I grew up a poker player, but I didn’t grow up as a Christian. It wasn’t until my senior year of college that I find faith as a result of a near-death experience. As a result of a fall, I had found myself transported to another realm, fully conscious of what had just happened to me, with my body laying on the hot Albany ground. Almost instantly, I knew that the state of my soul was in hell. I did not see any fire, brimstone, or any of the caricatures we use to describe this horrid place. However, I could almost tangibly feel the gravity of my depravity and the weight of all the evils I’d ever committed.

I began to panic and break down, unsure of what to do, knowing I had just died and would be trapped in this place. After thrashing around for a period of time (which is incorrect to say, as it felt as if time didn’t exist), I recognized there was only one thing left to do: pray. In utter desperation, I prayed sincerely here for one of the first times in my life. In response, I heard a voice. To this day, I can’t tell you what I heard or what the voice sounded like. Yet after hearing it, I regained consciousness, surrounded by friends who were freaking out, repeating the phrase “I’ll follow you anywhere” for minutes straight without ceasing.

​

From that point forward, I was convinced of God’s existence. I didn’t know who He was or the God of what religion, but I knew something had just saved me. From that point forward, I began in-depth study of world religions, taking comprehensive religion courses in my senior year of school. I was a Law & Philosophy student, so deciphering the arguments came quite naturally to me. I began studying Hinduism, Jainism, Zoroastrianism, Islam, Judaism, and more. I had even visited a Buddhist temple and meditated with a Taiwanese monk using Google Translate, as he spoke no English.

While there's much more to the story, I narrowed down my search to Islam and Judaism, as the other faith systems failed in my eyes due to evidential and philosophical reasons. Judaism was quickly ruled out, as I technically could not convert to Judaism (even though my name is David). Going through the Quran and Hadith, Islam was soon ruled out due to historical, evidential, and ethical reasons. I was now at a place where I spent a year praying to those beings I knew saved me, asking them to reveal to me the truth, and coming up short no matter where I looked.

​

Notice, I didn’t mention Christianity under the religions I had studied. Previous to studying the aforementioned world religions, I ruled Christianity out as I had a poor emotional experience and believed it could not be true based on my interaction with a priest. Several months after analyzing these faith systems, an event occurred in which I realized I had just spent hours upon hours going through the Bhagavad Gita or the Tao Te Ching, but I hadn’t spent a minute reading the Bible. I realized how hypocritical I was being, cementing Christianity as false due to a bad experience, while giving scholarly due diligence to the other world religions.

​

I sought to reconcile this and bought my first Bible, the same one I use today [NASB :)]. I voraciously moved through the New Testament and quickly knew how wrong I had been. Like many of us, I had always heard the Bible was filled with stories, parables, and moral teachings. While these items can be found within Scripture, it is a gross understatement of the body of work. The majority of the New Testament are first-person accounts or letters written to a specific person/place. Scholars estimate that 1% or less of the Bible is made up of allegories. The narrative I’ve always heard from the culture proved to be false.

​

When I completed the New Testament, I found that nothing had ever made more sense to me in my life. This wasn’t enough, however, as I needed to know that the Bible was historically accurate, reliable, and philosophically sound. I now applied the same scholarly criteria I had applied to the previous religious systems. What I found as a result was shocking. Among others, some of the items that amazed me most are that: the New Testament is the most historically verified document of antiquity by far, the evidence for Jesus from non-Christian sources (both modern and ancient historians) is substantial, and there are no formidable counterarguments to why the disciples/apostles lived the way they did post-death of Christ.

​

With the data corroboration, I came to believe in Christianity from a historical basis, though I had no real personal relationship with Christ. It wasn’t until I began applying the principles of Scripture and surrendering myself that this relationship developed. When this happened, everything changed in my life for the better. The change was so stark that people that knew me continuously questioned me, trying to figure out what happened. Christ is the answer to all their questions, and all that's going on in your life.

​

When I was saved, I told God that if this was really true, I’d spend my life helping others see the truth. For this reason, I completed a Master's Degree in world religions to be able to speak to those of diverse backgrounds and provide the undeniable evidence there is for Christ as Lord.

As a poker player, you are called to use all the information you are given to make the highest percentage action possible. The evidence for Jesus far outweighs that of any other philosophical or religious system. Why play marginal hands when all the equity is in front of you?

If you’d like to discuss, ask questions, challenge, or like to be provided some of the key evidence for Jesus, please email info@gospelpoker.com or join our Discord group.