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Home | Self Improvement | Happiness My manners came from my parents, my basic education came via the government schools, experience and lectures from Mom and Dad. My higher education came from books I chose to read and persons I chose to study, and teachers I chose to submit to. My faith came from God, through His Spirit. Between birth and adulthood, I had many choices, just as you did. The most basic of choices was to decide whether or not to believe what my parents, and teachers, taught me and to make choices that would later determine whom I would turn to for my higher education. As I strive for brevity, let me explain that I was not born into a Christian home. I didn't know that as a child or young adult because my parents called us all Christians, but man's ideas don't make truth. My mother, now 89 still hasn't a clue about what makes a person a Christian (Please pray for her). Because my childhood home's religion was actually what I call "Churchianity"...going to church once per week and never associating with other church members during the week and not talking about Christ, God, the devil or anything spiritual during the week, I was taken over by the devil's deception, believing his lie that I was a "Good Christian". I had trouble understanding why I couldn't resist opportunities to steal, lie, cheat, soak up porno, chase girls, then women, cuss, get drunk, etc. Something was not right; I knew that and through it all was on a life's mission to find out "What is real, what is true?", as I put it in my mind. The point is, I had a many choices of faith/religion (faith believes God [Christianity] Religion works to please God [Judiaism, Islam, Hindu, Buddhists, Humanism, etc]) Through all of my young adult years, I was angry, mean, unhappy and deperate to find out what was real. Accordingly, I searched for the answer in the minds of older men, in Positive Mental Attitude books, in illicit relationships with women, in bars, in the Catholic Church, the Ouija Board, Masonic Lodge, and other things. I despised the sound churches that taught the Bible, God's Word, and hated the people who filled them. I was in the devil's grip of deception. Finally, at the age of 33, I was chasing a pretty woman. I put on my best deceptive smile and invited her out to dinner. She accepted and said that dinner should be at her house. "Alright!!!" I thought, this will be easier than I thought! I arrived for dinner and her eleven year old daughter was there also. She sat me down and explained to me that she thought I was a nice fella, but that there would be no hanky panky in a relationship with her, that her schedule was also quite full...with church six times a week. It would take more than a church to stop me, so I visited and asked if I could go with her. I wanted to see what there could be in a church that kept an intelligent and pretty woman so interested. I made it clear that I would go only once, maybe twice...out of curiosity. That was in 1980. The pastor preached the Gospel and I didn't understand it, but I went back the next night. Again, he preached the Gospel in closing, and when I understood that Jesus Christ had settled my sin account on the cross, lights flashed in my head, the weight of the world was lifted off my shoulders and I had believed on the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ for my own personal salvation before I knew what had happened. I was relieved, I was excited, I was free. After all those years, I now knew why Christ didn't jump off the cross and destroy the guilty people who put Him there. The reason was because of a word that was seldom used in my childhood home...LOVE! The second night, I walked into that church loaded down with the chains of sin and I walked out a free man, an excited man, a happy man. Yes, I have experienced sorrows as a Christian, but now I don't have to face them alone! Hallelujah! I am a Christian because God and His Word are true. His Word was preached and His power worked in my soul and spirit, through His Holy Spirit. After 27 years of study, I now can explain the facts: His Word was written about 350 years before any religion's "Sacred Writings". After 350 years, people who were in the devil's bondage did the devil's bidding as they plagiarized and distorted the revealed Word of God, offering many religions, yet offering only one other way to God...through human works, which God says will not work (Ephesians 2:8-9; Titus 3:5) I am a Christian because, as I was seeking the truth, God answered with His Word, the Gospel, His Spirit empowered me to "repent towards God", and gave me "faith towards Jesus Christ" His Son, enabling me to know that I had been saved even before I was born...because I believed Him, I received my redemption, my justification, reconciliation, and moved into my rightful place in God's family, as His adopted Son. All these years later, He brings tears to my eyes as I realize that He has guided me in producing this article, because even though I have been a bad boy many times in those years, He remains faithful and has answered my prayer to guide me in what to write today. Only the basic skeleton of this article was in my mind when I started. The rest is God's guidance...Praise the Lord! I continued going to church with this lady and six times per week. We continued to have a respectable platonic relationship, as she mentored me in the faith for quite some time, until the devil convinced me that I needed to move a long way away, to further my own life. That move was to a beautiful place that I enjoyed very much, but it also separated me from church and fellowship. Three years later I moved back and became very active in church again, was much happier again, and I have now lived "happily ever after" for a long time. Article Source: http://www.articlewheel.com
Rev. Bob Carpenter has been in the ministry since 1986, ordained in 1991 by Bible Doctrine Church of Little Rock. Bob is a diligent missionary to the Philippines and is known for maintaining the accuracy of the Gospel
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