meeting God | a new reality
My spiritual journey:
>I always thought of myself as a Christian - for three reasons: I believed in God, I was a good person and I went to church.
>I knew the Christmas and Easter stories well. I had a Bible that my grandmother had given me, but I had never read it.
>I looked to my family and my own accomplishments to give me meaning and security in life. I wanted people to see me as cool. I worked for four years as a whitewater raft guide because I wanted a "cool" summer job.
>One day, I was invited to a meeting in a nearby city where I learned through what the speaker said that to be a Christian meant more than just to believe in God, go to church and live a good life.
>I learned that to be a Christian was to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. It made sense to me the very first time I heard it. I had no real issues or major questions.
>I prayed a prayer asking Jesus to come into my life as my Savior and my Lord... to forgive my wrong doings and make me a new person on the inside. I had no idea what I had done, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. My chest was pounding inside... I knew God was knocking at the door of my life.
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A spiritual awakening:
>After that prayer, God began to be real to me. I began to have a "spiritual hunger" that I had never known before. I began to read the Bible with interest, and to talk with other Christian friends. I listened to my first Christian music album.
>When I heard other Christians talking about how "God told them" something, I wondered why God never "spoke" to me. I learned that the most common way God speaks to us is through his word, the bible.
>I began to intensely read the Bible, understanding that God was speaking to me through it.
>When I was a first year university student, a strong Christian man became a friend of mine, and he showed tremendous interest in where I was at spiritually, and that made a great impact on me.
>I'm different now. I recognize that God has an influence on every area of my life. I learn about that through reading the bible.
>I see life from a different perspective than I did before...life is simply a small speck of time, in relation to all of eternity. I recognize that here in this life, I get the awesome privilege to know God personally, as a prelude to spending all of eternity with him in heaven when I die.
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More about Jeff . . .
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