A. Martin’s Story
I grew up in a Jewish home, attended religious school and lived in a predominantly Jewish world. But even with all of this attention to our faith, I didn’t feel close to God. I so yearned for this intimacy. There were rituals in our home but no relationship. So in my youth, the rituals, holidays, Hebrew School, going to services didn’t mean very much. God seemed to be missing. I started thinking more and more about God and talking to Him. Having these “conversations” helped me on my journey to search in alternative places desperately wanting to find Him. I knew something was missing from my faith but didn’t know what it was.
I first heard about Jesus from my childhood friends. I was not allowed to talk about Jesus Christ in my home, but yearned to know more about Him. My childhood travels included a couple of amazing trips to Europe and the Middle East and I can remember my fascination with the cathedrals and the beautiful stained glassed windows depicting a story I longed to know more about but dared not ask. Christmas always held a fascination for me, but again, I was not allowed to participate on any level. This is how it remained through my childhood and much of my teenage years.
The boy that I dated throughout high school and college became my husband. He wasn’t Jewish, which presented a challenge for us early on in our relationship. But he became accepted into my family and we married right after college. I was able to experience Christmas for the first time in my life with his family. But the experience was really more about the exchange of gifts and the magic of Santa than the birth of Jesus, so I still was not really experiencing Christmas. But it was a start.
We had some challenges in our marriage and divorced in my early 30’s with two small children. I began my search of faith again, now for my children as well as myself. Having studied World Religions in college as an elective, I found I was reading more and more about alternative religions and went down the New Age path. My experiences at that time still did not fill the spiritual void that I felt and seemed to encourage a self-centeredness which always bothered me. But what were my other options? While searching I returned to the synagogue for the sake of my children so they would have a foundation grounded in God.
Over the years, friends began inviting me to their churches and shared their faith. The seeds were planted. I remarried a wonderful man and he and I would occasionally join friends for Sunday services, not just services on holidays. My heart was touched and I began to feel something inside I had never experienced before, though I still didn’t understand it completely. I started asking more specific questions about Christianity and a very kind minister at one of my previous churches was instrumental in helping wrap my mind around the idea of Jesus as Messiah.
Early in 2007 a very dear friend of mine named Staci invited me to North Point Community Church. Over the following few months Staci also began to answer many of my challenging questions and backed it all up with Scripture ~ nobody had ever done that before. She explained the Old Testament prophesies of the Messiah and showed me in the New Testament that Jesus Christ had fulfilled them all nearly a thousand years later. It had been my understanding as a Jewish girl that we believed that there would be a messiah some day, but that he had not yet come. Since we didn’t read Scripture in my family, I never had the opportunity to see for myself that the Messiah had already come and was coming again ~ for me and for us all!
My husband and I started attending North Point on a regular basis. The highlight of this Jewish girl’s week was going to church every Sunday! Our minister, Andy Stanley, took off where my friend left off in his amazing messages that always reach out to Christians as well as non-believers. But I still had some challenging questions that included how a Jewish girl could accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Andy Stanley’s office put me in touch with Murray Tilles of Light of Messiah Ministries. A Jewish Minister! I had never heard those words together in my entire life!
I began meeting with Murray in my office on Tuesdays. Although my husband is not Jewish, he sat in on some of our sessions just as interested as I was as we explored Scripture. In my “Tuesdays with Murray” he explained how a Jew can become a believer in Jesus Christ as Messiah without giving up being Jewish. He gave me a book list to add to my increasing number of previously recommended books. Two that were so helpful to me were Betrayed! by Stan Telchin and More Than a Carpenter by Josh MacDowell and Sean MacDowell. They confirmed what I was already starting to believe as truth of Jesus Christ as the Messiah.
Still there were some challenges that remained which delayed my accepting Christ as Messiah. Murray helped me with questions such as:
What would God do to me if I gave up my Jewish faith?
Would I be betraying God in some way?
What about the Holocaust and other religious persecution throughout history?
How could I “GIVE UP” my heritage?
My dear friend Staci, and then Murray, both helped me to realize that I wasn’t giving up anything ~ it was about completion ~ becoming a Completed Jew. This was the final hurdle and on August 30, 2007 at 12:55 pm I sealed the deal and accepted Christ as my Lord and Savior and was baptized at North Point on October 28 of that same year.
One may wonder how my life has changed since accepting Christ into my life. Actually not much remained the same. I have learned the true definition of joy and love and realize I am never alone. I realize I don’t have to have all the answers and that’s okay because my Heavenly Father already has them. I just need to continue to learn to rely on His grace, mercy and love. And I have learned that faith is not about obligation but about a joy that is celebrated in every cell of my body every moment of every day. I have so much love and gratitude to Jesus Christ that I find it hard to place into words. I finally realized what was missing from my faith was God’s one and only son, Jesus Christ.
I am so grateful to all my dear friends who have accompanied me on my spiritual journey and to Andy Stanley, my minister at NPCC who makes the Bible come alive every week and gives me lessons that are so relevant to my life today. And particularly to Staci, Murray and others that made it so clear to me by giving me such powerful and credible answers to my very challenging questions. They have all helped me to find what I had yearned for all my life ~ a personal relationship with my Heavenly Father. But I am mostly grateful to God for tugging at my heartstrings since I was a young girl. I am now a Completed Jew.