Marianne Gutierrez: Health Practitioner: How did I become a Christian?

How did I become a Christian? · 19 May 2006

from the website We print color
I was 7 and I was in the garden staring up into the sky and watching the clouds. The sky was a beautiful blue and the clouds that wonderful fluffy white texture. I say this to illustrate that I remember that moment well. I thought to myself: “Mother Mary Austin is wrong, the Jews are good people and it doesn’t matter what church anyone belongs to because God looks into people’s hearts.” Our neighbours were semi-orthodox jews and were kind, helpful, caring people and I had just been told by the nuns at school that the jews were bad.

When I was 13, I felt God telling me to leave the catholic church. “I can’t.” I said, “My Dad would be so upset with me, besides I want to have a life and get married and have sex, I’ll say the Our Father later on in life.” Meaning that I would listen to God when I was older. My confusion with what I was hearing was compounded by a nun telling me to become a nun and when I heard God speaking to me I wondered if He wanted me to become a nun too, and there was no way I wanted that!!

from the website Raymond Jewelers

I can’t remember hearing God after that. Perhaps He had taken me at my word and was waiting for me to turn back to Him. I hadn’t realised by saying that I would say the Our Father later on in life that I had rejected Him. I didn’t think I had. I continued with my Catholic upbringing and got married when I was 21. I was a very good catholic taking on board anything the catholic teachings threw at me. I felt I was a good person because I was following the teachings to the best of my ability, as I had the sunday masses, confession and the sacraments as bench marks to my ‘goodness’. I believed the catholic teachings, which were if I followed their rules I was assured of a place in heaven. I loved God and His son Jesus Christ, I was in the church choir and we chose inspiring spirit filled hymns to uplift and inspire everyone. I sang loudly: “Here I am Lord … ... ... I come to do Your will.”

from the website Here I am Lord

Then my husband left me and my whole life went down the pan in my head. I just collapsed. This wasn’t supposed to happen to me! I was a catholic, I didn’t do divorce! My husband was a catholic – why is God allowing this? I prayed and went on ‘holy’ fasts and waited and hoped for my husband’s return. I was totally devastated and destroyed.

from the website Jesus is saviour

Then suddenly out of the blue I had an image of all my rubbish I was carrying around inside me and I wanted to get rid of it. The only place, and people, I could go was to my sister and her friends who had recently become born-again christians and formed a house-group. I knew I had to go there and confess all the rubbish I could think of to get it out of me because I saw that as the cause of all the problems in my life. I made a full confession and was accepted as a born-again christian. I found that, as embarressing as it was, I wanted baptism to show the world my new faith in God. I was baptised in a local swimming pool.

from the website Walk with Jesus Group

Over time, I felt the need to confess my sins again and again and I never felt I was a proper christian. I felt judged by other churches and I didn’t know where to go to practice my new beliefs. I couldn’t settle at my sister’s church, they seemed so dogmatic and I had left the catholic church because of that. I felt God telling me not to find a church and so I accepted an invitation to join my two other siblings at a house-group and it was here we conducted an all night vigil for my husband’s return, not that it did any good.

from the website World in crisis

Although I had made a full confession, I hadn’t understood the simple fact that Jesus Christ died for me. If there was no-one left in the world except me, Jesus would still come down as man and suffer and die for me. I was still in catholic guilt mode and thinking I was responsible for every wicked thing that happened to me (and the whole world come to think of it! I blamed myself for everything!), and if I could confess every sin out of my body that would solve the problem with life and the universe and my marriage, then I would confess it.

However I do still see that first moment of realising a complete confession to be the ‘how I became a christian’.

Over time and many explorations to get closer to Jesus, I have discovered that there is no church perfect enough to show me Jesus.

from the website Starting with God

It is Jesus Himself who shows/showed me Jesus. Jesus resides in my heart in the form of the Holy Spirit when I acknowledged Him as my Lord and Saviour and when I accepted that anything I do is as dirty rags to God and only Jesus can atone for my sins.

The amount and type of my sins is not the issue in repentance, repentance is the realisation that I do sin and will continue sinning despite not intending to and I cannot do anything to atone for it except to admit it, face the truth of my failings, accept Jesus’ sacrifice for me, seek forgiveness from God and turn away from the habit of sin.

It can’t be done without the aid of the Holy Spirit. I received the Holy Spirit when I acknowledged the saving power of Jesus Christ at my massive confession of my stupid silly worryings I then called sin.

God gave me the freedom to be me and in discovering me I travelled down roads I shouldn’t have done and the Holy Spirit convicted me and I acknowledged my wrong and sought forgiveness and turned around again. Instead of being governed by man’s rules of the catholic faith and feeling guilty, God allowed me to be in control of my life and gave me the freedom to choose to ask Him to guide me with my decisions.

from the website Pray for each other

For me it was not an immediate conversion to all things Born-again. I have whooped and shouted for joy when I have reached another atom of understanding about God and His amazing love for mankind and for me. I have envied atheists who come to know the Lord Jesus Christ because they must arrive unshackled by mistaken beliefs. Most of my journey has been the unfolding and unfurling by God of the real me that was hidden and buried by the rules and regulations of the Catholic faith. God has been so gentle with me and anything He tells me comes as a joy of revelation with no condemnation, none whatsoever despite deserving it. I love this passage in the bible, see Gracethrufaith Woman caught in adultery.
New King James Bible John 8 vs 3 – 11
3. And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery; and when they had set her in the midst,
4 They say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act.
5 Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but what sayest thou?
6 This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not.
7 So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.
8 And again he stooped down, and wrote on the ground.
9 And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst.
10 When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee?
11 She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.

The road I travel with God is narrow. It has to be. Truth is Yes or No with no deviation. It is not bland or ‘maybe’ or ‘I don’t know’ or a ‘wait and see and then I’ll decide’ attitude.

I see my life as a journey. I have chosen the precepts of God as my mode of travel through my life, like the railway tracks for a train. I sit on the tracks in a train and I am the driver, the tracks are God’s precepts laid down in the bible. The satelite navigation system is the Holy Spirit. The fuel is my emotions and obedience and rebellions. As the driver I make the decisions and choices and often I travel down a siding or disused part of the railway system. Thankfully there is a turn-table – repentance and forgiveness – where I can turn the train around and go in the God direction again.

Why did I ever have to be a Christian to get through life? Well it is simple. I was born, therefore I will die. Where did I come from? Where will I go? Why have a belief in anything?

Because I am not stupid. No one is. I am a thinking, puzzle solving, building, caring, nurturing human being. This world is beautiful. The flowers, the trees, the landscapes, the hills, the mountains, the deserts, the seas, the rocks, the lakes, the gorges, the islands, the sky, the clouds, the refreshing rain, the warm sun, the animals, the insects. All is fantastic. Even man is fantastic. When we want to be. And there we have it – when we want to be – choices. Choices have caused wars, hate and ugliness in this beautiful world. Why?

The Bible gave me the answers to life and the universe and all that I wanted and need to know. And it wasn’t through scholarly study that I understood these things either. I didn’t pick the Bible up, read it and gain knowledge. No. At first the Bible confused me and damned me.

It was when I realised that I was someone who continually got things wrong despite trying so hard to be perfect; that only God is perfect and I can never be; it was when I acknowledged God’s Son as my Saviour that I gained understanding of the Bible by His Helper – the Holy Spirit.

That was when I learnt about life and living and the point of it all. My proud arrogant self had to die and a new real me was born, and is still emerging, when I turned to Jesus Christ to be saved. Like Peter drowning in the sea he cried out: “Lord save me!”

from the website HTM Admin

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