Kirk Cameron & Candace Cameron Bure: Personal Testimony & Faith Journey | Kirk Cameron on TBN
Kirk Cameron & Candace Cameron Bure: Personal Testimony & Faith Journey | Kirk Cameron on TBN
Kirk Cameron is joined by his sister, Candace Cameron Bure, as they each share their personal story of finding faith in God. The discuss their respective journeys toward seeking out the Lord and reveal the moment when they knew they needed salvation. Don’t miss their incredible testimonies!
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And I knew that if heaven was real, I would not be going there because I had never once even said thank you to the God who made me.
And I thought, God, I believe in you, but I didn’t really know why I needed you.
And it wasn’t until I saw myself as a sinner that I realized what he did for me. Mhmm.
And that changed everything.
Every time you come on to Takeaways, we ask people what they really want to know.
And and, inevitably, people want to know the story of your faith. How did you come to follow Jesus?
Well, as you already know, we didn’t grow up in a Christian home, uh, but mom was always a believer.
And it was at 12 years old, we went to church for the first time because mom and dad were thinking of getting a divorce and a friend had invited them to church.
So I remember I went to church, um, and it was all, like, so new, and we kept going.
And I didn’t really know what the pastor was talking about, but I just liked how I felt in church.
I liked hearing what I was hearing even if I didn’t understand it.
And so I remember at 12 years old, in a service, the pastor had said, hey.
Bow your head and and say this prayer if you wanna receive Jesus into your heart, which was a sinner’s prayer.
And I did. And I accepted Jesus into my heart.
And so I truly believe I was saved from that day forward.
But but my my life, I as I got older and into my teenage years, I wasn’t walking with God.
I wasn’t reading my bible. I’d go to youth group every once in a while and church occasionally, but I certainly didn’t really understand the gospel message.
And so it was in my early twenties after I had my daughter Natasha
Mhmm.
Around 22, 23, I started
So this was after Full House?
Yeah. After Full House. I started thinking, what do I wanna teach my kids about God?
And then that got me thinking about my relationship with God, and I I thought, I I actually don’t really know.
I I know I believe in Jesus. Yeah.
I know that he’s my savior, but I don’t really know what that means.
And and I realized I I’ve never read the Bible before, and so how can I teach my kids about God if I don’t really know about God?
And and then I have this, you know, like, kinda cool brother that, um
Very cool brother.
That called me one time and said, like, hey, I’m sending you this book that’s rocked my world, and I really hope that you’ll read it.
So you you sent me, uh, the
Was it Revival’s Golden Key?
Yes. You sent me Revival’s Golden Key. Yeah.
That’s right.
And I read that book and it rocked my world because I always thought I was such a good person because I grew up in a good home.
I was kinda considered a goody 2 shoes, like, pretty much obeyed mom and dad whatever they wanted.
I’d, you know, call if I was gonna be late. I wouldn’t stay out past curfew.
You know, I did all the right things. I didn’t I didn’t do drugs.
I wasn’t, you know, going down a crazy path like a lot of child stars go down.
So I always thought I’m such a good person, and Jesus saves us from our sin, you know, reconciles us from our sin, but I didn’t really think I was a sinner.
Right. I’m a really good person compared to a lot of other people my age.
And it wasn’t until I read revival’s golden key that I was told, well, put God’s law in in front of you and ask, have I have I ever broken God’s standard of what is right and good?
Mhmm. And so, you know, it’s like have you ever told a lie? Uh, yeah.
Have you, um, always put God first in your life? No.
I mean and those are just like the easy ones.
Right.
And then and then read that well if you break even one commandment it’s as if you’re breaking all of them.
So I was I was then realized for the first time in my life, oh, I am a sinner.
Even though I’m good by the world’s standard, I’m not good by God’s standard.
He holds a much higher standard than the world. And so I kinda freaked out. I’m like, what okay.
Now what? What am I supposed to do with that? I’m not I’m
not a person. Prayer.
Uh, Yeah. I I but then I was again told the gospel message, but that’s why Jesus came to pay that penalty
Right.
For my sin. And that even though I’m not good by God’s standard, God is, and he’s taken the punishment for me.
And it was like, oh, the light bulb went off.
And I thought, god, I believe in you, but I didn’t really know why I needed you.
And it wasn’t until I saw myself as a sinner that I realized what he did for me.
And that changed everything. And that I I believe I’ve been a Christian since I was 12, but I didn’t start walking with God until I was about 22 or 23 years old.
Wow. Isn’t that amazing? It’s amazing to me that it was the it was the moment that you saw your sin that actually unlocked the door for you to be able to appreciate the gospel.
Yes.
And so many people say, well, no no no. Only talk to people about the love of God.
He loves you. He loves you. He loves you. He loves you.
But, in reality, uh, that can almost blind people to their their need for a savior.
And it’s the mirror of God’s law that shows us that, wow, I’m in desperate need of his forgiveness and an overhaul of my heart, and that’s the preciousness of the gospel and what Jesus did for me.
I don’t know what background you come from, uh, whether you grew up in a church going home or like me, you didn’t go to church.
In fact, when I was a little kid, I I called myself an atheist.
And that be it wasn’t because I could prove that God didn’t exist.
I I simply never really thought about God.
Uh, in fact, when I was younger, uh, I was working on a television show called Growing Pains.
Maybe you’ve seen it. And I played Mike Seaver for 6, 7 years.
And, uh, during that time, I I think that I was, uh, fed a steady diet of ego inflating information.
You know, that that I could be the god of of of my own world.
I could be, uh, the master of my own destiny.
And certainly being on a television show like Growing Pains and and knowing that millions of people were watching, uh, made you feel pretty important.
So I didn’t need a God. I didn’t need someone to tell me what to do.
In fact, I I guess I thought that religion was just something that people made up to, um, well, just to stop people from doing bad things.
But and it kinda wound up being, in my mind, a wet blanket on all of the fun that you could have as a teenager.
So as a professing atheist, uh, who thought that God was part of a different trinity, you know, uh, like Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and God, I really never gave him a second thought.
And so I was working on a on the show Growing Pains and right in the middle of all of its success, there was a a young girl who invited me to, um, meet her at church.
And because she was cute, I thought, well, I’m not gonna turn down the invitation for a first date.
Never been to church before, but, hey, uh, you know, there’s a first for everything.
And so I went and I met her family, sat in the back row of this church, and heard things I’d never heard before.
And the preacher held up a Bible and he talked about how God, the creator of all things, was holy and pure and and and all powerful and all knowing.
And he helped me to understand the message of the gospel.
And even after I heard it, I didn’t believe it, but it certainly got me thinking that that although God created man in his image, he gave man this choice to either honor and obey God and be in fellowship with him or to, uh, disobey him and break fellowship and go his own way and suffer the consequences.
And and if you’ve read the Bible, you know that that that man chose the latter option, um, creating the need for God to implement a rescue mission.
And rather than leaving Adam and Eve, uh, and the whole human race on a course toward destruction, the Bible says that God promised he would send someone to reverse the curse and to rescue us from the consequences of our first parents, Adam and Eve.
And, uh, this was starting to sound like a great Hollywood movie that there was this great rebellion in the garden, And then there was this split between God and man.
And then there was this rivalry and there was a there was an enemy named Satan who came in the form of a serpent and deceived Eve.
And it was a great movie that started to sound like the Avengers, you know?
And and who would who would rescue them from this this terrible situation that they’d gotten themselves into, and God was gonna send a savior.
And I heard all about Jesus.
I heard how Jesus came and and willingly died on a cross to pay the price for the selfishness, pride, wickedness, and rebellion of the human race, and how he was buried in a tomb and he rose again on the 3rd day and ascended into heaven, and then sent his Holy Spirit into the hearts of those people who would come to God in repentance and faith.
And they would be changed, and they would be made new on the inside, and they would be restored into fellowship with their creator, and then they would be used by God to heavenize the whole world and have any an eternal life with him.
And I didn’t know what to do with this message.
Again, I I didn’t believe any of it, but the preacher sure did and the people in the pew sure did.
And so I started to ask this girl’s father lots of questions like, how do you know the Bible is true?
What about other religions? What about science?
I mean, are we really gonna believe that there’s someone there behind the clouds that we’re gonna give an account to one day?
How could a man rise from the from the dead?
And he gave me a lot of really good answers to these questions.
He took me back into into science and history, and he gave me a book by Josh McDowell called More Than a Carpenter.
And that little book helped me to open the door intellectually to examine whether or not the Bible was a trustworthy book and whether or not Jesus could really be who he said he was.
I mean, after all, he claimed to be the son of God.
He claimed to be, uh, one with the creator of the universe.
He claimed that he would rise from the dead, and eyewitnesses said that he did 3 days later.
Well, those are such crazy, outlandish claims.
They were either false or they were true or they were just legends.
And this little book helped me to examine all three of those options, and I came out the other side of that little exercise convinced that Jesus really is who he said he was.
So intellectually, I felt like I either had to believe in God or admit that I had a hidden agenda to not believe in God.
And then I remember sitting in my in my sports car one day, parked on the side of the road, thinking about the fact that I didn’t have forever to think about this and make a decision because one day I would die.
In fact, I could die that day.
Maybe I got hit by a drunk driver and I would find out in an instant if God was real and if heaven and hell were real also.
And I knew that if heaven was real, I would not be going there because I had never once even said thank you to the God who made me.
In fact, I didn’t even believe in his existence.
And so I thought I should pray and I didn’t know how to do that.
It’s probably the clumsiest prayer ever prayed, but I just closed my eyes and I said, God, if you’re there, I wanna know.
If you’re real, would you please show me?
Would you forgive me for the things that I’ve done that that are wrong, that have been offensive to you?
Uh, I don’t know anything about you.
But would you show me the way and make me the person you created me to be?
If you’re listening. And I thought about the fact that if God was there and he made and designed my ears, surely he hear the prayer of an atheist in a sports car parked on the side of the road who didn’t know anything about the Bible or church.
And I just had this desire to share what had happened with a friend of mine.
Well, turns out, he invites me to church. He gives me a Bible.
I start reading it, and I start to understand so much more about who I am, why I’m here, and where I’m going.
And as I continued to ask questions and find answers to my questions, I became persuaded that Jesus really is who he said he is, that the Bible really is the word of God.
And the most important decision I could ever make would be to humble myself and trust Jesus Christ as the Lord of my life, to rely and depend upon him like I do the air that I breathe, and trust God’s word to guide me into the future.
And I can tell you that of all the things I’ve ever done in my life, of all the people I’ve met, the places I’ve I’ve been, all the cool experiences I’ve had, nothing compares to the joy of knowing Jesus Christ as my Lord and savior, of being in a right relationship with God by faith, and following His word as the roadmap in my life.
Let me just encourage you that if if you’re on the fence, if you’re if there’s a fog with regard to spiritual truth, Jesus said that if you will humble yourself and you will recognize that you’ve sinned against God and you come to him in humility and faith, that he will reveal himself to you in a way that is unmistakable, that he will show himself to you.
And and and I think that that shows up in a variety of ways for different people.
But at least for me, it showed up in a softening of my heart.
It showed up in helping me to see that that even the atheist has to exercise faith to hold his worldview.
The atheist has to have faith and trust that God does not exist in spite of all of the evidence.
How else do you explain a universe that screams such design?
How else do you justify things like morality and beauty and truth without a God who is the author of those things.
If you take God out of the equation, you have to throw truth, beauty, and goodness out the window, and you wind up with a world that you and I don’t wanna live in.
So I’d encourage you before you let your head hit the pillow tonight, ask God to show you the truth about who he is.
Talk to him like you’d talk to a a friend.
Because even though you may be on the wrong side of God, even though you may be even an enemy of God, God will make you his friend and change your heart and heal your past, and give you a purpose and a future if you come to him on his terms.
Hey, listen.
I I wonder if you if it’d be okay if I just prayed with you right now.
We don’t know each other. We’re not in church, but, uh, I would just like to offer up a prayer for you if you’re if you’re watching or listening right now.
Dear God, I I I thank you that you’re a God of, mercy and kindness.
Dear God, I know that you’re also a God of truth and and holiness and that every single one of us have violated your moral law and we need your forgiveness.
Thank you God for not, uh, passing over us but extending your grace and offer of peace.
God, I pray for anybody who’s watching or listening right now that if if if they have questions that you would answer them, if they are lost that you would show them the way and that you would give them the courage to confess their sin and trust you with all of their heart, and experience what you call the the new birth and that you’d make them a new create a new creation and set them on their path, uh, to being all that you’ve created them to be.
We love you God and we pray in Jesus name. Amen.
Hey, thanks for watching and, uh, God bless you.
