HOW I BECAME A FOLLOWER OF CHRIST

The story of how I became a follower of Christ is one that I don’t fully understand, but I’ll try my best here to briefly share with you my testimony.

I don’t quite understand how my selfish, proud, vengeful, deceitful, & lustful heart, became one that desired to replaced with the heart of God…one that is always selfless, humble, true, at peace, and loving.  Yes, I can understand how I, as a semi-popular, culturally undecided, and person of undefined faith could decide at the age of 17 to be saved and  “receive Jesus into my heart” in order to have my sins washed away (just in case the Gospel was true), but I can’t explain to you how my self-centered heart became one that strived to make Jesus Lord, and to love God more than I love myself.  What I don’t understand is how God radically changed my heart.  I don’t understand the miracle of God’s grace.

So, there I was…17 years old and lost.  Lost in the sense that I didn’t know who I was meant to be.  I didn’t know who I could be.  I didn’t know who I wanted to be.  I didn’t know what to believe about God or Jesus.  I didn’t have any reason to have faith in God or Jesus.  I’d never learned much about Jesus.  I wasn’t raised in church.  I was never encouraged to have faith in God or Jesus.  I was lost, but if you asked me at the time I would not have known it.

I thought of myself as a good person.  I didn’t drink, do drugs, have sex, or get in fights.  I made decent grades.  I was generally thought of as a nice person.

But something was missing.  And it wasn’t drinks, drugs, sex, fights, or better grades.

I didn’t search much.  I didn’t study islam, buddhism, hinduism, or Christianity in order to figure out what I believed.  I didn’t care to search for a religion or try to find God or ultimate truth.  I was fine just the way I was.  I didn’t believe in God.  I didn’t believe in ultimate truth.  I wasn’t a scholar on atheism.  I had no desire to explore religion.

I still don’t. The only reason I study Christianity and other religions is because God’s Spirit lives within me and compels me to seek out truth and ways of communicating that truth across cultures.

So, I don’t have a story of initially seeking God and becoming a follower of Christ.  It’s more like God was seeking me, I ran into Him through someone else when someone else told me about Him, and I decided to follow Him…and seek Him.

So, at 17 I decided to become a Christian.  I wish I could have a glorious testimony and say I became perfect right away and full of Christian faith, but that’s not what happened.  I found myself questioning faith like never before, and I even considered attending a mosque.  But, there was something about Christianity that resonated within me.  There was something about the good character of the Christians I was familiar with.  The goodness within me identified with their goodness.  Sure our personalities were different, but what mattered to me was the goodness I saw in them.

But, I was conflicted.  What about the not so good things I saw in me?  Less than a year after becoming a Christian, I found myself feeling like a worse Christian than before I’d become one!  This was around the time of my freshman year at UMass-Amherst.  This rough year included some sexual sin, drinking, and overall stupidity that I’d never practiced before.  My much lower than usual GPA showed for it.  I didn’t feel like I was who I meant to be.  And, something deep within me told me that God had better for me than what I was prescribing myself.  To make a long story short, God spoke to me through another Christian who encouraged me to surrender my life to Christ and make Him Lord — that this was the best thing I could choose to do.  And I decided to do just this.

My life transformed.  It really did.  I broke up with my girlfriend at the time, and didn’t date for next 4 years.  I wanted some time to build my relationship with God and focus on school.  I began attending church on campus, praying, and reading my bible regularly.  I asked God to fill me with His Spirit.  I memorized scripture so I could know God better.  I started listening to gospel music – music that was positive, and compeled me to worship God.  The friends I used to go to parties with were mostly replaced with Christian friends who I studied and hung out with.

My grades improved dramatically semester by semester.  I transferred during my junior year to Tufts University, a top 25 school that I previously thought would never accept me.  God was stretching and building my faith.

At Tufts, I had an opportunity to re-present myself to others.  I could have abandoned my new found faith or kept quiet about it.  Instead, by God’s grace, the Holy Spirit compelled me to seek God more, grow as a believer, and tell others about the goodness of God.

I wish I had such a glorious testimony that I could proudly say that “I haven’t stopped since.”  But, that’s simply not true.  There have certainly been times when my fire has started to go out and I haven’t immediately sought God to rekindle the flame.  There have been some times when I’ve been frustrated, depressed, and discouraged.  But, one thing that has remained constant in my life – one thing that kept me grounded – one thing that has repeatedly brought me back to worship, has been God’s grace in my life.  Without it, I would surely lack the faith to follow Christ.

My journey in life hasn’t come without some challenges:

–  The painful impact of my parents’ divorce.

–  Societal pressures to identify myself with one ethnic race

–  The unyielding presence of my flesh (sinful nature – nature described by scripture as being in each of us)

But, by God’s grace, I’ve been able to overcome these challenges with His help.

I’ve learned that in God’s eyes, I’m inherently sinful.  He’s not impressed by the good things that I do for other people.  The good that I do will never make me holy enough to enter Heaven on my own.  I needed the perfect life of Jesus to be sacrificed in my place, and I needed faith in Him in order to appropriate that sacrifice in my life. By the grace of God, I have this faith, and am saved.  By the grace of God, I am follower of Jesus.

By the grace of God, I…

Live the life (God meant for me to live).