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"Growing up, my parents instilled a great sense of morality and ethics in me," says Ricky.
However, Ricky found that living with good morals and ethics didn't seem to cut it -- he felt a great deal of emptiness, lacking, and unfulfillment.
"I guess I was searching for the meaning or purpose of life," he says. " I know it's a hard question to answer, but I was determined to find a response," says Ricky. "I thought it might have something to do with truth, religion, and God, so I took a Religious Studies course at my school."
Over the course of the year, Ricky covered all the major religions including Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Daoism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
"I looked at the major figures of each religion. In my search I looked at Krishna, Guru Nanak, Buddha, Lao-ze, Confucius, Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad," he explains. He found that all of the religions had human founders, except for one. "With Christianity and Jesus, there seemed to be more than meets the eye."
Ricky looked into Jesus by drawing information from a few approaches including conversation, literature, and the internet. "Some people said he was a great moral teacher, a few said he was a prophet, and others said he was something more," says Ricky. "But, in the end I realized all these were only people's opinions."
Ricky wanted an answer to the Jesus question: Who is Jesus? The Bible showed that He had some connection with God, but he needed to find out what the exact relationship was.
"And then, on Friday, Feb. 4, 2000," Ricky says. "My life was changed."
Despite all the entertainment options available to him on this Friday night, he stayed home that night for some unknown reason at the time. By this time, Ricky's faith and beliefs felt like they were being pulled from every direction possible.
On this night Ricky said prayer.
"I don't remember the exact words, but it went something like this: 'God I don't know if you exist and I don't know if you can hear me, but if you do exist and you can answer me then please let me know who you are!'"
Up until this point Ricky was really struggling and he had a lot of doubts, but for some reason, in the moments following this prayer, he felt all of the doubts and questions slip away.
"I was only left with one response, one answer, and one truth..."Jesus is God."
At this point Ricky felt an inner change encompass him. He recognized a noticeable shift in his thoughts, feelings, and emotions.
He knew at that moment that God did indeed exist. With this new knowledge, he understood that because Jesus came down to earth as God incarnate to live a perfect life and die a death he didn't deserve to pay for the consequence of people's sin, wrongdoing and impurities. And he knew that because he chose to believe, accept and receive what Jesus had done on the cross, that he was one now of God's children.
Over the next few months, Ricky experienced more changes and came to more realizations, including the recognition of the Bible as the true written Word of God.
"This spiritual conversion and revelation completely changed my life and how I see life," says Ricky. "I view God differently and see him as someone residing in heaven looking down at us. I view the world differently and see it as God's creation. And I view people differently as I feel more connected with everyone and everything and I feel a deep longing to share the love of Christ with others."
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