reformedct
Dec 28th 2008, 09:47 PM
I know there is a lot of debate on this point but i just wanted to share a bit concerning my personal conversion and why it has caused me to believe in the Sovreignty of God in salvation. Everyone can share their own experience as well of course.
Well, first let me start of saying i was born in church. Since i was a baby my parents were involved in ministry in the Church of God in Christ in California. I was a typically good moral kid by relative standards. I believed that Jesus was real and i believed in Him in a sense but i did not understand justification by faith or anything like that. I always thought God was mad at me. My high school years and early college years were godless, outside of the mandatory Sunday servive my parents made me go to, and my ritual confession of sin for forgiveness to Christ.
But during those times i did not LOVE God. I didnt understand God. Instead of becoming more like Christ I was becoming more and more sinful as the days went by, waiting for the day i could move out of my parents house and start sleeping around and partying like the world when i moved out.
One day, around September this year, I was sitting in church, as usual not paying much attention, contemplating what i should change my major to.
ALL OF THE SUDDEN, as i sat in church, a very warm feeling came over me and everything just started looking beutiful. It was really weird, like a Bambi scene or something. All the sudden I just felt protected, safe, loved, and in the hands of God. I got up after the service (something i NEVER DO, and happily and gladly announced that i was "re-dedicating" my life to God. I immediatley went home and trashed a bunch of sinful stuff in my room. The way I talked to and viewed others changed. I used to try and figure out how to manipulate people but now i saw them as Gods creatures, all in need of salvation and the grace of God.
To this day i have not been made perfect in my morality and actions, but i have seen the distance in which God has separated me from my old life and ways of thinking. Whenever i do something wrong, i just hate it. I hate gossip. I hate when people get taken advantage of. I hate when people twist Jesus words, I hate evil. I hate the evil that i do myself and by the grace of God he is helping me to continually die to myself and live in Christ.
The point that i want to make is that i was not seeking for God. I wasnt thinking about Him and He DID SOMETHING to me. After that experience i began to dig in the Word like i never had in my life. I used to go months without reading a verse. Now i cant seem to go a few minutes without contemplating some passage.
I did not choose this. I used to think the Bible was soooooo boring. Now it gives me new life and i base my very existence on what is written in those pages.
Like i said i did not choose God. the work He has done in me is amazing and refreshing. I wish everyone in the world could experience what i have.
this is why i believe in Unconditional Election. If not for everyone, at least for myself, because what has happened to me was not of my doing.
http://bibleforums.org/forum/images/misc/progress.gif http://bibleforums.org/forum/images/buttons/edit.gif (http://bibleforums.org/forum/editpost.php?do=editpost&p=1921081)
Well, first let me start of saying i was born in church. Since i was a baby my parents were involved in ministry in the Church of God in Christ in California. I was a typically good moral kid by relative standards. I believed that Jesus was real and i believed in Him in a sense but i did not understand justification by faith or anything like that. I always thought God was mad at me. My high school years and early college years were godless, outside of the mandatory Sunday servive my parents made me go to, and my ritual confession of sin for forgiveness to Christ.
But during those times i did not LOVE God. I didnt understand God. Instead of becoming more like Christ I was becoming more and more sinful as the days went by, waiting for the day i could move out of my parents house and start sleeping around and partying like the world when i moved out.
One day, around September this year, I was sitting in church, as usual not paying much attention, contemplating what i should change my major to.
ALL OF THE SUDDEN, as i sat in church, a very warm feeling came over me and everything just started looking beutiful. It was really weird, like a Bambi scene or something. All the sudden I just felt protected, safe, loved, and in the hands of God. I got up after the service (something i NEVER DO, and happily and gladly announced that i was "re-dedicating" my life to God. I immediatley went home and trashed a bunch of sinful stuff in my room. The way I talked to and viewed others changed. I used to try and figure out how to manipulate people but now i saw them as Gods creatures, all in need of salvation and the grace of God.
To this day i have not been made perfect in my morality and actions, but i have seen the distance in which God has separated me from my old life and ways of thinking. Whenever i do something wrong, i just hate it. I hate gossip. I hate when people get taken advantage of. I hate when people twist Jesus words, I hate evil. I hate the evil that i do myself and by the grace of God he is helping me to continually die to myself and live in Christ.
The point that i want to make is that i was not seeking for God. I wasnt thinking about Him and He DID SOMETHING to me. After that experience i began to dig in the Word like i never had in my life. I used to go months without reading a verse. Now i cant seem to go a few minutes without contemplating some passage.
I did not choose this. I used to think the Bible was soooooo boring. Now it gives me new life and i base my very existence on what is written in those pages.
Like i said i did not choose God. the work He has done in me is amazing and refreshing. I wish everyone in the world could experience what i have.
this is why i believe in Unconditional Election. If not for everyone, at least for myself, because what has happened to me was not of my doing.
http://bibleforums.org/forum/images/misc/progress.gif http://bibleforums.org/forum/images/buttons/edit.gif (http://bibleforums.org/forum/editpost.php?do=editpost&p=1921081)