alone can reconcile God to man.
Romans 5:11 We also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. (ESV)
Apologetics is a very personal enterprise. I am a Christian first and foremost because Jesus saved me. My personal testimony of experiencing grace is what motivates me to share Christ with others and tear down every lofty argument that is lifted up against the truth. I have experienced God personally and know His grace directly. I am convinced that there is a God, and that Jesus is the Son of God, and that Christianity is true because of His act of grace upon my soul. Nothing could convince me otherwise. He made me His and I can be no other than what I am.
But there is a difference between my knowing that Christianity is true and my showing others that Christianity is true. If I am speaking with an unbeliever and tell her about my experience with God, she might say, “Great! But I have had no such experience with God. Therefore, I do not believe.”
I need to be able to show her other arguments that support my faith. The cool thing about Christianity is that it is totally true, and therefore everything backs it up. From the stars above to the moral code written on the heart of ever human, everything points to the authenticity of the Christian faith as detailed in the Bible. This is where the other arguments of apologetics comes into play and of course this post is way too long to do that now.