I graduated high school and went off to college at Purdue University in Indiana, but I still had not resolved the questions I had about Christianity and if it was true or not.
I was still reading the Bible, but since a new freedom was available to me, I tried to balance the rigor of earning an engineering degree at Purdue University and having some type of a party life. I found that to be just empty-nothing really satisfying there. There was an emptiness in life that was always there.
One of the fraternities at Purdue offered me an invitation to become a member there, but I declined since I knew what I really looking for was deeper. It was about true purpose, connectedness and peace with God.
The more I read the Bible, the more I could see that the truth there applied well to life, more than anything else I had seen.
I decided to go back to church, partly because I had experienced the emptiness of the party lifestyle and because I knew what I was looking for was in the other direction.
I went back to the Catholic church one time near Purdue University, but all the same questions came back about the empty traditions. I was looking to see the evidence of what I saw in the Bible in people’s lives. I decided to try a different church.
I went to a small non-denominational church that met on campus, and at first, it made me very uncomfortable, because they were singing, really singing, and we never did that. I decided that as soon as the service was over, I would leave as quickly as possible. Fortunately for me, one of the church members came out of the room with me, introduced himself, and invited me over for dinner with his family.
I started to get to know the people in the church, and I could see something was different here. They really believed the things in the Bible, and it made a difference in their lives. That is the true measure of belief.
As I attended Bible studies there, it became clear to me that I was not a Christian. I read a description in the Bible about people and their sin saying that it offended God when they did their own thing and broke His laws. That was me. I knew that I could not stand before a Holy God and claim that I deserved to be with him. I had fallen short of God’s Standard.
In fact, the Bible says that ALL people have fallen into this same category.
Romans 3:23: “For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory (standard) of God.”
But there is ONE person who did live a perfect life. When the Lord saw that everyone would be condemned to be separated from Him because of their sin, He decided to offer forgiveness to them by paying for their offenses by giving his own son to die in the place of those who deserved to be separated because of their sin.
Jesus Christ, the son of God, was born as a man, lived a perfect life, and was killed by the religious elite of the time because he threatened their power. But this was part of God’s plan, to allow his son to be killed and to place the punishment for OUR sin on Him as he was there on the cross.
In realizing the truth of how Christianity really works, I knew I was not a Christian. A TRUE Christian believes he or she cannot get to God through his or her own merits. A TRUE Christian trusts in the death of Christ to pay for his or her sins because they cannot they have nothing to offer on their own.
A TRUE Christian believes that Christ rose from the dead, showing that death and sin and the grave could not conquer or hold Him and that He is supreme over all things, even death.
This process of understanding took several months on my part to fully grasp that I could not earn my way to God or get to Him my own way.
One night, on my own, I confessed my failure in my ability to approach God in my own way and put my faith and trust in Jesus Christ for my forgiveness.