Personal Faith in Jesus

Daily writing prompt

Describe one positive change you have made in your life.

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I was brought up a Roman Catholic. In Ireland at the time, by and large, that was the majority religion. We did have some Protestant churches and some newer sects, which we classified as “cults”. What bothered me was that few people seemed anything more than nominal Christians. You got the impression that if they had been born elsewhere, they would just pay lip service to whatever the majority or default religion was in that country. Perhaps most people were agnostic in their thinking, though you did get some religious people, particularly elderly people.

In fairness to the Roman Catholic denomination, it did give me some exposure to the Bible, particularly in school. And as a child, I used to like watching movies based on the Bible, such as The Ten Commandments and movies based on the gospels. I can’t remember having any doubts about Jesus himself. As for the Bible, I did wonder how much of it should be taken literally. And I grew increasingly uneasy about Roman Catholic traditions, such as praying to saints and Mary. Protestantism seemed to be more aligned to the Bible. But then, I was uneasy by the number of Protestant denominations. Many of them seemed to have drifted from the Bible and put more emphasis on social action than real belief in God. And though there was little hatred for Protestants in the Republic of Ireland (as opposed to Northern Ireland), they were still seen as “different”. It would be odd to become one. And then there was the ecumenical movement, which made sense to me. Why not just have one united church? But that movement never had much success.

Being into the Beatles, I was curious about their interest in the Maharishi and the Hare Krishna folk. I did meet some of them in the streets of Cork. John Lennon became my hero around 1976, and he was quite critical of the Maharishi. But I was impressed by the notion that the Beatles were searching for the truth. Just as we had a lot of nominal Roman Catholics in Ireland, England had a lot of nominal Protestants. Lennon saw that that type of Christianity was fading, which is why he said that the Beatles were more popular than Christ. He wasn’t wanting to boast about the Beatles. At that stage, the popularity of the Beatles was more of a burden to him. He could just see that people seemed much more excited about things like rock music, football and so on than about religion.

Anyway, around then, I began to come across evangelical Christians. Even though many evangelicals are reluctant to label themselves Protestants, particularly in Ireland, as non-Roman Catholic Christians who aren’t part of the Eastern Orthodox churches, that’s the category that they fall into. But their key distinctives was a love for the Bible, an emphasis on the death of Christ as the way of salvation, and desire to spread the good news of the gospel, and most of all, the need for everyone to be born again and come to personal faith in Jesus.

I liked listening to evangelical Christians, whether personally, or when I mistakenly tuned into Trans World Radio Monte Carlo while searching for pop music on Radio Luxembourg 208. Trans World Radio (TWR) was a Christian broadcasting network.

Although I aspired to come to a true and living faith, I had many questions. Was I already a Christian? Did I already have personal faith? I don’t believe that being born in a Christian country or being baptized as an infant automatically makes you a real Christian, though it does classify you as a nominal Christian. You need to repent and trust in Jesus to be saved. But had I already done that in a subtle way? Maybe I did, and maybe I didn’t, but I was confused. At one stage I wondered if Jesus was just one of many prophets that God sent to start religions around the world. But such thinking was at odds with the teaching of the New Testament. And why would Jesus send His disciples into the world to spread the gospel if the religions they already had were perfectly fine. The whole point is that the world needs a Saviour.

As time went on, I decided that I didn’t want to go through life pondering and wondering which religion was true. Was I with Jesus, or was I against Him? Or can I be neutral?

Around that time, I remember a quotation from Bob Dylan’s Precious Angel.

Ya either got faith or ya got unbelief and there ain’t no neutral ground

I wasn’t into Bob Dylan until he became a Christian. I had wondered if an independent thinker like me could every really commit himself to Christ or to anything. Would my life just be a series of phases of being into this and that. People wonder whether this was just a phase for Bob Dylan. I hope not. But the fact that someone as skeptical or cynical as him could commit himself made me wonder if I could commit myself to Jesus.

Why should I be guided by what Dylan said. Well, his words echoes what Jesus himself said:

Matthew 12:30
³⁰ “Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.

Throughout the New Testament, Jesus calls for personal commitment.

Anyway, in August 1980, I decided to commit my life to Christ, and started attending evangelical churches. Since that time, that’s been my world. Like any group of people, evangelical churches have various points of view on a variety of issues. But all emphasize personal faith in Christ, and the Bible.

So, that’s one positive change. I have made many smaller changes. My faith relates to spiritual health, but in recent years, I’ve also taken steps to improve my physical and mental health. I had little reason to be interested in physical health when I was young. And I knew little about steps that you can take to manage your mental health.

Anyway, here are a couple of hymns about coming to personal faith in Jesus: