Summary: We have a choice. This is a brief synopsis of a well-known man who made that choice—first to serve Christ and then to turn away from his faith.

The year was 1824. He was but a young lad of six when, along with his family, he left Judaism and was baptized into the Lutheran church. Through the years that followed, he thirsted for spiritual wisdom with passion and abandonment. While in high school, unlike his fellow students, he continued his interest in the Scripture and the saving message of the Gospel. At 17, he wrote an essay on the fifteenth chapter of the Gospel of John. His words echoed his deep convictions—Our heart, reason, history, and the work of Christ convince us that without Him we cannot achieve our goal, that without Him we are doomed by God, and only Christ can save us.

This was a committed Christian teen who clearly understood that the fruit of our union with Christ is our willingness to sacrifice ourselves for our fellow man and that pure joy is only known to the innocent heart united with Christ, and through Christ to God. This was a young man who felt the call of the Gospel, who heard Christ knocking on his door.

Yet nine years later, this same young man abandoned his Christian devotion for militant atheism and philosophical ideas of a utopia, free of religion. He was Karl Heinrich Marx.

Instead of being changed by the Gospel, Marx chose to change the world. He chose the so-called freedom of classless society over the freedom of the Cross. He chose himself over Christ.

It is not enough to learn and understand, yearn and long for. We must hear the knock, act in faith, and let the Christ of the Cross come in to reign in our hearts forever.