Where it all began

I was born into an Arminian family and raised in the Methodist Marathi Church in Ambarnath. Church was never just a Sunday event for us. It was the air we breathed, the rhythm of our week, our home.

Our house was full of pastors serving in the Methodist Church. From my earliest days, sermons, hymns, and talk of the Lord's work filled our rooms. I thank God for that heritage with all my heart, because everything I am today was planted in that soil.

My father and my mother

My Dad was an auto rickshaw driver by profession, but a visionary for the Lord's work by calling. He had little of this world's wealth, yet he was rich toward God. He taught me good, theologically rich Christian songs, and those songs still ring in my heart and shape how I think about God.

He taught me how to be in church and how to do ministry. Not from a pulpit or a seminary, but by example, pouring out his life for the Lord with whatever little he had. When I think of faithfulness, I think of him.

My Mom is a woman deeply rooted in faith. She taught me discipline and manners, and her unshakable trust in God has been a quiet anchor through every season of my life. Between the two of them, God gave me a foundation I can never repay, only thank Him for.

A restless heart

Yet even with all this blessing, something in my soul was restless. I could not be at peace with much of what I saw around me. Too often the spotlight was on man: his decisions, his efforts, his works. My heart longed for something more, a faith where God was at the centre and all the glory went to Him. Soli Deo Gloria.

I was hungry to grow. I started listening to John Piper and John MacArthur, and it was like pouring fuel on a fire. A holy zeal began to burn inside me. Their preaching kept pointing me to a God far bigger than I had imagined: sovereign, holy, and utterly sufficient in His Word.

Then the Lord brought Pastor Satralkar and Harshal into my life. Every single night, without missing one day, we bowed together in prayer. Those nights changed me. I learned what it means to cry out to God, to wait on Him, and to depend on Him alone. My prayer life was set ablaze.

Strange Fire and a new friend

Then John MacArthur released Strange Fire, and it shook me. It was an eye-opener. For the first time I was forced to test everything I saw and heard, not against feelings or experiences, but against the unchanging Word of God.

In those same days, God placed a brother in my path at church, Nikhil Katare. Our theological discussions began, and they would not stop. We went deep into Calvinism, the five solas, and the Protestant Reformation. It felt like discovering a treasure that had been buried under my feet all along: a theology where God is God, and man is not.

Wrestling with limited atonement

But not everything came easily. Limited atonement was my battleground. The teaching that Christ died specifically and effectively for His people troubled me deeply. I prayed. I wrestled. I went to many elders in the church and asked them honestly. Their answer was the same: it is false.

So I went back to the Scriptures on my knees, pleading with the Holy Spirit to teach me. And the Word spoke.

"I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep." (John 10:11)

"Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her." (Ephesians 5:25)

Christ did not die to make salvation merely possible. He died to actually secure it for everyone the Father had given Him, and not one of them will be lost (John 6:37–39).

I cannot fully describe what that did to my heart. My Saviour did not die for a faceless crowd in the hope that some might respond. He died for His people, knowing them by name. He died for me. I was convinced, and from that moment my Reformed journey truly began.

What convinced me

What began with one doctrine opened a whole cathedral of truth. Every room I walked into declared the same thing: salvation belongs to the Lord, from beginning to end.

The doctrines of grace (TULIP)

• Total Depravity: sin has affected every part of us, and we cannot choose God on our own (Romans 3:10–12).
• Unconditional Election: God chose His people by grace, not because of anything in them (Ephesians 1:4–5).
• Limited Atonement: Christ died to truly save His people, not merely to make salvation possible (John 10:11).
• Irresistible Grace: when God calls His elect, His grace makes them willing to come (John 6:44).
• Perseverance of the Saints: those God saves, He keeps to the end (Philippians 1:6).

The five solas

• Sola Scriptura: Scripture alone is our final authority.
• Sola Gratia: we are saved by grace alone.
• Sola Fide: through faith alone.
• Solus Christus: in Christ alone.
• Soli Deo Gloria: for the glory of God alone.

The Westminster Confession of Faith

Written by the Westminster Assembly in the 1640s, the Westminster Confession gathers these truths into one faithful summary of Scripture. It begins with the authority of God's Word, sets out God's sovereign decree, the covenant of grace, justification by faith, and the means of grace. With its catechisms, it reminds me that "man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him forever."

Why Reformed Presbyterian

This is what convinced me to be a Reformed Presbyterian. Here I found a faith that stands on Scripture alone, a gospel where salvation is all of grace, worship ordered by God's Word, and a church shepherded by elders under Christ the King. It is everything my restless heart had been searching for all those years: not man's works, but God's glory. And I will gladly spend the rest of my life proclaiming it.

I will always be grateful for the Methodist home that first taught me to love Jesus. The Reformed faith did not take that love away. It set it on fire and gave it deeper roots. Reformed, and always reforming by the Word of God.

Soli Deo Gloria.