...And Why I Am a Christian
[This post is the second part of an essay constituting one chapter of a forthcoming book of apologetic writings. See part
one here.]
One of the first reasons I am a Christian, then,
is this immediate and inescapable conviction that God exists and has revealed
himself in the person of Jesus. My faith ultimately is not the result of an
argument or a scientific inference, but more like the sort of properly basic
belief mentioned earlier. For me the existence of God has always been
something of an axiom, a self-evident truth that holds prior to any evidence
adduced either in favor or against it. But as the prophets and apostles make so
clear, one may know the truth and yet "suppress the truth in
unrighteousness." Although before conversion I believed in an abstract
sense that God existed and Jesus was his Son, I had not exercised the sort of
saving faith that acknowledges Christ as both Savior and Lord in the "real
world" (where practical priorities are established and difficult decisions
are made.)
For days after hearing the gospel message I
wrestled with the terrifying alternatives before me: Surrender completely to
Jesus and begin to live my life according to his will, or refuse the rule
of Jesus and risk eternal suffering in a hell created by God for Satan and his
rebellious followers. (The prospect of living forever with God in heaven held
no attraction for me at the time). I knew instinctively that there were no
other options. To those who might allege that Christians choose to believe only
because they want Christianity to be true, I would answer that in 1985
the very last thing in the world I wanted was to repent of my sins in
the face of otherwise dire eternal consequences. These thoughts and
convictions hounded me incessantly despite my desires to the contrary. Tense
with trepidation but dreadfully resolved, I finally broke down and decided to
do this Christian thing—whatever it was—with all of my heart. To the extent
that I understood where he was going and what he was doing, I would follow
Christ and do his will. I am a Christian to this day in part because by God's
gracious leading I made a lifelong commitment to Christ. The completely
unexpected result of that fateful decision was a sense of great joy, a profound
realization that knowing God was my ultimate purpose for being born into the
world.
Even if thoroughly sincere, however, my
commitment to God would not have taken me far without the empowering of his
Holy Spirit. In my pre-conversion days I had tried to commit to lots of
things—projects, relationships, and other endeavors—almost always without
success. The very fact that I have remained a Christian for almost thirty years
testifies to the power of God at work in my life. I say that with special
emphasis in light of the challenges I have faced as a believer. In the interest
of truth I must state here that as a Christian I have experienced not only my
greatest joys but my greatest sufferings and heartaches. Contrary to the
particularly Americanized version of Christianity—in which the ultimate virtue
is "happiness" and the ultimate testimony a recounting of material
successes—my life in the faith has often proven exceedingly difficult. My wife
and I have endured hardships we can scarcely begin to describe to others. This of
course is just what Jesus and the apostles promised in their countless
references to the trials, testings and temptations certain to confront every
disciple. Again let me say that the appeal of Christianity is nothing worldly:
not money, fame, success, ease or temporal pleasure. Like the apostles, I
desire that all would come to know the spiritual life and joy of Jesus Christ;
but at the same time, to anyone who seeks relief from real-world problems I
would not recommend Christianity.
Rather than an escape from reality, Jesus offers
new life in a real spiritual kingdom over which he personally rules as king.
There are tremendous joys to be had in the discovery that God is alive and
all-powerful and yet loves us unconditionally; that he sacrificed everything,
as Paul said, to "demonstrate his love for us." God leads us out of
sinful bondages and psychological snares with the grace of a loving Father. He
fills us with hope, and gives us glimpses of his eternal glory by the power of
his Holy Spirit. In an age of rampant fatherlessness and divorce he teaches us
what it means to love our families—and what it means to be loved as his
own. (I thank God daily for my lovely wife and my two precious children.) He
teaches us how to work hard and be honest, how to be thankful for little
things, how to rejoice and laugh during bitter disappointments, how to love and
forgive our enemies, how to find contentment in the present world precisely by
seeking a better world to come. All this makes life in the kingdom, as Jesus
said, a hidden treasure and a pearl of great price. So, another reason for my
remaining a Christian is simply that the joy of knowing Jesus is worth any
cost.
Finally, I should mention that there have been
times when my faith has confronted intellectual challenges. In fact, I
became an atheist of sorts for a brief period while still a college student
(and after my conversion!), the result of naively accepting the drastically
secularized teachings of my professors and textbooks as undisputed truth. That
experience of disillusionment led me to seek out the intellectual grounds for
the faith I had so recently embraced, if indeed there were any such grounds. I
thereupon discovered perennially influential Christian writings like Mere
Christianity by C.S. Lewis, popular apologetic treatments like Josh
McDowell's Evidence That Demands a Verdict, and various insightful
critiques of an evolutionary history of the world widely (but wrongly)
regarded as a "fact of science" that falsifies the creation
story of Genesis. Realizing that Christian faith was not in fact
groundless, I repented of my unbelief and determined never again to be so
easily taken in by the voices of skepticism.
My reasons for believing from a rational or
evidentiary standpoint are now legion. These would include, in no particular
order: The correlation of the creation story in Genesis with the basic facts of
cosmology and the "fine-tuned" structure of the universe; the
astonishing levels of specifiable, functional complexity observable in living
creatures, suggesting their deliberate design; general
human acknowledgement of a transcendent moral law, pointing to a
transcendent moral legislator; the origin and prophetically
foretold history of Israel, as preserved in the Scriptures and still
unfolding today; countless archaeological confirmations of the narratives of
both testaments; the miraculous ministry and uniquely authoritative teaching of
Jesus Christ, attested in the accounts of many thousands of early Gospel
manuscripts; the birth of the early church in Jerusalem (the very site of the
crucifixion) through the preaching of the bodily resurrection of Christ in the
face of violent persecution; and perhaps more than the others, unforgettable
direct experiences of God's loving presence and healing power.
Ultimately, though, any reasons I have for being
a Christian always come back to the revelation of Jesus himself. When I read
the words of Jesus and the accounts of his ministry, when I recall the facts of
his death and resurrection, when I think upon who I was before trusting in him
and who I am now, I know there is a God and that he loves me dearly. I am a
Christian because of Christ.
-- DM
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