{"id":9809,"date":"2015-06-01T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-06-01T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites-stage.familylife.com\/flministries\/?p=9809"},"modified":"2025-03-03T17:43:57","modified_gmt":"2025-03-03T22:43:57","slug":"i-thought-christianity-was-a-joke","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/articles\/topics\/faith\/essentials-faith\/becoming-a-christian\/i-thought-christianity-was-a-joke\/","title":{"rendered":"I Thought Christianity Was a Joke"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>

Editor\u2019s Note: \u00a0Josh McDowell is a popular author and speaker. As a young man, he considered himself an agnostic and believed that Christianity was worthless.\u00a0However, after intellectually examining the claims of Jesus Christ, he discovered compelling evidence for the reliability of the Christian faith.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

My opinion was that most Christians had two brains: one was lost and the other was looking for it.<\/p>\n

Thomas Aquinas wrote: \u201cThere is within every soul a thirst for happiness and meaning.\u201d<\/p>\n

I wanted to be happy. There\u2019s nothing wrong with that. I also wanted to find meaning in life. I wanted answers to the questions: Who am I? Why in the world am I here? Where am I going?<\/p>\n

More than that, I wanted to be free. Freedom to me was not going out and doing what I wanted to do. Freedom was having the power to do what I knew I ought to do \u2026 but didn\u2019t have the power to do.<\/p>\n

Searching for life\u2019s meaning<\/h2>\n

So I started looking for answers. It seemed that almost everyone was into some sort of religion, so I did the obvious thing and took off for church.<\/p>\n

I must have found the wrong church, though. Some of you know what I mean: I felt worse inside the church than I did outside.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve always been very practical, and when one thing doesn\u2019t work, I chuck it. So I chucked religion. The only thing I had ever gotten out of religion was the change I took out of the offering plate to buy a milkshake. And that\u2019s about all many people ever gain from \u201creligion.\u201d<\/p>\n

I began to wonder if prestige was the answer. So in college I ran for freshman class president and got elected. It was neat knowing everyone on campus, having everyone say, \u201cHi, Josh,\u201d making the decisions, spending the university\u2019s money and the students\u2019 money to get the speakers I wanted. It was great, but it wore off like everything else I had tried.<\/p>\n

I was like a boat out in the ocean being tossed back and forth by the waves, the circumstances. And I couldn\u2019t find anyone who could tell me how to live differently or give me the strength to do it.<\/p>\n

Then I began to notice people who seemed to be riding above the circumstances of university life. One important thing I noticed was that they seemed to possess an inner, constant source of joy\u2014a state of mind not dependent on their surroundings. They were disgustingly happy. They had something I didn\u2019t have \u2026 and I wanted it.<\/p>\n

As I began purposely to spend more time with these people, we ended up sitting around a table in the student union one afternoon. Finally, I leaned back in my chair and said, \u201cTell me, have you always been this way, or has something changed your lives? Why are you so different from the other students, the leaders on campus, the professors? Why?\u201d<\/p>\n

One student looked me straight in the eye\u2014with a little smile\u2014and said two words I never thought I\u2019d hear as part of any solution in a university. She said, \u201cJesus Christ.\u201d<\/p>\n

I said, \u201cOh, for heaven\u2019s sake, don\u2019t give me that garbage. I\u2019m fed up with religion; I\u2019m fed up with the church. Don\u2019t give me that garbage about religion.\u201d<\/p>\n

She shot back, \u201cMister, I didn\u2019t say \u2018religion,\u2019 I said, \u2018Jesus Christ.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Accepting the challenge<\/h2>\n

At first I thought it was a joke. How ridiculous. It was my opinion that most Christians had two brains; one was lost and the other was out looking for it. Oh, I used to wait for a Christian student to speak up in class. I could tear him or her up one side and down the other side, even beating my professors to the punch. I knew the answers to any argument a Christian could bring up. But these people kept challenging me over and over and over again.<\/p>\n

Finally, I accepted their challenge. I did it out of pride, to refute them. So I set out to make an intellectual joke of Christianity, but after two years it backfired on me. After gathering the evidence, I was compelled to conclude that my arguments against Christianity wouldn\u2019t stand up. Jesus Christ is exactly who He claimed to be, the Son of God.<\/p>\n

At that time, though, I had quite a problem. My mind told me all this was true, but my will was pulling me in another direction. I discovered that becoming a Christian was rather ego-shattering. Jesus Christ made a direct challenge to my will to trust Him. Let me paraphrase Him: \u201cLook! I have been standing at the door and I am constantly knocking. If anyone hears Me calling him and opens the door, I will come in\u201d (Revelation 3:20). I didn\u2019t care if He did walk on water or turn water into wine. I didn\u2019t want any party pooper around. I couldn\u2019t think of a faster way to ruin a good time. So here was my mind telling me Christianity was true, and my will was somewhere else.<\/p>\n

Every time I was around those enthusiastic Christians, the conflict would begin. If you\u2019ve ever been around happy people when you\u2019re miserable, you understand how they can bug you. They would be so happy and I would be so miserable that I\u2019d literally get up and run right out of the student union. It came to the point where I\u2019d go to bed at ten at night and I wouldn\u2019t get to sleep until four in the morning. I knew I had to get it off my mind before I went out of my mind!<\/p>\n

In my second year at the university\u2014on December 19, 1959, at 8:30 p.m.\u2014I became a Christian. That night I prayed four things to establish a relationship with the resurrected, living Christ which has since transformed my life.<\/p>\n

First, I said, \u201cLord Jesus, thank you for dying on the cross for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Second, I said, \u201cI confess those things in my life that aren\u2019t pleasing to You and ask You to forgive me and cleanse me.\u201d (The Bible says, \u201cThough your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.\u201d)<\/p>\n

Third, I said, \u201cRight now, in the best way I know how, I open the door of my heart and life and trust You as my Savior and Lord. Take over the control of my life. Change me from the inside out. Make me the type of person You created me to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

The last thing I prayed was, \u201cThank You for coming into my life by faith.\u201d It was a faith based not upon ignorance but upon evidence and facts of history and God\u2019s Word.<\/p>\n

The consequences<\/h2>\n

You\u2019ve probably heard religious people talk about their \u201cbolt of lightning.\u201d Well, nothing so dramatic happened to me, but in time there were some very observable changes.<\/p>\n

Mental peace. <\/em>I had been a person who always had to be occupied. But in a few months after I made the decision to trust Christ, a kind of mental peace began to develop. Don\u2019t misunderstand; I\u2019m not talking about the absence of conflict. What I found in this relationship with Jesus wasn\u2019t so much the absence of conflict as it was the ability to cope with it. I wouldn\u2019t trade this for anything in the world.<\/p>\n

Control of temper.<\/em> I used to \u201cblow my stack\u201d if somebody just looked at me cross-eyed. I still have the scars from almost killing a man my first year in the university. My temper was such an integral part of me. I didn\u2019t consciously seek to change it.<\/p>\n

Then, one day after my decision to put my faith in Christ, I arrived at a crisis, only to find that my temper was gone!<\/p>\n

Freedom from resentment.<\/em> I had a lot of hatred in my life. It wasn\u2019t something outwardly manifested, but there was a kind of inward grinding. I was ticked off with people, things, issues.<\/p>\n

The one person I hated more than anyone else in the world was my father. I despised him. He was the town alcoholic. And if you\u2019re from a small town and one of your parents is an alcoholic, you know what I\u2019m talking about.<\/p>\n

Everybody knew. My friends would come to high school and make jokes about my father. They didn\u2019t think it bothered me. I was laughing on the outside, but let me tell you I was crying on the inside. I\u2019d go out in the barn and find my mother lying in the manure behind the cows. She\u2019d been knocked down by my father and couldn\u2019t get up.<\/p>\n

About five months after I made my decision for Christ, love for my father\u2014a love from God through Jesus Christ\u2014inundated my life. It took that resentment and turned it upside down. It was so strong, I was able to look my father squarely in the eye and say, \u201cDad, I love you.\u201d I really meant it.<\/p>\n

What do you think of Christ?<\/p>\n

When I was confronted with the overwhelming evidence for Christ\u2019s Resurrection, I had to ask the logical question: \u201cWhat difference does all this evidence make to me? What difference does it make whether or not I believe Christ rose again and died on the cross for my sins?\u201d<\/p>\n

The answer was put best by something Jesus said to a man who doubted\u2014Thomas. He told him, \u201cI am the Way\u2014yes, and the Truth, and the Life.\u00a0No one can get to the Father except by means of me\u201d (John 14:6).<\/p>\n

Considering the fact that Jesus offers forgiveness of sin and an eternal relationship with God, who would be so foolhardy as to reject Him? Christ is alive! He is living today.<\/p>\n

\n

Adapted excerpt from <\/em>Skeptics Who Demanded a Verdict published by Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. \u00a9 1989 Josh McDowell. All rights reserved. Used by permission.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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