Marriage

I have had the privilege of witnessing and photographing many weddings throughout the years and everyone of them is a small symbol of how Christ will take His bride in the end. If you look closely at the bride in the picture, you can see a single tear of happiness running down her cheek. Such a beautiful moment where no one else existed at that moment but the groom. She was enveloped in his love and she felt secure in his arms and it overwhelmed her. 

I talked about a moment I had in my last post and I just wanted to expand on that intimacy we can have with Christ and God through the Spirit. I look at the picture above and I get teary eyed every time because it has what I imagine my personal meeting with Him to be like. That song and movie, I Can Only Imagine, comes to mind. In the picture I am the beautiful bride, washed clean and held by my beloved and tears of joy falling down my face. It says He'll wipe away all my tears but I want those kind of tears, those of pure joy and happiness. The day I meet Him face to face will be so sweet but we can have that connection here in this world as well. 

Jesus had that loving connection with the Father. So much so, He would often leave His followers to go off and be alone with Him on a regular basis. I know people who say, church is their recharge every week. In the world through the week, struggles, stress, adulting, kids and life come at us and some say all that takes away their joy so they need that fill up every week. God is not a gas station. He doesn't pack you a lunch full of Himself, then send you off to school only to come home hungry each evening. If we treat Him like that then we need some serious help. It's the genie syndrome again. Lord Grant me my wish of just making it through life this week and I'll be back next week to ask you again, cause I struggle out there on the battle field Lord. You don't know, Lord. My co-workers get on my nerves so bad everyday and don't get me started about my idiot boss who thinks she's a gift from heaven. If we go into church to fill up then we need to be on our knees in repentance now and ask Him for forgiveness. 

If I'm married, would my marriage last if I came home once a week and complained to my wife how bad my week went then asked her to wait on me, feed me and rub my feet. I don't think it would last a month if we treated our spouses that way but here we are treating our Heavenly spouse that way. 

His love towards us is 1Cor 13:4-7 4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no account of wrongs. 6Love takes no pleasure in evil, but rejoices in the truth. 7It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Our love is the complete opposite and self-centered.  His love doesn't require our input though and He still pours out His love on us regardless of How we treat Him because His love is selfless. 

However, He wants more for us than to be filled, then be emptied. He wants us full of Him continually, non-stop all the time. It's the continual intimacy like the picture above shows. It will always show that moment of pure joy, frozen in time, never changing. We need that picture to be our lives always; always embracing and always full of joy. 

I thought once in my life that God was out there somewhere and that He didn't really care about me and I was left to fend for myself. I would go through the motions of being a Christian but on the inside I was empty. It changed when He changed my perspective, that He never leaves or forsakes but we leave Him instead. My last post on struggles explains that. 

For this post I leave you with this.

You are the workmanship of God. You are knit together by His Love. He adores you and wants the best for you. His arms are always open and He waits for your embrace. Leave your fear, doubts and distrusts behind as you come to Him with full trust and faith. He wants intimacy. He wants you to be with Him. He is our good Husband and He waits at the altar for us to walk down the isle to Him. Say, I do, right now and let Him take you in His arms.

To God be the Glory

Struggles

This is aptly titled as I have written and erased this post three times. I want these to be less preachy and more personal so I tend to judge each sentence I write. I would actually like for the Spirit to write each one of these but as a Christian in training I sometimes let things block my connection with Him. Too many thoughts or doubts or fears or whatever creep in and take away that sweet connection we need with Him. I think it's doubt more than anything. If you look at who we are compared to, who He is and step back and look at the big picture, it becomes intimidating and overwhelming. I then have to remind myself of one thing, He is in charge of it all, I just need to submit. So, not only do these posts bring me frustration, they also bring me some therapy in the form of reaching out and trying to connect with Him on a daily basis. Which, if you look at my track record has lacked in the past. So, if I'm not helping anyone out there in the world, at least this is therapeutic for me! 

Struggles, besides my current ones, are a huge part of a Christians life. We tend to say, its normal to struggle but in reality it should not be normal. I mean, Paul was in prison singing everyday and happy about the fact he was in a filthy prison that smelled like a week long Summer music festival's porta potty. It was nasty to say the least and he endured with a smile. What is that, it's Christ in you. Our circumstances will not change as long as we live in this world. We will endure climate changes, diseases, famines, poverty and health issues throughout our lives, yet we are supposed to walk through the flames without being burned. Deeper still, our bodies are of no consequence as we are promised a new one at the end of this world. God is now focused on our hearts and not our bodies for change. If we are in a struggle, is it going to affect our hearts? When we lose a job, does it destroy us on the inside? When we lose a loved one, does it affect us so much that our hearts become disconnected from Him? Our struggles are there to test us and prove our hearts. They create situations we cannot handle on purpose. For example, a child can rarely do things correctly on their own when they try to do something for the first time. Can a child pick up a bicycle for the first time, jump on and ride it without help or crashing? No, they are very reliant on the person teaching them until they learn it. Once they know how to do it, they use help less and less. Our struggles are to bring us closer to God for help. When we stop trying so hard to screw it up on our own and give it up to Him, then He steps in and changes our understanding and our heart. Once Christ is established in our hearts fully, we can walk through any issue without it effecting us. 

Christ came into this world to change our hearts, He never once used His power to destroy His struggles. He prayed instead, looking to the Father for guidance and help. He could have asked the rock to turn into bread but He knew that hunger was insignificant to the connection He had with the Father. Can we say that? Can we look inward and say, this struggle I am going through, is it so big that it needs to take precedence over my relationship with the Father. 

Some of us have never had a close relationship to God, a least not enough to be frightened when the thought of losing Him shakes us to the core. I have had several times when God's love has enveloped me like a warm blanket on a cold day. Its a feeling in your heart that is hard to describe but I'll try. I've stood out under the moon one night on my way back from a night of listening, praising and worshiping and felt a shock wave of Love crash into me. We were camping on a large property that had a worship center and cafeteria, cabins, bath houses and other amenities. It was an annual thing we did to hear from traveling ministries from all over the world. They would come and give news of what God had been doing in their lives and what He was doing in their part of the world. Returning after the night service around 11pm I was walking alone and reflecting on some of the things I heard when all of a sudden I raised my hands and started to tell Him thank you. When I did, it felt like I was filled with pure joy. I could not handle the overwhelming feeling so I cried, laughed and just thanked Him. I stood out in that grass and just worshipped because I didn’t know what else to do. It took a long while before I could move from that spot. 

It's intimate times like those that I look back on and tell myself, I could jeopardise this all by letting this struggle ruin what I have in Him. If you've not had a moment that just flabbergasted you into a puddle of crying or laughing goo then I say cry out to Him for one. Ask Him to overwhelm you with His love, to wash over you and fill you with His presence. When you experience Him in such a powerful way, struggling with worldly issues become insignificant in your eyes. Trust me, you'll seek Him more and never want to lose that connection ever again. If Paul sang in prison, if the apostles died over it, if constant persecution never changed it, if Christ willingly went to be tortured then hung on a cross to keep the relationship they had with God then our meager struggles shouldn't draw us away.

Draw closer and the struggles become nothing. Draw closer and you'll never want to let go no matter how dark the world gets. Draw closer and you will shine and the world will see.

To God be the Glory Always!

 

The Wheat and the Tares

I absolutely love parables. They bring so much spiritual truth in a relatable story. Like the parable of the wheat and the tares. Why would God raise up two types of Christians? You see, automatically you think, wait, isn't that about believers and non-believers? One day while studying another parable, the one about the 10 virgins, I realized the wheat and tares may not be believers and non-believers but those that claim they know Christ and those that He knows. It's one thing to know Him versus to be known by Him. 

 In the 10 virgins, at the end, 5 of them come back to the house after finding enough oil. They knocked, He answered by saying, depart from me I don't know you. It's like knowing a movie star and being known by one. Take your favorite actor or actress for example, you could see every movie they've been in, read every biography about them, watch every documentary and interview with them and on your side you'd feel a connection to them. However, if you walked up to them and said, hey it's really good to see you, they'd say I don't know you. Christ is the same way, we can't claim to know Him and not actually spend time with Him. It takes a relationship with Him for both of you to connect. 

When reading this parable as a young hungry Christian, I was completely floored by the prospect of being left out and I'd say most Christians would be surprised too by that notion. 

Most are comfortable in the fact they are saved and that's all they need to get to heaven. However, if you read through the Bible with an open mind you'll see there is definitely two groups of believers. Now, why can’t it be believers and non-believers? Because, non-believers wouldn't even be invited to the wedding or be a virgin. Christ came to reconcile us to God and give us a shot at becoming a co-laborer with Him. We are given the resources to create a relationship with Him where we previously had none. Before Christ came, the Law was the only way man could draw closer to God,  yet, as Paul so eloquently puts it in Romans, we had a nature in us that kept us from fulfilling the Law. That nature was nailed to the cross and was crucified with Christ giving us a clean slate, a fresh start.

Look at it this way, a man was asked to build a house yet he was given no tools and no materials to do so. Now imagine trying to build a house from sticks, mud and anything you could find around you without tools. No saws to cut wood, no hammers or nails, no nothing. It would be very difficult. A house could be built but it wouldn't look good or function properly compared to today's modern home. So, trying to build a house with no resources was us trying to fulfill God's Law with a fallen nature, impossible. Once Christ came, it was as that same man got every piece of lumber, nail, shingle, wiring, plumbing and everything needed to build a large house. He even provided us with the blueprints which was the example of how Christ lived on Earth, sacrificially. We now have every tool and material to build a relationship with God. 

The Holy Spirit was given and He's like an endless supply of information and understanding and power.

"For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline." 2Tim. 1:7

The supplies we have been given through Christ's sacrifice and the Gifts of the Spirit is supposed to be used to glorify God and build His kingdom on Earth.

Kingdom building isn't knowledge about it, it's a life we live in and show to the world. 

Back to the wheat and tares. The wheat is to be harvested, ground up and made into bread to feed the world where as the tares serve no use and are discarded. Those that are tares, deny the working of the Spirit, deny the power of God in us, deny miracles can be done through us and deny that we are made perfect through Christ. They stay in the prison of the old nature even after Christ has opened the prison doors and set us free. Christ said, we would do all He did and more. 

One last thing. An elephant is the largest and strongest land mammal on Earth. When being trained for the first time, huge chains are put around one of their legs to keep them from running away. The elephant tries to break free but cannot. Over time it quits trying. They can then replace the huge chain with a simple rope, one that it could easily break but doesn't. Why, because it has been conditioned to know it can't escape even when it has the ability to do so.

We are vessels that were created to be like Christ. We we're full of our old nature and then we were emptied out. We were then filled with Him. Why then do we still label ourselves as anything but Sons of God? Why do we act as though we are still bound by sin and condemnation when Christ set us free? 

False doctrines have been taught to us for generations to keep us from establishing that bond we should have with God. Listen, anything that teaches against being a functional son or daughter of God is wrong. Read, study, and have God change the way you see your relationship with Him. Pray to have Him lift the blinders off your eyes so you can see the truth.

As always, To God be all the Glory!

Control

When first we don't succeed, try try again. Something we've heard over and over in our lives yet in a walk with Jesus, nothing could be further from the truth. It should say, if at first you don't succeed then give up. Let me explain. Our whole lives on Earth is based on effort in, equals effort out. The more you do the more you get. The harder you work, the better the career, the bigger the house, the better off you'll be. It's programmed in us from the beginning to be successful, to make something of ourselves. It's the survival of the fittest mentality. It's why we have sports and competitions and hierarchical jobs. They're all there to create competition and perpetuate the dog eat dog mentality in us all. Then there's being a Christian, where we hear, the first will be last and the last shall be first. What the heck. It sounds like the participation trophies are being handed out again at the soccer game. No, it's a picture of how God is trying to save us from ourselves by replacing the ideology of a Me centric society to a Love centric society. 

In any new Christians walk, the ME attitude has to be replaced with a HIM attitude. Right from the start, the hole we're in spiritually, cannot be dug out of by us. No matter the good we do or no matter how we perceive ourselves, we are still walking, talking piles of selfishness. So, to be a Christian you first must come to the realization that you need help. Even the very thought of, I need help, is planted there by God. Being saved is an act of relinquishing control from you to Him. (See my first blog on how that went for me.) You have to tell yourself, I am lost and destitute. Then you must recognise the one who can rescue you. For most, coming to the realization that they are sinful is very difficult in itself but then coming to terms and understanding that they have zero control to change their situation is sometimes a hard pill to swallow.

Read 2Corinthians 12:5-10 where Paul boasts about his weaknesses. He gets a word straight from God that says, my power is perfected in weakness. It's hard for us to imagine that weakness can bring about power but look at it this way. Two men get into a heated discussion over how to build a house. Now, nothing can be built as long as the two argue but as soon as one gives up his fight, progress can be made. Like them, we put up a good fight to stay in control of our lives. Because of that, God will not move until a settlement is reached which is us relinquishing control.

Even after we are saved from our sinful nature, we hold on to anything we can control. Once saved though, we are given the gift of the Holy Spirit which opens up communication between God and us. This communication is for His voice to be heard and obeyed by us. Yet, we still plan it all ourselves. Like Moses in the wilderness striking the rock instead of speaking to the rock, we tend to do our own thing when it comes to God. We worship Him how we want to, we do our lives how we want to and only call on Him when things get rough. Instead of treating Him like our King and Savior we treat him like a genie. Thanks for saving me but I got this, just grant me some wishes along the way and I'll be fine. This is our attitude because we do not want to lose control.

Our control is our comfort. We control things because it is comfortable for us. We settle into routines and rarely upset our apple cart. It's how we protect ourselves from heartbreak, loss and discomfort. We settle for comfortable control instead of radical trust. Our entire lives as Christians should be controlled by God. Think of the church, every church on the planet should be under one authority, God's authority. Instead, the church is split up into factions and pieces because of different doctrinal beliefs, pastoral control or eldership control. Men want to keep control anyway they can. In one breath they want God's provisions and the other they don't want to die to self.

Control is always going to be the issue, who has it and who wants it. Our loss of control is basically like Christ's sacrifice on the cross. His death was a direct leading of His Father. If Jesus would have not gone to the cross then control would have been taken back and Jesus would have lost His relationship with God. When we follow Christ, He asks for us to take up our cross. The cross was an instrument of death where those that did evil were nailed to it. Our death on the cross is nailing our control, pride, fear and lack of trust to it so that they too can die in us. What ever we have an issue with that keeps God's hands from leading our lives must be recognized first then gotten rid of through the cross. Control is a nasty thing and He awaits the day when we give all our control over to Him. As Paul put it, I die daily, which should be our call as well. So, ask God, what part of me am I in control of that you want control of and see what He says. 

As any of my blogs are read, please don't take what I say as truth without you yourself speaking to God for confirmation on the subject matter. As each of us are on differing paths in Christ, one may glean something totally different than someone else. You may not get anything at all or this may upset you. My goal is for you to deepen your relationship with God.  Ask Him to do one thing and that's reveal to you the truth. If you ask Him for truth He will reveal it to you. 

As always, May God have all the Glory!

Religion versus Relationship

I hinted at my conflicts with church members in my last blog so I thought I would elaborate on the situation. I worked in an automotive shop, changing tires and oil and I started there right after I became a Christian. Read my last blog to catch up on my routines around this time. Anyway, my nose was in the Bible constantly and I was learning a lot. One day, I was quiet because I read, be quiet before the Lord. Another words, I was listening intently for anything from the Holy Spirit. I was hungry and wanted any morsel of knowledge or understanding God would give me. 

One of my co-workers asked why I was being so quiet that day. Now, he was a Christian and we talked regularly with no issues but that day changed everything. I looked over and replied, "I'm listening for the Holy Spirit to talk to me." You would think I had told him I was God himself. His faced went red and evil looking and he said "Who do you think you are?" 

Well,  I kept my calm even though I was boiling inside. My initial thought was. "Am I wrong?"

I had just read where we have the Holy Spirit dwelling in us from the time we are born again. He's a gift to us to help us communicate, to be corrected, to comfort and to give understanding. He's our living connection to Christ and God. 

So, in my frustration, I finished the car I was working on and then went to break. While I was on break, I began to write down all the scripture I had studied previously so I could share them with him. My thinking was, maybe he's unaware so I'll share my studies and see if he comes to the same conclusions I had. I wanted input. So, after my break I walked up to Him and said, "Hey, I went and wrote down the scriptures where I drew my conclusions from and wanted you to look at them." He snatched the paper out of my hands, looked me in the eyes, tore the paper into pieces then threw them on the ground.

This was my first conflict with another Christian and right then and there, unknown to me at the time, was also my first run in with religion. 

It left me baffled and over a period of years he tortured me mentally, talked horribly about me behind my back and refused to talk to me. It literally lasted most of my 12 plus years working there. 

He never talked to me about why he reacted that way. There was his belief system and only his belief system and that was all, anything else was blasphemy and deserved to be cast out.

Before we go any further,  I want everyone to know, I confronted him one day and asked him for forgiveness and told him I forgave him in return. He did not ask to be forgiven but he accepted my forgiveness. That day I washed my hands of the matter and I only bring it up as a reminder of how lost in religion we can become.

So, let's break down the differences. Religion is a set system of beliefs that creates a club like atmosphere for those that are in it. A religion usually has rules, a specific structure and a set system of beliefs and ideas. Go beyond what is set by that religion and your labeled a trouble maker. Religion welcomes you in as long as you believe and act as they do. As soon as you step outside the box though you are an enemy.

Relationship however, welcomes all, accepts all and loves all. It has no issues with how you act, how you look or how you believe. 

Now, your probably saying, organization and structure is a good thing and it is but when it is preferred over a person then you run into issues.

History lesson time, the Church has been historically ultra conservative when it comes to who it let's into its doors. Basically they wanted a sinner to come to Christ but they wanted that person to look a certain way and act a certain way first before they walked in. They wanted clean sinners if that makes any sense. Then they also judged harshly those outside their doors or even those behind another door. Another words, no love was present in the church. 

When structure is preferable over love then we have issues. Religion is neat and tidy and sanitary. Relationship is ugly, dirty and random. It seeks out those who are at their worst and lifts them up. It never judges those that are lost but loves them as they are. 

Christ ran straight into the religious hornet nest and got put on the cross for it. 

So, if you've had a bad taste in your mouth throughout this blog, then you may want to check your heart. 

Ask yourself this, can you're "relationship" with Christ survive outside of your church? If you unplugged from all the events, all services, all sermons, all music and all reading, would you still be able to maintain your Christian life? It's a process I've had to take myself through to appreciate how much God wants our heart over our service. More to come on that but for now,

Happy Thanksgiving to all and to God be all the Glory!

Understanding

 

Hello everyone,

Let us press on towards the goal of what God has called us for, the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

When I became a Christian (see 11/22/22 blog), like a newborn child, I knew nothing. Being overwhelmed by my perceived expectations was a daily occurrence. I basically did everything everyone told me I should do. I acted how others acted. I basically walked the walk and talked the talk of those around me. Like a new born, I received all my nourishment from anyone who would feed me. Now, we all know newborns do not ingest all they receive. Most, spit it back up or wear more than they eat. Much like them, I struggled with my new found religion and my old nature. God is patient however and in time I grew. It wasn't long when I became so hungry that I wanted to feed myself. It's funny how situations will rise to push you in the right direction. For example, we lived about 30-45 minutes from work and we had one car to drive. My wife had a 8-5 M-F job and I mostly worked 10-7 with various days off. So, in our commute, we would drop our son off at his school early, then take me to work, then her on to work. In the evening it was more difficult, she would go get our son, which was in the opposite direction from me, then turn around and come get me, then head home. Not all days were like this but a lot of them were. When I arrived at work over two hours early, I filled my time by reading the Bible. I was hungry and needed fed and getting fed by others wasn't cutting it anymore, so I dove head long into the Word. I had a pen, a full notepad and the Bible with me each day. I started reading everything at first, trying to absorb it all. Eventually, I came upon word studies and verse studies. 

Did you know, the Bible does a great job of explaining itself. The Bible I had was a study Bible and it had cross referenced verses in the margins for each verse. When I would come across a verse that I wanted clarification on, I would check those cross referenced verses and more often than not I would cross reference the verses that were cross referenced and so on and so forth. The layers of verses from the original verse would go ten or more deep sometimes and I would write them all down in my pad to see them together and read them all at once to get a full understanding of what that original scripture meant. 

I was hungry and I constantly fed myself when I had time. I eventually got a huge concordance so I could study just one word and its meaning in the original Hebrew, Greek or Aramaic then I moved from verse to verse to see that word in context. I had a bag, just for all my books, pens and paper. People at work started calling me Preacher and others called me not so nice names. 

Here's a whimsical side note for you. The one calling me Preacher was a lesbian woman who actually talked to me frequently and was my friend. The one who hated my guts was a deacon at a local church. Go figure that one out. More on that one for another day maybe.

Anyway, God rewarded my hunger with constant revelations. When I say revelations, I don't mean a look into the future or a vision, I mean the stuff I was ingesting became real to me and not just part of a written word. 

Let's define this a little. There's knowledge and the Bible says, that knowledge can puff you up and make you arrogant. That knowledge is only on the surface and it lives in your head. You can quote it, you can use it on others and it creates a false narrative in you mind making you think you know God and His plan. However, knowledge can be mixed with current feelings, emotions, and other experiences to create a product that is not of God.

If a man wants to build a house, what would he do if he knew nothing about building one. He would hire someone who had the expertise to build him one. Now, the man knows he wants a specific size house with specific things in it but he still doesn't know how to assemble all those pieces and make them work together. So, the builder comes and starts to work. The man watches to learn and reads the plans. He may watch a video or two and by the middle of the construction he fires the builder and tries to complete the house himself thinking he has the knowledge to do so. 

This is the same as a Christian taking knowledge of the Word and using it to build His life around it. He doesn't have the expertise to finish the work yet in His mind he thinks he does. He may build a house but it won't meet inspection standards and will be rejected in the end.

So, there's knowledge and there's revelation where it goes from your head to your heart. It's where God makes all those words come to life within you so you can live it instead of quote it. It's a heart matter. For instance, at that church I went to, I constantly heard, I have to love them but I don't have to like them. Again, they are using words of knowledge to quote but their hearts are not fulfilling those words. 

Revelation creates the understanding we need to see how God sees. Most often, it reveals who you are and what you look like in God's eyes. Being a young Christian, each revelation that came my way was God showing me myself, who I was and what needed to change. This will be explained in a later blog but for now I just wanted to say, don't get knowledge, get understanding. Pray that God will open your eyes to receive understanding. It's the difference between knowing you have to give a poor person money versus having a broken heart for the poor. I could go on and on and on with this but I'll wrap it up here. Just know this one thing, there's a huge difference between head knowledge and heart understanding. 

To God Be All The Glory!

In The Beginning

 

Where to start this journey so that you, my reader can get something out of this? As a normal guy with no ties to anything popular or anything viral, I started this journey to express my thoughts and ideas of what it's like to walk with Jesus as my Savior, Friend and Companion. I often feel that being a Christian in the world today can bring some pretty negative input from both the religious and non-religious population. So that said, anything on this Blog will be my personal experiences and my own viewpoints. In no way am I trying to make you walk a certain way but my goal is to open up minds so they can think for themselves.

I started my journey with God when I was a teenager. I had a "come to the altar moment" that, at the time, was completely lost to me. It was an impressionable time and basically I followed everything the pastor told me, word for word. Yea, he's saved from the clutches of hell. No...not really! Later on after living an unGodly life to the ripe age of 30, His calling on me was unavoidable. It was in the pew of a church we had been attending where the battle for my life was lost. My wife wanted us to be Baptized, so, the preacher wanted to announce the happy news to the entire congregation, that next week this great couple was going to get dunked. The only problem was, I lied about being saved. When the preacher asked me if I was, I fell back on that moment when I was walked down the isle and told to repeat after me. However, not knowing in my heart what was going on, I believe I did not get saved that day. So, there I was sitting in the pew of this church about to get up and announce our Baptism for the following week. To say I was a total wreck was an understatement. I was sweating, my mind was in lock down mode and I made up my mind at the last minute, that I couldn't go through with it. 

Now, if you are Baptist, you know that in an altar call, the entire congregation are sometimes told to bow their heads and close their eyes. It helps with anonymity when they're asked to raise their hand if they need prayer or if they need to come to the altar. So, while everyone isn't looking, we were supposed to come to the front, so when the altar call was done, they would announce us. So, just before the preacher said bow your head, I leaned over to my wife and whispered, "I can't do this." She asked, "Why" and I just said, "I can't."  "Please bow your head," echoed in my ears as the entire congregation did as asked. My heart was pounding out of my chest as God was pressing in. My wife left my side and walked up front on her own. The preacher, sensing an issue, lengthened the call and to me it felt like minutes, in reality it was probably seconds. The battle raged in my heart as I felt as though I was standing on the edge of a massive cliff. In my mind, I didn't know if I was going to be caught if I jumped off that cliff. I had issues! So, as each second ticked away like they were an hour, I had a choice to make. Follow Christ or hold on to my life and keep living in guilt and condemnation. This is what I said to God in my heart, "If you want me so badly, then here I am. Take me." It wasn't a long drawn out speech or eloquent prayer, it was as if I was asked to do a trust fall off a roof into a sheet held by 6 people 15ft below. When I said, "Fine, I give up," I fell off that precipice into open air and for a few moments as I fell, I was worried how it would end. 

I said yes to Christ's sacrifice in that pew that day and before the altar call was done, I walked up beside my wife just in time to stand together as a couple. You see, Christ waits patiently for us to make the choice. It's not forced, it's not done out of guilt, it's done out of Love. You see, when we are covered in darkness and Love is something foreign to you, you run from it. It looks like a threat when you've never experienced it before. You come up with all kinds of excuses to avoid it. Mine was loss of control. I felt that if I said yes, I would lose control of my life. My fear was that I would have to change to be someone I couldn't be. The cool thing is, you don't have to change, it just happens. Plenty of people think they need to qualify for salvation instead and bring something to the bargaining table with God. Because we live in a society that doesn't give anything for free, we feel that we must bring God something in exchange for salvation. The problem is, nothing we can give is good enough to qualify. So, most hesitate, like I did, and that mindset keeps them from His Love. More on this later...

So, the following week I was Baptized and the rest is history. Now, I'm an 18 year old in Christ and I have had some pretty tough days. I've also had some wonderful moments of peace, clarity and the presence of the Holy Spirit in these 18 years. So, why a blog? If I can help one person out there with a struggle they are having or help one person to open their heart up to God, then it has been worth it. I don't even know if this is going to be read but like falling into the hands of God, it's a leap of faith. I look at it this way. If something resonates with you, then awesome, if not just go about your life like you never read this. 

I pray everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving. To God be the Glory!