Actors Kirk Cameron and Candace Cameron Bure have long been an inspiration to fans looking for strong Christian examples in Hollywood. But it wasn’t always that way.
The brother-sister duo and Great American Pure Flix fan favorites didn’t grow up in a Christian home, but somehow found themselves at church on separate occasions and were struck by the Gospel message.
Bure first attended church when she was 12 years old, at a time when her parents were thinking about getting a divorce. At the end of the service, she said the sinner’s prayer, but admittedly “didn’t really understand the Gospel message.”
"It wasn’t until I saw myself as a sinner [later in life] that I realized what He did for me, and that changed everything,” Bure said in a recent episode of Kirk's TBN show on YouTube. "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.”
What ultimately helped Bure see the truth was when her brother sent her a book called “Revival’s Golden Key,” written by Ray Comfort.
“I read that book and it rocked my world because I always thought I was such a good person…I didn’t really think I was a sinner,” she explained.
“The lightbulb went off” when Bure realized that God’s standard is not the world’s standard and that in God’s eyes she was a sinner in need of a Savior, “but that’s why Jesus came—to pay the penalty for my sin.”
For Kirk, his faith journey was similar in that it all started when a cute girl invited the self-described atheist and big-time television star to church.
“[At] that time, I think I was fed a steady diet of ego-inflating information—that I could be the god of my own world, I could be the master of my own destiny. And being on a show like ‘Growing Pains’ and knowing that millions of people were watching made you feel pretty important,” Cameron explained. “So, I didn’t need a God, I didn’t need someone to tell me what to do. In fact, I guess I thought that religion was something that people made up to just stop people from doing bad things. But it kind of wound up being, in my mind, a wet blanket on all of the fun you could have as a teenager.”
Cameron was moved by the pastor’s words that day, but he wasn’t ready to surrender his life to Jesus just yet. He had questions—a lot of questions—and it took time for him to finally believe that Jesus was exactly who He said He was.
“I remember sitting 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 [whether the Bible was true] and make a decision because one day I would die. In fact, I could die that day…and I would find out in an instant if God was real,” he recounted.
And then, without really knowing what he was doing, Cameron prayed that if God was real, He would forgive him and save him. That moment changed his life.
“Of all the things I’ve ever done in my life—of all the people I’ve met, the places I’ve been, all the cool experiences I’ve had—nothing compares to the joy of knowing Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior.”
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