Tesimony: Finding Jesus

When my wife Dee Dee got an iPod and started watching some religious podcasts, I got curious about what I could find on iTunes.  I hadn’t been to church in a long time apart from watching Mass on EWTN, and maybe I could honor God without having to get up early on Sunday morning.  I noticed there was a church from South Carolina on there called NewSpring, and I decided to listen to one of their podcasts.  I was hooked after one episode, and kept downloading more.  I learned more about God in a few weeks than I had learned in decades of going to church.  I started reading the Bible again, and felt like I was finally on the right track.  After awhile, I even went back to church, but it felt empty and lifeless. 

Soon after that, I came across an article about this new church called The Link.  I liked that they had an emphasis on serving the community and told Dee Dee about it.  We took a leap of faith and attended the first official service of The Link.  We liked what we saw and our kids liked it too.  We weren’t completely convinced yet, but we decided to keep attending.  Early on, the pastor, Mike Green,  talked about all the evidence that pointed toward the Bible being the truth and not just a bunch of stories that people made up when they were bored. 

I found three pieces of evidence especially compelling.  The first was the sheer number of Old Testament prophecies that were fulfilled in the life of Jesus.  I don’t know the number now, but I was astonished when I heard.  The second point was that there is no witness you can trust like a dead witness.  Almost everyone who followed Christ when He was alive ended up dying for their beliefs later on.  The only reason I can believe that they would do that is because they had absolute faith in God through witnessing the life and works of His Son. 

The third point was an observation made by C.S. Lewis, who had extensively studied ancient literature.  The Gospels were not written in the style of ancient literature.  They were written in the style of modern realistic novels, where people’s foibles and mistakes are shown along with their good qualities.  The heroes of ancient literature are heroic and perfect, never making mistakes, or are almost perfect except for one huge thing which brings about their downfall.  Apart from Christ, the “main characters” of the Gospel are portrayed in all their flaws, with Peter in particular putting his foot in his mouth on a regular basis.  Extending this further, great figures of the Bible like Moses, Aaron, David and Solomon are also portrayed as flawed.  The truth doesn’t use the literary conventions of the time.  After hearing this amazing sermon, doubts I didn’t know I had finally disappeared and soon after I gave my life to Christ.