He mocked Christians for years, then investigated Jesus

[Matthias]

“The evidence is so overwhelming it compels acceptance by proof that leaves absolutely no room for doubt.” - Sir Lionel Luckhoo

Sir Lionel was a highly successful defense attorney, and a skeptic. He examined the evidence and became persuaded.

Now, just because he said this about the evidence doesn’t mean that we should take his word for it. We should each and every one examine the evidence and render our own verdict.

 

[Matthias]

Another book recommendation.

 

[Matthias]

I haven’t read this book @Riven. For that reason I won’t recommend it. However, given your uncertainty about miracles, it might be a book that would be helpful for you.

 

[Debp]

I haven’t read this book @Riven. For that reason I won’t recommend it. However, given your uncertainty about miracles, it might be a book that would be helpful for you.

I believe in the miracles Jesus Christ performed by the power of God. And I think God can even perform miracles today. (But maybe our faith is lacking today so not as many miracles?)

However I don't think if @Riven doubts miracles today that that would affect his salvation.

When I was a child my mom and I would attend Kathryn Kulhman's services. We lived in Pittsburgh PA where she was based. The presence of the Holy Spirit was so apparent in those worship services. Even as a child, I sensed the Holy Spirit there and had an experience with God. And miracles would occur in her services.

She always started the services with much worship to God with everyone singing hymns for a very long time.

(Btw, she never claimed to be a pastor...she said she was an evangelist.)

 

[Matthias]

I believe in the miracles Jesus Christ performed by the power of God. And I think God can even perform miracles today. (But maybe our faith is lacking today so not as many miracles?)

However I don't think if @Riven doubts miracles today that that would affect his salvation.

It came up in conversation as a contributing factor in his present rejection of Christianity. My hope is that the stumbling block can be removed.

When I was a child my mom and I would attend Kathryn Kulhman's services. We lived in Pittsburgh PA where she was based. The presence of the Holy Spirit was so apparent in those worship services. Even as a child, I sensed the Holy Spirit there and had an experience with God. And miracles would occur in her services.

She always started the services with much worship to God with everyone singing hymns for a very long time.

(Btw, she never claimed to be a pastor...she said she was an evangelist.)

 

[Debp]

It came up in conversation as a contributing factor in his present rejection of Christianity. My hope is that the stumbling block can be removed.

Hopefully it's not a true rejection but rather just some doubts that Christians can have at times.

@Riven I just found this video because another member was talking about his simple faith. I also have a simple faith in Jesus.

The video is only five minutes long and very meaningful.

 

[Matthias]

“I was a staunch atheist, and then God supernaturally transformed me.

• I claimed there was zero evidence for God.

• I read Darwin, Sagan, Hitchens, and Neil deGrasse Tyson. I admired them all.

• I believed religion was invented to control people and cope with death.

• I spent hours with Christians in person, trying to convince them that science and evolution didn’t point to God and that religion was a myth.

• I sometimes mocked Christianity to their faces.

• I told former atheists they were never true atheists.

• I often asked theists, ‘Can you prove God exists?’ and ‘Which God?’

• I studied evolutionary biology and believed life evolved through billions of years of unguided natural selection.

• Then one day, God - the living God and eternal Creator of all things - began drawing me.

• For months, I felt His presence and pull daily and saw Him in my mind’s eye. I initially dismissed it as a hallucination, but it persisted. It became clear I was having a supernatural experience, the very kind I had once dismissed or mocked in others.

• I innately understood Him as the God of the Bible.

• God drew me to Scripture, where I encountered the truth of Jesus Christ.

• I believed, and the Holy Spirit supernaturally transformed me from within.

• I was comfortable and confident in my atheism with no intention of leaving.

• Once I encountered the truth, there was no returning to the lies.

• My life has completely changed and I have been made a new creation.

Since then, my relationship with the Living God has only grown stronger.

God exists. The Bible is true. Jesus is the only Way.

If you feel even the slightest call from God, don’t harden your heart.

Turn toward Him and see what happens.”

Anchored Soul (@anchoredsoul0) on X

I was a staunch atheist, and then God supernaturally transformed me. • I claimed there was zero evidence for God. • I read Darwin, Sagan, Hitchens, and Neil deGrasse Tyson. I admired them all. • I believed religion was invented to control people and cope with death. • I spent hours with Christi…

x.com

 

[Matthias]

“Faith is active trust in a Jesus who is unseen yet alive. … the resurrection of Jesus defines hope for the future. The followers of Jesus face the prospect of a death that is as real as the death of Jesus himself. The message of resurrection is that the relationship with Jesus that begins now, in faith, has a future through the believer’s own resurrection.”

(Craig R. Koester, The Word of Life: A Theology of John’s Gospel, p. 123)

No resurrection of Jesus means no future resurrection of his followers. No resurrection of Jesus means Jesus isn’t coming back. No resurrection of Jesus means there is no God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. No resurrection of Jesus means Christianity is false. No resurrection of Jesus means all human life ends in death.

All human beings die. Bodily resurrection is the means, the only means, by which the dead are made alive again.

The claim of Christianity is that Jesus did not survive crucifixion. He died and was buried. He was lifeless in the guarded tomb for three days and three nights, after which time the tomb was found to be empty. He appeared alive to witnesses.

Does God - the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; the one true God - exist?

Yes. The miraculous resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, the Messiah, proves that he does.