A SCEPTIC ENCOUNTERS JESUS CHRIST | KAIROS GLOBAL | AUGUST 2022

Author: Aby Jacob

Intro: What began with honest questions ended in a certainty to defend. Aby Jacob tells his story. 

I was raised very well in a Christian family in Kerala, India. Since childhood, I have practised the Christian faith along with my family. In 2009, after higher secondary education in India, my family sent me overseas to the UK for higher studies at the age of 19. 

In my early 20s, I began to think critically about my life, God, and the world, and I realised that I truly didn't know what I believed about God. I became secretly sceptical about my Christian faith with some honest questions in mind. I remember pondering these at different times – ‘I don’t know God truly’, ‘I don’t know how to talk about God’, ‘I would love to know him.’ I gradually started to backslide from practising faith as I didn’t find any interest in God. I reached a point when I fully stopped attending church on Sundays. Instead, I entirely focused on fulfilling my dreams. 

I worked hard and always maintained a good work ethic. My life was going pretty well, filled with material things of my passion during that time. Nevertheless, I have always loved truth and honesty in every area of my life. To me truth has always been more valuable than anything else. Even though I was always chasing my dreams, my quest for the truth about God, life, and the cosmos remained secretly active within me. But I wasn't actively trying to find it. I didn't know where to search for it. At that time, I had no clue that God had already listened to the questions in my heart and was going to reveal the truth to me through a series of events. 

In 2014, I had an unexpected reason to travel back to India abruptly. My plan was to return to the UK soon. However, after I arrived in India, I had a series of Christian spiritual experiences while staying with my family. So, one day I decided to find the truth about God. I knew that if God existed, knowing, listening, and obeying him mattered the most; everything else was secondary. If God created me, only he could tell me the true value, meaning, and purpose of my life. I did not want the answer to be probably true, nor did I want some delusion. I wanted to know the absolute truth so that I could follow and defend it without fear and shame. Since the question was about God, I decided to ask him directly.

 I presupposed that if God exists, he must be all-knowing. Therefore, he would be able to listen to my voice. And if God is all-loving, he would also respond to the honest question from the bottom of my heart. So I went into my room, knelt, and said a prayer, ‘God, if you are true, please reveal the truth to me.’ My prayer was sincere; it did not come out of a rebellious heart but from a humble heart. Indeed, God heard my voice. The Holy Spirit led me to read the Bible. And what happened after was something I never expected. I encountered Jesus Christ. It was a mysterious event, an exercise of raw divine power. I had entered into the joy of God when I received love, grace, forgiveness, and eternal life through Christ. It was the most significant turning point in my life, at the age of 24. Words cannot express the immense joy, light, and wonder I have been experiencing since I began a relationship with the Triune God. 

It was also the starting point of my intellectual journey to gain more knowledge and wisdom about God. I did not go back to the UK, but God redirected my path to the US in 2015. It was only then I realised that my sudden journey to India was divinely scheduled to bring me to the perfect arena where God could reveal the truth and redirect my path. I have gone through tremendous transformation after I met Christ. Then a more powerful spiritual explosion occurred within me at the age of 27 (in 2017). After a few months, I felt a higher calling from the Lord. God led me to leave my job in the US and directed me to study and investigate the rational side of the Christian faith. 

I studied the major world religions, philosophy, theology, science, apologetics, etc. and tried to understand every major worldview, including atheism and nihilism. I have looked into the reasons and evidence for the existence of God and found overwhelmingly convincing, undeniable philosophical and scientific reasons. I have investigated the truth claims of the Judeo-Christian worldview and discovered an abundance of evidence for the Biblical truth claims, including the resurrection of Jesus Christ. I compared the Judeo-Christian worldview with all other major worldviews and reached the conclusion that only the Judeo-Christian worldview sufficiently and satisfactorily answers the big questions about life and the world. In every possible way, I tested to see if I could find any reason to doubt the Christian faith, but I didn’t find one. So, there was no way I could run away from it for intellectual reasons. 

On the cross of Calvary, God’s perfect justice and perfect love were displayed in perfect unity. Knowing that truth and accepting God’s grace offered through Christ brought me into an eternal relationship with the Triune God. He gave me the greatest freedom from the bondage of sin and freedom from an eternal separation from God. Now my life is thrilling, and filled with tears of joy. 

After all my studies and investigations, I dedicated my life to giving reasons to believe in Christianity and answering people's honest questions about God, life and the world. If Christianity were not true, I certainly would not have decided to spend the rest of my life defending it. I can assure all truth-seekers that there are sufficient reasons to put all their trust in the God of the Bible. The Judeo-Christian worldview is true, rational, and pertinent to whole life. The truth is so beautiful and extremely valuable. 

Aby Jacob was born and raised in Kerala, India. He is currently pursuing an MA in Philosophy and a Certificate in Scientific Apologetics at Southern Evangelical Seminary (USA). He dedicates his life to defending the Christian faith and answering people’s honest questions about God, life, and the world.