Blake
Member
I started off going to Sunday school when I was a little boy, I would walk to church (a kid could do that in those days) and sit in my aunt Louise's classes and learn all about the baby milk of the scriptures -- Jonah and the Whale, Moses and the Egyptians, Noah and the Ark, the three youths Shadrach, Meschach and Abednego, and so on. I went of my own free will and I still have fond memories of it.
After we moved away from McDowell County I didn't go to church for awhile, probably not for several years or so until I hit middle school. I met my then best friend, he and his family were avid church of Christ believers, and they started getting me to attend with them. I enjoyed going very much, but it was still just a matter of the brain at that time. I knew of Jesus but I didn't know Jesus.
As time went on, that family moved to Tennessee. I visited once in awhile and would occasionally go to church with them when I did, it was part of the East Tennessee School of Preaching, and it was awesome. I don't see 100% eye to eye with the churches of Christ on certain things, but they're trivial things, and I never let it get in the way of me learning. What they lacked in my personal tastes and understandings (preterism mainly for those who want to know), they made up for in their immense Biblical knowledge, and it was around that time I started to actually get my head into the Bible. Like a lot of Christians who never really solidified their faiths past a "head game", I had never really invested any time in the written word, and I began to learn a good deal.
I had a particular love then (I was around 18 at this point probably) for Paul's books, particularly Romans. I also loved the book of Acts, and the four Gospels, and the Proverbs. My love for the Psalms didn't come until a little later, but I'll get to that. My learning had a touch of church-of-Christ bias in it, but I often daydreamed about the life and ministry of Paul and the question came to me at one point, if Paul came back to earth, would he recognize this church I go to? What would he think of it?
That question eventually led me to the Orthodox Church, where I truly learned reverence, humility and the fear of God. The Orthodox Church instilled a sense of spirituality in me that I hadn't had before, the CoC gave me Bible knowledge, and Orthodoxy gave me a receptive heart (Truly it was God who did all of these things, but these churches were the medium in which His grace reached me). The church of Christ sent a group of elders to my home to ask me to return in true Biblical fashion, and likewise they dusted their sandals clean of me when I told them I can't return, God is leading me somewhere else. They remarked that if it's about me coming alone to church without any family with me, that I shouldn't worry about that, and I told them my family had never come with me to church, and Jesus said in Luke's Gospel that He would set families apart. They told me that I still had the Holy Spirit and they sincerely hoped they would see me that following Sunday, but I never saw them again.
I entered into a lengthy catechumenate in the Orthodox Church. This was a learning period before water baptism, where one fasted and prayed and followed a liturgical calendar which was very rigorous and humbling, but likewise powerful and moving. I'm sure I have friends who would disapprove of such "legalism" but I didn't see it as such, in fact I was very refreshed by it, knowing that I had found a place in which prayer and fasting and reverence and humility were greatly valued and sought after. I went to visit a few monasteries during this time, and met holy men and women who had fled from the world in order to devote the entirety of their lives to Christ. I still wear the prayer rope that I got from one of them. I still remember the smell of the incense and the dimly lit Christian iconography by the candles, I can remember the sounds of them chanting Psalms and liturgies (this is when I fell in love with David and the Psalms!), I've heard it in English, Greek and Russian, depending on the monastery of course. During my final visit to one of these monasteries, I was considering the monastic life. I was world-weary, I wanted to hear more from God and run from this place, I had grown tired of it and I still sometimes have a heart that dwells in the desert while my body goes through the motions here "in the world", but I digress. They accepted me, not as a full-fledged monk, but as a novice of sorts who would live as a monk before vows were taken. But in my weakness, after a matter of days I ran away in the middle of the night, and I came home.
After this, I went through a dark night of the soul. I fell into a spiritual valley, and I lost my faith in God, but I hid it from everyone. I was an atheist for several years but kept up the appearance of Christianity for the sake of my family who wouldn't have been able to bear with the idea of me going off of the straight and narrow. But off I went, and with no intention of returning. There at the end, I was completely off the grid so to speak, an enlightened man, pantheistic, humanistic, proud to have shaken the aged shackles of primitive man and his superstitions.
About 4 months ago now, I was doing an inventory of my life, and I concluded that one major aspect of my life that I was failing in was spending time with my family, particularly on my father's side. Even though they lived close-by, I only saw them twice a year at best, and there was really no excuse for that. I decided that the best way to do that would be to surprise them at the Deliverance Temple, where most of them attended, and sit in at a service with them and join them for lunch afterwards (a family tradition I truly had been missing out on). I decided on a Saturday night that's what I would do.
I went to sleep while my mind was still fresh with all of the ideas of seeing my family and revisiting church, I didn't have any intentions on rekindling any old fire so to speak, I was still contently atheist and grounded in that reasoning and my intention was only to see my family -- but as I slept, be it a moment of divine inspiration or my sub-conscious mind at work I cannot say, but I dreamed of my father praying for me at the altar of the church. He was praying and crying for me to spiritually wake up, praying for our relationship. With that fresh in mind, I put on my Sunday's best and went on in.
Grace set in. The entire sermon I was entirely impenetrable, but at the altar call, the Lord saw fit to reason with me. I went there, and I told Him simply, "you win." The floodgates of heaven opened up and my family embraced me with spiritual love, the kind the congregation gets when the Spirit has been moving and love is not a mental concept but a tangible presence in the atmosphere. I went back a few times, grace revisiting me, drawing me closer in, unveiling the idols I had erected within my stony heart and destroying them, and finally -- after many years of striving for it through scripture studies, fasting, prayer, apologetics, what have you, I received the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
The moral of this story is simple. I didn't "earn" the Spirit through Biblical knowledge. I didn't earn the Spirit through asceticism or through finding the correct church. I was freely given the Spirit through grace and mercy alone, the blood of Jesus Christ was and is the righteousness by which He sent the Spirit, grace and mercy which pulled an atheist home and utterly changed him when he had no choice but to come before God as a child with a child's understanding. I studied scriptures with some of the best and took part in liturgies written by Christian saints over a thousand years ago, it profited nothing in terms of salvation and the presence of God. I did so many things to prove my righteousness, and now I have a pretty pile of dirty rags to offer up to the Lord. He is our righteousness. He is our atonement. Is it all by Him and through Him. I will boast of nothing but the cross of Christ.
Took me about 20 years to get it. It was a long exodus, but how sweet is that milk and honey...
After we moved away from McDowell County I didn't go to church for awhile, probably not for several years or so until I hit middle school. I met my then best friend, he and his family were avid church of Christ believers, and they started getting me to attend with them. I enjoyed going very much, but it was still just a matter of the brain at that time. I knew of Jesus but I didn't know Jesus.
As time went on, that family moved to Tennessee. I visited once in awhile and would occasionally go to church with them when I did, it was part of the East Tennessee School of Preaching, and it was awesome. I don't see 100% eye to eye with the churches of Christ on certain things, but they're trivial things, and I never let it get in the way of me learning. What they lacked in my personal tastes and understandings (preterism mainly for those who want to know), they made up for in their immense Biblical knowledge, and it was around that time I started to actually get my head into the Bible. Like a lot of Christians who never really solidified their faiths past a "head game", I had never really invested any time in the written word, and I began to learn a good deal.
I had a particular love then (I was around 18 at this point probably) for Paul's books, particularly Romans. I also loved the book of Acts, and the four Gospels, and the Proverbs. My love for the Psalms didn't come until a little later, but I'll get to that. My learning had a touch of church-of-Christ bias in it, but I often daydreamed about the life and ministry of Paul and the question came to me at one point, if Paul came back to earth, would he recognize this church I go to? What would he think of it?
That question eventually led me to the Orthodox Church, where I truly learned reverence, humility and the fear of God. The Orthodox Church instilled a sense of spirituality in me that I hadn't had before, the CoC gave me Bible knowledge, and Orthodoxy gave me a receptive heart (Truly it was God who did all of these things, but these churches were the medium in which His grace reached me). The church of Christ sent a group of elders to my home to ask me to return in true Biblical fashion, and likewise they dusted their sandals clean of me when I told them I can't return, God is leading me somewhere else. They remarked that if it's about me coming alone to church without any family with me, that I shouldn't worry about that, and I told them my family had never come with me to church, and Jesus said in Luke's Gospel that He would set families apart. They told me that I still had the Holy Spirit and they sincerely hoped they would see me that following Sunday, but I never saw them again.
I entered into a lengthy catechumenate in the Orthodox Church. This was a learning period before water baptism, where one fasted and prayed and followed a liturgical calendar which was very rigorous and humbling, but likewise powerful and moving. I'm sure I have friends who would disapprove of such "legalism" but I didn't see it as such, in fact I was very refreshed by it, knowing that I had found a place in which prayer and fasting and reverence and humility were greatly valued and sought after. I went to visit a few monasteries during this time, and met holy men and women who had fled from the world in order to devote the entirety of their lives to Christ. I still wear the prayer rope that I got from one of them. I still remember the smell of the incense and the dimly lit Christian iconography by the candles, I can remember the sounds of them chanting Psalms and liturgies (this is when I fell in love with David and the Psalms!), I've heard it in English, Greek and Russian, depending on the monastery of course. During my final visit to one of these monasteries, I was considering the monastic life. I was world-weary, I wanted to hear more from God and run from this place, I had grown tired of it and I still sometimes have a heart that dwells in the desert while my body goes through the motions here "in the world", but I digress. They accepted me, not as a full-fledged monk, but as a novice of sorts who would live as a monk before vows were taken. But in my weakness, after a matter of days I ran away in the middle of the night, and I came home.
After this, I went through a dark night of the soul. I fell into a spiritual valley, and I lost my faith in God, but I hid it from everyone. I was an atheist for several years but kept up the appearance of Christianity for the sake of my family who wouldn't have been able to bear with the idea of me going off of the straight and narrow. But off I went, and with no intention of returning. There at the end, I was completely off the grid so to speak, an enlightened man, pantheistic, humanistic, proud to have shaken the aged shackles of primitive man and his superstitions.
About 4 months ago now, I was doing an inventory of my life, and I concluded that one major aspect of my life that I was failing in was spending time with my family, particularly on my father's side. Even though they lived close-by, I only saw them twice a year at best, and there was really no excuse for that. I decided that the best way to do that would be to surprise them at the Deliverance Temple, where most of them attended, and sit in at a service with them and join them for lunch afterwards (a family tradition I truly had been missing out on). I decided on a Saturday night that's what I would do.
I went to sleep while my mind was still fresh with all of the ideas of seeing my family and revisiting church, I didn't have any intentions on rekindling any old fire so to speak, I was still contently atheist and grounded in that reasoning and my intention was only to see my family -- but as I slept, be it a moment of divine inspiration or my sub-conscious mind at work I cannot say, but I dreamed of my father praying for me at the altar of the church. He was praying and crying for me to spiritually wake up, praying for our relationship. With that fresh in mind, I put on my Sunday's best and went on in.
Grace set in. The entire sermon I was entirely impenetrable, but at the altar call, the Lord saw fit to reason with me. I went there, and I told Him simply, "you win." The floodgates of heaven opened up and my family embraced me with spiritual love, the kind the congregation gets when the Spirit has been moving and love is not a mental concept but a tangible presence in the atmosphere. I went back a few times, grace revisiting me, drawing me closer in, unveiling the idols I had erected within my stony heart and destroying them, and finally -- after many years of striving for it through scripture studies, fasting, prayer, apologetics, what have you, I received the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
The moral of this story is simple. I didn't "earn" the Spirit through Biblical knowledge. I didn't earn the Spirit through asceticism or through finding the correct church. I was freely given the Spirit through grace and mercy alone, the blood of Jesus Christ was and is the righteousness by which He sent the Spirit, grace and mercy which pulled an atheist home and utterly changed him when he had no choice but to come before God as a child with a child's understanding. I studied scriptures with some of the best and took part in liturgies written by Christian saints over a thousand years ago, it profited nothing in terms of salvation and the presence of God. I did so many things to prove my righteousness, and now I have a pretty pile of dirty rags to offer up to the Lord. He is our righteousness. He is our atonement. Is it all by Him and through Him. I will boast of nothing but the cross of Christ.
Took me about 20 years to get it. It was a long exodus, but how sweet is that milk and honey...
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