Josef 001 ~ For as long as I can remember, I have always been a "Christian."  My wonderful parents raised me in a "Christian" home and we were always regular church attenders. I went to a "church-affiliated" college and graduate school and always attended church regularly. I even learned to tithe cheerfully; and I tried the best I could to be "good" person.

However, after 32 years of living a "Christian" life, I eventually came to realize that I didn't have the foggiest notion of what it meant to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and I had no understanding at all about the Holy Spirit and how He works in the lives of genuine believers.

In a required religion class in college, I had been taught that God's purpose in creating man was for fellowship with Himself; however, most of what was taught in that class sailed over my head and I didn't learn anything about finding the purpose and mission of my own life.

To the best of my recollection, for the first 33 years of my life, no one ever challenged me on this point, and I never looked for the answers. But then, by God's grace, and through a very unusual set of circumstances, I ended up going to a men's retreat where I had an amazing, very personal encounter with God.

Needless-to-say, there is a whole lot more to this story, but the bottom line is that on September 9, 1973, I came to a realization that God was inviting me to join His family and I needed to make a decision to either accept His invitation and choose to follow Him or not accept His invitation and face the consequences.

After what seemed like an all-night-long wrestling match with God, I became aware that my eternal destiny would be decided by the decision that I made. So, I finally did decide to accept His invitation on His terms and I became a new Spirit-awakened Christian. Over the following days, weeks, months, and years, my life was dramatically revolutionized; and it continues to be an exciting, ongoing, and unfinished journey.

Someone once said, God has no grandchildren. That is true. No one ever inherits Jesus Christ as their Savior and Lord without making a wide-awake, fully-conscious, resolute decision to accept His invitation to follow Him, and then follow-thru on that decision in a pro-active manner.

One may be born in a "Christian" country and even born into a "Christian" family; one may go to church, sing Christian songs, pay tithes, endeavor to keep God's laws and commandments, work in Christian service, be kind and loving, and do all the things that good "Christian" people are supposed to do, and still not have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. I know. I tried to do all those things.

But Jesus Christ said: "With all the earnestness I possess, I tell you this: unless a person is born again, they cannot get into the Kingdom of Heaven."

One is born into this relationship with Christ only by a conscious decision of one's will ... and then God will begin to do amazing things in one's life.