By Ryan Zepeda —
From a very young age, Bob Siegel identified with being a Jew.
His dad, however, saw Judaism as a legacy, not a religion and ingrained in him the message “that there was no God, that the Bible was a bunch of fairy tales, even the Old Testament,” he recalls in a 2007 CBN video. “So I learned a lot about the nation of Israel, I learned about the Holocaust, I learned about anti-Semitism, but I learned nothing about God.”
Outfitted with a researcher’s affection for learning, Siegel hit college running. In addition to examining books, he began to examine himself.
“I began to notice a selfishness in me that I couldn’t control or do something about. Even if I donated money to a charity, I realized I was trying to make myself feel better than to have an altruistic emotion that I really cared about the people,” he remembers.
Those self-centered characteristics came to head one day when Jews for Jesus visited the campus and set up a sign.
“That absolutely infuriated me,” he says. “I thought that people were making this bug-a-boo about a man who had been dead. I thought that Jesus could never be proven, that anyone who read the Bible was a moron. So I thought these people were cowardly and dishonest. It was just plain stupid.”
He began to argue with the Jews for Jesus, but when he went home that night, he was perplexed.
So he said a simple prayer.
“God, all my life I’ve been told Jesus is forbidden knowledge. A second grader in Sunday school knows more about Jesus than I do, and I’m almost 20 years old. But if I’m missing out on something, if I can have a relationship with you and it is through Jesus, then help me to learn about him because I know nothing about him.”
He went to sleep.
The next day, two young women told him about having a relationship with Jesus.
After hearing them out, his mind was unconvinced, but then something happened that melted his heart – for the first time in his life he felt the presence of God!
“They didn’t necessarily say anything that was particularly persuasive, but after they left me, I was bombarded by a very difficult-to-describe mystical, supernatural, loving presence. I was just aware that a loving, intelligent presence was making contact with me.”
“This is the missing piece of the puzzle,” he concluded. “This is what people mean by asking Jesus into your heart.”
He returned to his dorm room and accepted Jesus Christ as his Savior.
“When I realized God loved me enough to send His son to die on the cross for me, it was just this incredible gratitude for God,” Bob says. “I just felt I owed Him my whole life.”
After graduating, Bob went into ministry, preaching about Jesus on college campuses. Then he started a radio ministry.
IF you want to know more about a personal relationship with God, go here
Ryan Zepeda studies at the Lighthouse Christian Academy in Santa Monica.
