Gonzalo [English]

What did you believe about God before becoming a Christian? 

Before believing in God, I was an atheist, I didn’t believe that God existed. At times I believed that there was a heaven and a hell. So maybe I accepted that there was a God as well, but only because I came from a Catholic family- supposedly.

What was your opinion of Christians, and of the church?

First, Christians didn’t even matter to me, because I didn’t know any. Later, I started to hear stories about tithes and offerings and all of that, so I thought that Christians were stupid for paying offerings to other people. And people, at least in my family and my crowd, always said bad things about Christians.

Later, some of my friends from school became Christians, and they changed completely. Before, they drank a lot, and after they didn’t drink even one drop of alcohol. I started to think that church brainwashed them. So the idea I had about church still wasn’t good.

Why did you change your mind?

That’s a complicated question. I started to go to church, and after a few times, I felt different when I went. Maybe it was reading the Bible, or listening to the sermons that caused me to start to doubt my atheistic ideas.

I started to go to church because a friend invited me, and then, for other reasons, I continued to go, and I went four or five times. In reality, every time I went I asked myself, Why am I going? I don’t want to go… And in the block and a half between my house and the church, I walked slowly and asked myself, I don’t want to go, Why am I going? Why am I going?

Because of going to church and conversations with Christians there, that I started to believe that there was a God. I still didn’t accept that he had created us, but I knew that there was someone superior that was worthy of respect. Then, I started to read the Bible in order to know God and know what he said, because I said, well, if he is worthy of respect, and if he is worthy of obedience, then it’s my responsibility to obey him. So I started to read the Bible and to try to be how God wanted me to be.

Who influenced your decision to believe?

The person who invited me to church was a classmate in college and had invited me several times. I didn’t really want to go, but finally I told this friend that I would go with her, and I went to church for the first time. After that, I went a few more times, for similar reasons. I started to make other friends at church. I noticed the lifestyle they had. For example, at birthday parties, instead of  trying to hook up with girls, they had a different way of acting. Those were the people that caused me to want to learn about God.

Up until that time I believed that there was a God who was worthy of respect and obedience. I was trying to obey him, but it was very frustrating because I couldn’t obey everything that the Bible said. Then, one time at my friend’s house we started talking, and ended up talking about a book of the Bible- Song of Songs, a book about the love of the author for his wife. That’s when he made the analogy that this love that the man had for that woman was the same love that God has for his people, for us.

The thing that hit me the hardest was that because of what Jesus did for us- dying for our sins, now we can stand before God, clean, and God doesn’t even remember our sins, neither past nor present nor future. My friend mentioned a verse that says, “You are altogether beautiful, my love;  there is no flaw in you,” and that verse broke my heart because I knew that I could never stand before God and hear him say, “You are perfect, without stains,” because I know that in me there are a ton of stains, and that hurt, because for me, it’s a lie. In other words, With what kind of love did God love me that he could look at me and say, “You have no stains,”? I think that’s when I started to love God.
In that moment what  I wanted more than anything was for my friend to shut-up so that I could go cry and ask God for forgiveness. And after that for several days, any verse I read in the Bible was so strong. Why do you love me like this? Why do you love me this much? That’s when I started to believe that He loves me and that I have been forgiven everything.

What changed in your life after deciding to follow Christ?

So much changed, but there were things that I didn’t even notice. For example, before I was very selfish, that is true. I was only concerned about myself and my future, and I didn’t care about my family at all. After becoming a believer, I started to pay attention to my parents and try to help them in order to be obedient. But as time went on, I started to realize that it was because of love, and I started to help them because I loved them.

My brother told me that he noticed I had changed because he went to live somewhere else, and then came back, and he said that when he came back home, I hugged him. For me that wasn’t anything weird, but it’s true- when he left I said, bye, or maybe I didn’t even say bye, and he thought that when he returned, I would greet him in the same way- a hey or maybe not even that. That’s something that I hadn’t even realized...
In other words, I think my center was what changed. First it was me and my future, and later it became God, and then it started to be the people God loves too.

You are altogether beautiful, my love;

    there is no flaw in you. Song of Solomon 4:7