How I came to be a Christian.

The preaching I heard in my youth taught me that one was not a Christian merely because one was born into a Christian family or because one went to church. A personal decision was necessary to turn from sinful selfishness, to give one's life to Christ. This was, one was taught, to be a public act, responding to an evangelistic appeal. My earliest memory of this was when I was taken to hear Billy Graham at Haringey, London, in I think 1954. So, aged 8 I knew I was a sinner who needed to be saved, but I put off making a public profession of faith for the next four years. When I did make a public response, it was in all sincerity. It produced some change in my life, some spiritual zeal, but this did not last. I was never an outwardly rebellious teenager but after some reading of philosophy I had questions that the Christians around me did not answer. I could argue against the existence of physical realities and Christians I knew could not give answers and convince me of physical reality let alone the world of the unseen perceived by faith. I thought my rebellion was more intellectual than moral. I continued to attend church as I did not want to have a big fight with my parents. I knew that once I left home for university I could do what I liked. But the transition from rural home to university in London did not go according to my plan. I found study hard, not the actual content but hard to be confident that I was actually learning well after a gap year out of formal studies. I lacked confidence in myself, so became depressed to the point of being suicidal. That drove me back to Christian fellowship, to seek God as never before for now I believed my life really depended on it. From that point on my commitment became really wholehearted and life changing and I have professed Christ ever since.

So when did I really become a Christian? The answer depends upon one's theological analysis of the above evidence. I was from birth what I would now call a covenant child. I would now teach such a child that trusting in Christ and turning from sin is what one has to do every day. I would not say you are a sinner who needs to make a decision and profess your faith in Christ publicly to become a Christian. I would ask the child if their life showed that Christ was their Lord, if they were seeking to obey him day by day. In other words, I would now be expecting the child of Christian parents to be professing faith, albeit in a way appropriate to their age, from their earliest years. I would expect a regular and public profession of faith, but not require a response to an evangelistic appeal to become a Christian.

I now believe that God regenerates the heart and this is what results in our profession of faith, our conversion. I believe that the children of Christian parents may be regenerate from birth, or even before. They remain sinners who daily need to repent from sin and trust in Christ. Some believers will say they do not remember a time when they did not do this. Others will be able to tell of a time when they began to trust Christ after previous rebellion.

I do not think I was regenerate from my earliest years. I doubt if I was when I professed conversion in all sincerity as I thought aged 12. I am sure that from my experience when I went to university, aged 18, I was a born again, regenerate Christian.

But the past is history. What matters is not my theological analysis of it but whether today I am repenting from sin and trusting in Christ and his work to be made right with God. By the grace of God I am and will continue to do so until the day I meet my saviour, Jesus Christ who is my Lord of my life.