Welcome back! First of all, I hope you've read Epiphany #1. If not, then #2 won't make as much sense. As I said in the intro to #1, in my life I have had three major epiphanies - major breakthroughs in my thinking and understanding that have changed everything in my life. And I really do mean everything. My first epiphany at the ripe ol' age of 24 was that there is a god. And then ......
Epiphany #2 - Jesus is the Son of God
For many people, they assume that #1 is the same as #2. But let me assure you, there is a wide chasm of understanding between knowing there is a god - some kind of higher power or something supernatural in the universe - and putting a name and character traits to that God. Billions of people in this world believe #1 without believing #2. Many people believe that there are just vague forces of good and evil, that Allah is their god, or they believe in Buddhism, etc etc etc. without that higher power being the man, Jesus Christ. So how did I get from #1 to #2? A lot of research. And an open, seeking heart.
I would say that one of the hardest things when doing any kind of research is to put aside our own preconceived ideas and preferences. At the point in my life where I was between #1 and #2, I was still in much of my old mindset - namely, that religious people had swallowed "the opiate of the masses" and that in order to believe anything as antiquated as the Bible, you had to check all intellect and critical thinking at the door. I mean, that book is a few thousand years old! How in the world could it possibly relate to my life today? And besides, I'd made quite a habit of printing off lists from the internet of "Contradictions in the Bible" and using them to debate people. So don't think for a minute that I had any slant towards the Bible or Christianity! In fact, I think at that point I had given more credence to eastern religions and mysticism. (Which, it's so funny to me what we call an "eastern" religion or a "western" religion. Christianity is seen as a western religion - but why, I have no idea. It was born in Iraq and fulfilled in Israel. Not really what I think of as western society.) Anyway - I at least decided to look into Christianity. While you might hear of people who denounce particular denominations, you very rarely hear of people who turned to Jehovah (the God of the Bible) and regretted it later.
So, I set out to study. I had studied the Book of Mormon (some people very close to me were Mormon). I looked into Buddhism, as well as the native American ideas, etc.. I also decided to read the Bible, just to see what all the fuss was about. While grocery shopping in a superstore, I grabbed a Bible. It was the "So That's Why! Bible" - one that's very textbook-like. I wanted my quest to be intellectual research, and I liked how this particular book tied biblical events and times into "the real world." But, while shopping, I was afraid that people would get the wrong impression of me if they saw me buying a Bible, so I hid it under a case of beer. Every night after work I would crack a beer and crack the Bible. That particular book is laid out chronologically. Soon I would really look forward to my reading time - it was fascinating to me. I would have all my old art history books out, and when I would read about things like the apostle Paul dealing with people who were making shrines to the goddess Artemis, I would flip open my art books and look at photos of the temple of Artemis. Since my background was in art, it helped me make "real-world" correlations, which validated what the Bible was saying. There are other books that claim to be from God that do not have any such validations. The people and places mentioned have never been verified - but not so with the Bible.
The only way I can describe my experience with slowly coming to believe the Bible is that you have to read it to believe it. There's nothing I can say to convince you. And when I say "read it", I mean READ IT. I don't mean to read commentaries on it or summaries of it, or to read bits and portions of it. I mean dedicate to sit down and read it. After all, if it's false, then by reading it you'll only have more ammo against believers, right? (But again, I wholeheartedly believe in "seek and ye shall find" - or in other words, you will find what you look for. If you are only looking for things that don't make sense or things you don't agree with, you'll find plenty. If you are looking objectively at it, you will find an objective truth.) Once I had been reading the Bible for a little while, I easily came to see that the vast majority of so-called contradictions of the Bible were simply misunderstandings or things taken out of context. For example, on many lists of contradictions, you'll see things like "in Genesis 1 it says God was pleased with creation, but in Gen 6 it says He was not pleased. That's a contradiction." Really? First of all, you have to notice that there is quite a difference in the point in time these two comments were made. Most people say over 1,600 years difference. God was pleased with what He had done, but was not pleased with what man had turned His creation into. Big difference. But you'd never get that by reading two verses out of context. When you study the explanations, the contradictions seem trivial at best.
So, now that I had come to believe the Bible, I had to believe what the Bible said about things like the afterlife, the purpose of my life now, what happens to those who follow Christ and those who don't, and whether or not we have an excuse for not believing. I remember as I read the Bible for the first time, I thought, "Well even if I died now I'd be ok, because surely God wouldn't hold me accountable for something I didn't know." Right? Wow, I still remember (almost 9 years later) exactly where I was sitting when I first read, "Since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse." It goes on to talk about no person will ever be able to say that they didn't have enough evidence to believe in God, and we will all be held accountable for that. That's sobering stuff. No wonder I remember that moment 9 years later. We all understand these concepts in ordinary life, but for some reason we won't translate the logic to faith. If I was driving down the freeway doing 90mph and the cop pulled me over, could I get away with telling her that because I didn't read the speed limit sign, I shouldn't get a ticket? Of course not! Yet we act like ignorance of God's Word will somehow be a free pass on the day of judgment.
So where did this all leave me? I now believed there was a higher power at work in the universe. I now knew that higher power was Jehovah, and His Son was Jesus. Not only did Jesus come down from heaven, take the form of a man, live a perfect life to show us the will of God, but he was crucified because of *my* sin and then God raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in heaven. So what? What does that mean for my life? Well, that means everything. Everything changes. My life is no longer under my own control. The only logical thing to do was to submit myself to the God that not only has the power to create everything that has ever been created, but who has the love for me to give His Son as a sacrifice for me. He loved me enough that He would provide a way for me to be forgiven of my sin, be reconciled into a right relationship with Him, and teach me day by day how to live for Him. He would give me His Spirit to dwell inside of me to help me! He knows I am incapable of living holy on my own!! The kindness of God led me to repent of my selfish lifestyle, be baptized for the forgiveness of my sins so that I could be born to a new life full of purpose and hope. Everything changed, and I would never, ever go back to the way things were. Praise God that He has the power - and the love - to change me one day at a time.
to be continued.....
Author's note: I am not trying in one blog entry to convince you that there is a god and that He is Jesus. That's not my job. All I am trying to do is to tell a tiny bit of what happened in my life that led me from being an atheist to where I am now. While I can - and should - give you all the reasons for the hope within me, unless you are willing to seek Him (on His terms), dedicate yourself to the study of His Word and to live whatever is in it, then no little blog entry will change anything.
Without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He exists, and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him.
Heb 11:6
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