Why I am a Christian

Yes this is a complex subject, and I will probably not do it justice here. I am new to this so here goes. I live in the UK, and was brought up in a working class secular family.

When I left school I drifted from job to job, living a carnal life partying with my friends, drinking, doing drugs, and living generally an immoral life. A friend and I had a religious experience when I was about 21. We both had near death experiences, and thought we had become Christians. We started to go to an Anglican Church, then an evangelical church and got baptised. We grew in our faith, and learned allot about Christianity, like why creationism is right and evolution is wrong.

No one told me to examine myself to see if I was in the faith. I had no knowledge of sin, righteousness, of Biblical repentance. My conscience was crying out "something is wrong". I had made a false confession and did not know why, or how to fix it.

I had started college by this time, and was researching historical Christianity at every available opportunity. It had been about four years since my conversion and I had never really stopped sinning, because I couldn't! I still was drinking, partying, and living a sexually immoral life, yet going to church the whole time, and "repenting" of the things I was doing hoping I could stop. I saw that many others were living the same way. I was to have an encounter with truth that would turn my "walk with the Lord upside down".

I came home early one day from college and decided to do some channel surfing through the christian channels. I came across a programme called "The Way of the Master". There was a young guy called Kirk Cameron, and a older guy called Ray Comfort, talking about Christianity and the Bible in a way I had never heard before. They were talking about evangelism, and the need to share the Gospel with the lost biblically the way Jesus did. I thought to myself, this is for me, I will use these methods to reach the lost. I did not realise that I was the first lost person to be reached. They preached the Gospel the way Charles Spurgeon, George Whitefield, etc, did. Using the moral Law of God as a mirror to show the sinner there need of a saviour. When a person looks into a mirror and sees his face is dirty it causes him to go to the water and be cleaned.

Wow! I saw for the first time that I had not truly understood the Gospel at all. I had never been told what Sin was biblically.(1 john 3:4). What repentance was from a biblical point of view. I was told that sin was just missing the mark, messing up, falling short of the glory of God, self centeredness. They told me that repentance was just a change of mind. Not that it meant to hate and turn from all sin(1 John 3:4), towards God.

When I saw the Ten Commandments, opened up, I saw myself how God saw me. I realised that all sin was offensive to God, a slap in the face to him. I had lied and was therefore a liar, and would rightfully end up in the lake of fire. I had stolen, and was therefore a thief before God. I had lusted and therefore committed adultery of the heart. And no adulterer will inherit the kingdom of God. I saw that all my hatred towards others was like murder to God, and no murderer will inherit eternal life. God revealed to me that i had created a God in my own image to suit my own desires and sins, therefore I had committed idolatry and was under the death sentence. I had used the name of the God who had given me life as a filthy swear word to express disgust. This was blasphemy. I was a lawbreaker, under the rightful wrath of a just and Holy God. I had received light and knowledge of God from the Creation and my conscience, and ignored them. I knew that When i stood before him on judgment day in my sins I would be found Guilty and therefore end up in Hell for all eternity.

Praise God! I knew that God himself had paid my fine. He had became a man, born of a virgin, to live a perfect life for those that would believe, keeping the law in my place. All 613 commands. In thought, word, and deed, he was without sin. He then gave up his life for me, taking the wrath and punishment that I deserved for breaking the law. My sin was imputed to him. He satisfied the justice of God, I broke the law, Jesus paid my fine in full, that's why he cried out it is accomplished. Three days later he rose from the dead defeating deaths curse and hold on me. He later ascended to the right hand of the father to intercede for me, through his perfect, once for all sacrifice of his blood.

I am a partaker of this miracle by God's will. He showed me my sin (1 john3:4). He gifted me repentance, then faith in God. I confessed my sins, and forsaked them, turning to God. Hating and giving up my former life. I then put my faith trust in the perfect work of Jesus Christ upon the cross to save me alone. He is my right-ness with God. Nothing but the cross can commend me to God, no works, nothing. I am saved by grace through faith alone, through Christ alone. I have tried to obeyed God ever since. I read my Bible every day, and learned how to reach out to the lost in a biblical way, I do this because I love my neighbour as myself. I have the fruit of repentance, righteousness, the holy spirit, etc. I do these things out of gratitude and love to a great saviour. If you want to do the same visit these websites, and listen to "Hells best Kept secret", and "True and false Conversion".

God bless You as you serve him,

Martin R Gough.

www.wayofthemaster.com www.needgod.com