Experiencing Jesus Christ Spiritually

I have a confession to make. The title of this article is something I have been neglecting lately. I have been really consumed by logic and thought...as well as Philosophy, and this has bogged me down to where I have not really truthfully experienced Christ. Now granted, I was born and raised a Christian, but I can honestly state, that most of what I knew about Christ was based on Psychological aspects and not what I know now about Christ. I am not a Christian based on my upbringing in any means shape or form today. In fact, most of the past 10 months have been a search process of extreme cynicism, skepticism, doubt, guilt, and desperation and depression to find God in my life. I thank all of the friends who have stood by my side through these rough times here, because I probably would not be here without them. Okay, so where am I going with all of this? Why am I here talking about this? Basically to share my story of why I'm a Christian today. It is not your usual, "I was raised and thats the way mommy and daddy raised me to be, so I had a religious experience in a church" story by no means whatsoever. Lets start from the beginning. It was January, and I'm happily strolling through life, with a wonderful girlfriend, when I notice things starting to go wrong. Of course the story goes, we break up, my heart is broken and I'm distraught. I end up getting drunk that weekend, and feeling even worse afterwards. Well, that was bad enough, but I started spinning out of control. I went into a stage of strong Skepticism based off of some teachings in History from a guy I thought to be an intelligent PHD. While my faith is spiraling out of control, I'm contacting every minister I know in town. One a PHD in Philosophy and another a PHD in Religious Studies and a Masters in Psychology. I carried a very cynical attitude all along the way, but was determined to conquer these problems myself, along with the help of my friends. I ended up doing research daily for about 2 months. This helped tremendously after I read "The Case for Christ" and "Evidence That Demands a Verdict." In fact, I was so convinced of the evidence, I talked to my father, who is not a Christian, about the evidence just knowing he would convert after I told him. Well needless to say, this didn't work. It buried my head in a quicksand of Naturalistic thought, and after talking to a few other Liberals, I was totally convinced that reality was a created concept (existentialism). My discernment skills were literally moot at this point. This new viewpoint did not work out to say the least, and led to a near suicide attempt. In the end, I ended up seeking some help from a Psychologist. This helped my Psyche a bit, but did not help me in the areas I needed help in. Then came Josh McDowell's book "The New Evidence That Demands a Verdict." I will never forget having my "eureka" moment on a cruise, in which I discovered the new concepts for finding the truth, known as logic. This led to some intense studies within the next 8 months and a 1085 page book in the process. With the help also of JP Holding and several other Apologists, I can now proudly proclaim I am closer to Christ now and much stronger in my knowledge discernment than ever before. I can honestly say after reviewing now, the greatest sites for Atheism, Agnosticism, Buddhism, Bahai, Muslim, Judaism, Humanism, Existentialism (often labelled with Humanism, and basically the same thing), different cultish groups, a ton of other religions, Postmodernism, Modernism, Relativism sites, and of course finally the Orthodox Christian viewpoints, I know that Orthodox Christianity wins out in the end. There is seriously no comparison on the Theological and Philosophical scale. The Historical viewpoint also favors Christianity, and believe it or not, Creation Science wins out when you honestly look at the arguments for Evolution, Theistic Evolution, Intelligent Design, Progress Creationism and Creation Science. I believe ironically enough that the earth is only 10,000 years old. Psychological of course this viewpoint makes sense, but even more great is that many who don't have their logic together fall into some of these other viewpoints I mentioned above. Without logic, you are trying to hit a pinata thats about 600 yards away from you with a blindfold on. Logic is the key to all of this, and it helps you determine what is wrong with viewpoints like Naturalism, Materialism and the rest as we go. However, the truth is, I'm on my way back home. I most certainly am not exactly where I want to be on my spiritual journey, but that will come in time. Proofs of God abound, so the viewpoint I once held that God could not be proved or disproved seems to shatter, as its more likely God can be proven than not so. I will provide a future post on these arguments for God's existence. There are at least 24 total that I'm aware of. None of them have been refuted or even touched.

Now, what I'm here to do today is to invite anyone who has never heard of Christ before, or is simply looking for him to make a personal confession of faith. This includes also people who would like to share their stories of how they became Christians with other nonChristians. With permission, I will post your stories on this site for encouragement and hope of the viewers. You may send e-mails to jesusjustforyou22@yahoo.com. God bless you all.

Casey Powell