Why Did You Choose to Follow Christ?




I believe the answer is yes and no.

Let’s start with the no. The Bible teaches that the Gospel message does not make sense to lost people.


Since no one is born a Christian, that means that all of us start out with a natural disposition that is opposed to the truth.

Then what of the numerous testimonies of Christians who say that they became Christians because it “made sense to them”?

Now for the yes part of my answer. Yes, the Gospel made sense to them. This is the best way they know how to put their experience into words. When a person shares this testimony, they are attempting to describe their experience. But in order to get a more-in depth understanding of what actually occurs when anyone becomes a Christian, we must go beyond their personal description of their experience and see what God says about what happened.  Then we can place their eyewitness account within that fully-orbed biblical description.

To help us do this, let’s consider a few verses from 2 Timothy 2:


The focus of the immediate passage is how the man of God is supposed to handle God’s Word. In verses 25 and 26, Paul is giving specific instructions on how a pastor is supposed to respond to those who are opposing the truth. He is to gently correct them. That is all they can do…give the truth. The results belong to God. Perhaps God will grant them repentance.

At this point I want to point out how Paul sees the miracle of conversion: God grants repentance (Greek is metanoia, which means a change of mind) that leads to a knowledge (Greek is epignosis, which means experiential knowledge, not just a knowledge of the facts) which in turn enables them to “come to their senses” and escape the snare of Satan.

So, when a person comes to saving faith in Christ it is because God has given them a gift of repentance, a gift of changing their mind, which from their perspective is like “coming to their senses,” hence the testimony “it made sense to me.”

Lydia is a Biblical example of this. Acts 16.13-14



The LORD openened Lydia’s heart to respond to Paul’s message.

The great preacher Charles Spurgeon once pondered these great truths:


Back to my friend and that conversation some 15 years ago. That conversation served as a springboard for him to search the Scriptures for the real, deeper why of his choice to follow Jesus. A few years later he informed me that he had come to believe that the Scriptures indeed taught that the reason he chose to follow Christ was much deeper than simply, “It made sense to me.” He had come to see in an even greater way how amazing God’s grace really is.

4 thoughts on “Why Did You Choose to Follow Christ?”

  1. Since last time I asked a question in the wrong category I thought I would find the correct category and drop this one.

    Let me first give the scenario.

    There is this open air preacher that makes his rounds around UNF. He should be coming pretty soon (always around October).

    He preaches God’s law and sin, although he does use VERY contraversial terms and always seems to hit on the most HOT topics.

    Actually, his preaching on sin and hell caused me to seek our salvation.

    But, he never preaches grace. He says Jesus forgives, but it is a forgiveness that is for only your past and current sins, not future ones. Also, you are not forgiven unless you have stopped sinning. I am sure you have dealt with these questions before, but that is not what I am after now.

    The big thing is this. He does not believe in original sin because he seems to be logical. If we must ourselves CHOOSE to stop sinning and it is possible to do so then we certainly can not be born sinners or babies would be going to hell.

    He believes that God is in control, but He doesn’t know the future. More of an open-thiesm view.

    Is this heretical? If so, how should I deal with him. Ignore him or confront him? Help me out…


    1. Rick, better late than never, huh? I am pretty sure we talked about this at church soon after you asked. Do you remember? I just happened across this post and saw your question unanswered. 🙂

  2. I don’t remember the answer but I never get the chance to confront this guy anyways. I do know of some people who have confronted him, but he hasn’t changed his views.

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