Even in my professed atheism, I knew God existed. I have to laugh now when I remember driving west on the Belt Parkway one evening saying to God, "How can you blame me for not believing in you, when there’s so much scientific evidence proving you don’t exist?!!" I was yet another victim of the lie which deludes the majority of self-centered humanity. That was sometime back in the mid-1980’s. At that point in my life my own ego ruled on the throne of my heart. Without a creator to answer to, morals and ethics fly out the window -- which is exactly where mine were. Oh, I wasn’t robbing banks or committing mass murder, but any semblance of conscience I possessed lay dormant, tucked safely away in the recesses of my sinful mind.

I grew up in Flatbush, the heart of Brooklyn, where pizza and stickball reigned supreme. I was raised in a moderately religious Jewish home -- we played dreidel on Hanukkah, fasted half a day on Yom Kippur, and sped through the story of Israel’s redemption so we could get to what seemed more important – the devouring of five or six courses of a variety of ethnic foods I never could seem to acquire a taste for on Passover. Forgive me if I sound a little cynical about it. The truth is, I wouldn’t have traded my Jewish upbringing for a thing. God knew just what He was doing…seven years of Hebrew school and Saturday services ultimately equipped me for an understanding of His Word I never would’ve attained otherwise.

After wasting the majority of my twenties on aimless goals driven by a craving for "fortune and fame", I began to be convinced that there was more to life than making money and finding contentment in self-achievement. Though I had a working knowledge of the Old Testament, at 28 years of age I received my first real exposure to the New Testament…the teachings of Jesus Christ. Who was this Jewish man Jesus I wondered, who had such an impact on human history in a fleeting 33 years of human life on earth? And why was he hated so intensely by most Jews that the mere sight of a cross on a girlfriend’s neck would arouse emotions never before seen in relatives of the elder generation?

After spending some time in church pews and in the Bible, I would come to find out that people who reject Jesus don’t really know why they do, they just do. And I would also come to find out that the reason behind this phenomenon is actually quite simple: Jesus Christ is a threat to the sinful, selfish pleasures of man. Who would like a guy who tells people they’ve got to give up the very things that bring them the most happiness in life?

Coming to grips with two basic concepts is what turned my life around – God’s holiness and my sinfulness. I realized that no matter how many "mitzvot" (good deeds) I did, I was still a sinner when the day was done. I needed some kind of miracle if I ever hoped to be in a right relationship with God.

That miracle exists, for all of us!

It’s in the hands of Almighty God Himself…innocent hands cruelly nailed to a Roman cross, suffering the punishment I deserved for breaking God’s law again and again. And what display of love was this, that God Himself would humbly die for me, so that I could be reconciled to Him? "Amazing love, how can it be, that thou my God should’st die for me?!"