I was just thinking about it and trying to understand that, and all of a sudden
essentially the clouds parted
and I could see what it meant personally. And so, I just accepted it.
When people talk about converting to Christianity, it is actually a biblical
requirement to have a spiritual '180'?
A moment or experience you can point to.
I think it's important to have a moment, to be able to reference a moment
when you realize what the gospel was and what it meant and that you embraced it.
Whether that's a pinpoint prick of time
or you know that you mentally made the transition is a different story.
I don't think there's a requirement that we have to remember
the day and the hour, so to speak. That it has to be that dramatic.
I think the real question is: do you believe now?
That's a more important question than: can you point to a specific time and place
when you had a conversion experience?
For some that's going to be easy because of some life circumstance they were in
or maybe the terrible life they had led up to that point
or some crisis they were in, it's going to be a lot easier.
But for others, it took a while for them to comprehend the gospel
and to accept it. They had maybe intellectual hurdles to overcome.
It's going to be more of a process, but they know that they made the process.
They know that they made the transition. All that is not to say
that repentance is not part of the picture. I think it is. If you embrace the gospel,
you understand the gospel and embrace it, there are going to be things in your life
that you're going to have to deal with and
the Lord will make those things known and you're going to deal with them.
Even people with dramatic testimonies, it's not like they dealt with everything
they needed to deal with in one moment of time. They had to learn things.
They had to learn things about what the Lord expected of them and their conduct
and their thought processes and just different parts of life that they needed to surrender.
So, I think the: "I've repented of all I ever needed to repent of in
this one second conversion prayer." I think it's kind of mythical,
even though I know plenty of people that have very dramatic testimonies
and they can point to them. They were definitely turning points in their life,
but they're turning points to a path and the path is something that
still has to be lived and still has to be dealt with, still has to be experienced.
So, I think repentance is important, but I don't think that it's a necessary requirement
that we have this pinprick of time. I can tell you where I was,
but I don't have an exciting dramatic testimony.
I was a sophomore in high school and I wasn't going to sleep one night
and I had heard the gospel in a sermon.
I'd heard it a couple of times prior to that. I had friends who were Christians
that were talking to me about it and I was just thinking about it and trying to
understand that, and all of a sudden essentially the clouds parted
and I could see what it meant. I could see what it meant personally.
And so, I just accepted it. This is the way it was.
I was a sinner. I needed Christ. Christ died for my sins. Very, very simple thoughts.
I can tell you what grade I was in. I know what house we lived in.
I was in my room. I can tell you details like that, but I had a lot to learn.
I had a lot to learn about what it meant to follow Christ
that weren't wrapped up in that moment even though I have a moment I can refer to.
That tends to color how I look at these things even though
I had other friends that had much more dramatic testimonies than that,
but I also know people that they were just taught the gospel as a little child
and eventually they embraced it. They embraced it and that was that.
So it was a process of coming to faith in a more orderly way or a more boring way,
kind of like mine was, even though I didn't have a Christian context at home,
but it was just as sure as anything else.
Yeah, actually there's something that some people preach.
They say: "You cannot point to a moment in which you became a Christian
because you are not a Christian."
I would say: can you point to it now?
And there are people who are scared of the fact that they cannot point to a moment.
Some people say "I don't have a dramatic experience in which I feel that I'm being..."
It's just another burden that we heap on people.