For all his unorthodox ways, British artist Charlie Mackesy could hardly be mistaken for an evangelist—but he is.
The man who was once an atheist and who has been selling artwork to the likes of Whoopi Goldberg and Sting recently invited CBN News into his home that doubles as an art studio in the Brixton neighbourhood of London.
There he told how he first found Jesus about 25 years ago in a London park looking at the people around him. He said he got the feeling "that there must be more to this than meets the eye."
"Jesus quietly introduced me to a journey into finding people really beautiful, which is how my art really began," he said. "Because I felt inside me he was going, 'Look. How beautiful is that guy sitting on that bench?' And I would have never noticed him before."
Mackesy has another amazing story on how he turned away from atheism and embraced Christ. In one of his speeches, he recalled the day he first heard a gospel song at a music festival—while he was inside a portable toilet that he said was so filthy he stood on the seat to avoid the overflow.
He said the gospel song he heard was "Oh, Happy Day," performed by The Edwin Hawkins Singers. Mackesy said that song took away his atheism, moving him to tears.
"In the loo. Bawling," he told a church congregation. "Atheist, atheist, bawling."
"I didn't really know what had happened to me," Mackesy continued. "But as I was feeling it, my left foot slipped. And I went up to here in..."
He paused to let the audience fill in the blank.
Mackesy then related his "loo" story to his ideas about Christianity when he was still an atheist. "I thought Christianity was: be clean, come to church, be nice, don't use the 'F' word, and you'll be accepted and liked, because that's the thing; it's a meritocracy," he explained. "And if you want to belong, be a certain way."
He later found out that being a Christian, "you're loved; you're loved as you are—covered in whatever it is, on the inside or out."
Mackesy's art shows God's presence in his own life. In his painting simply titled "Known," he said he got the idea for this while he was on his bike crossing a bridge in London. He said the idea hit him for about 11 seconds.
He recalled an inner voice calling out to him, saying, "You're known, you're loved, this is, God exists and He loves you, He knows you, you're known, you're fully known, you're fully known.
"Warts, darkness... You don't have to pretend to be anything," he said.
