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What does it mean to be "Born Again?"
Introduction
If you have come to this page it means that
you are curious. You may be a believer who is curious to see what
another believer has written, possibly to see if it agrees with the
gospel you know. If so, feel free to look around and critique this all
you want.
Or you may be an atheist who is just
looking to see what the other side is putting on the web because you
wish to refute Christianity. If so, also feel free to look around and
critique as much as you wish.
Or you may be an unbeliever looking for
answers to some nagging questions. You are interested in Christianity,
but you are not sure that it is for you. Or you may be one who is a
Christian, but has fallen away from God and are in, what many call, a
back slidden condition. If you are either one, you are the person that
these pages are meant for. I too have had some of the same doubts that
you have, struggled with the existence of God, and then wondered if the
God of the Bible is the God of the universe. If you are looking for all
the answers in some glitzy package of HTML and Java scripts, I am
afraid that you will be disappointed. If you are looking for
information from a common Christian with no formal theological training
then maybe I can help.
What You Need To Know
1. You do not have to carry that weight of
guilt with you all of your life. God has provided a way to remove your
burden.
2. Your life has a meaning and a
purpose that is only revealed through faith in Jesus Christ.
3. God Loves You: You are an
individual who is special in the sight of God.
4. Jesus Christ is not a curse
word, he is God's Son who died in your place so that you can be free of
your burden and have a life with purpose.
5. Christianity is not a myth.
It is a faith, a choice based on evidence. You do not have to check
your brain at the door to enter a church.
The Contents Of This Web Site
·
What's
In It For Me Has an
explanation of the peace and joy that a Christian experiences.
·
The
Plan of Salvation Has God's
plan of salvation explained with Bible verses so that anyone can know
Him.
·
The
Christian Life Has my
understanding of how a Christian is to live based on what the Bible
says. It also has some things to watch out for.
·
Which
Bible? Is meant to inform
the uninformed about the different Bible translations.
·
F.A.Q. Has some common questions that unbelievers
may ask. Questions that I asked as a Christian during the years before
I finally yielded myself to God's direction.
·
More
Information Has links to
Christian sites that have the resources to answer some of the F.A.Qs.
in a more in depth manner than I can.
My Testimony
I am a fifty-three year old truck driver,
with a high school education. I was brought up in a home with a
Christian mother and an unsaved, agnostic/atheistic father. I regularly
attended church, sang in the choir, and participated in the youth group
all through out my teen years. Even though I was a regular in church I
was not a Christian.
When I was nineteen I was married to a
member of the same church. Our son was born 6 months later. With
marriage I moved out of my parents home, but I continued attending
church for a while. Within a year or so of my sons birth, I stopped
attending church altogether, even though my wife continued to go almost
two years more. Through outside influence I had made the excuse that
Christianity was a myth.
We had some serious marital problems, but
things seemed to be coming together until April of 74 when I came home
after work and found her rings and a note on the kitchen table. My life
was devastated, I honestly loved my wife. Not knowing what else to do
or who else to call, I went to see the pastor of our church. After an
hour or so of counseling, he asked me point blank if I had ever
accepted Jesus Christ as my savior. Replying in the negative, we knelt
together in his study and I for the first time asked without
reservation for Jesus to forgive my sins and be my personal savior.
When I got up, it felt as if a thousand pounds had been lifted from my
shoulders.
In the next few weeks, I testified of my
salvation at work, with my family and in church. I also prayed
fervently that my marriage would be restored. I realized that as a new
Christian, I needed to be baptized as a public confession of my faith,
and a first step of obedience. I rationalized the idea away with the
thought that my baptism as a twelve year old unbeliever should count
for something.
In June, my wife called me and said that
she would like to come home. I was ecstatic, I thanked God for the
wonderful answer to my prayers. My my heart was full of joy at the
thought of answered prayer and a restored family. She came home and we
started putting our lives back together, and three days later she left
again. I cannot tell you how devastating this was. The first time she
had taken herself and our son. The second time she also took my faith
in God.
Soon after this, I left town and moved
about five hundred miles from home. I tried going to church, but I just
couldn't put my heart into it. I believed that God had let me down or
had played some sort of cruel joke on me. I lived like this for about
ten years, knowing that I was in fact a child of God, but not being
able to reconcile myself to Him. For a while, I didn't even own a
Bible. During this time I moved back to town, but my now ex-wife had
moved to a large city a hundred miles away.
At the end of this ten years, I purchased a
Bible. For a while I made a point of reading the Bible regularly, but
the sinful habits that I had picked up during those years and in the
years before prevented me from coming to the Lord for complete
reconciliation. When I started driving truck, I took one of the Bibles
with me, and would read it occasionally, but no more than a few times a
month. But God's word must have had some effect, because I found myself
listening to Christian radio. I made it a point to listen every morning
to Chuck Swindoll, John MacArthur, James Dobson, and others. Christian
radio became my church where I would come nearly every day to worship
and learn, but I still couldn't get myself to attend a local church.
This was mostly because I always felt the Lord telling me that I need
to be baptized as a believer, but I was still too stubborn.
About six years ago, I felt the Lord
leading me to get back into church. Coincidentally, I had been looking
up the names of people I had known from church when I was a teen. I
found the name of one who still lived locally and I phoned him. As we
talked I found out that he was still involved in the church, and I
mentioned that I might see him Sunday, which I did. I started attending
this same little church on a regular basis. After about four weeks, a
missionary from Ghana, Africa visited the church and gave a
sermon on being the man that God can use and challenging at the end to
be 'that man.' This worked on me and in me. That week I prayed for God
to make me that man that he can use and told him that I would submit to
his authority and be baptized. The next week I marked on my visitor
card, my interest in being baptized. In December of 1997 I was baptized
as a believer and joined the little church. I have no regrets in this
decision at all.
Looking back on my past years as a
Christian who was not serving the Lord, I have nothing but regret.
Regret for many things that I did that I shouldn't have done, and
regret for not doing so many things that I should have. I see my 23
years as a carnal Christian as a complete waste. If you are a Christian
who has turned away from the Lord and are thinking about turning toward
him, do it. Don't let any more time be wasted, you won't be sorry. If
you don't, I can guarantee that eventually you will be sorry, that you
too will see this time as a waste.
I have been attending this Church for
nearly seven years now. I have been growing steadily in my walk with
the Lord. I can see the sinful habits that I picked up in twenty-three
years of carnality, disappearing. I have found a place to worship and
to serve. The joy and peace in my life are growing daily as I walk with
my eyes on Jesus. (1)
If you have any questions or comments,  .
(1)
I wrote the above testimony for several reasons. I
wanted the reader of these pages to be sure that I am not some sort of
slick, Christianity salesman, but that I am just a common Christian who
wishes for all people to join him in the family of God. I also wanted
to stir something in the heart of those that churches refer to as
carnal Christians, or backsliders. Jesus loves you, and if you turn
around he is right there. He never left you, you have merely looked
away from Him. Look toward Him, He is not far away at all.
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