What's so funny 'bout peace, love and understanding?

My parents faithfully took me to church.  They sent me to a Christian school until I was in 9th grade.  We did not do a lot of “family devotions,” & learning catechism was not a practice in our church, but I could never doubt my parents’ faith.  Every morning I would find them reading the Bible and praying together.  EVERY morning with few exceptions - and they have been married for 47 years.  Growing up in the deep south, the odds were almost unbeatable that I would end up in a Baptist church.  My grandparents had gone to Baptist churches and probably my great grandparents too.  I’m sure my parents had never known anything else.  I really don’t know how the Baptists do it, to be honest.  Somehow the words come from the pastor that we are “saved by grace alone,” but the message still involves an awful lot of “works” and “making a decision.”  I spent many years of my life under two very heavy burdens.  

Burden #1:  I often wondered if I had “really meant it” when I “prayed to receive Christ.”  In Baptist circles, becoming a Christian is seen as more of a one time event.  One minute you’re on the jet train to hell; then all of a sudden you decide to pray a prayer and ask Jesus to be your savior and forgive your sins.  After that, everything is supposed to be different.  Everything is supposed to be better.  There is even a kind of “your troubles are over” mentality.  I often wondered if I was really a Christian.  I’m sure the altar calls that we had every Sunday didn’t help matters.  Every week we would come to the last part of the service when we would sing one of several “pleading” sort of hymns such as “Just As I Am” or “Softly and Tenderly Jesus is Calling.”  (I always liked this last one because of the one line at the end that said , “Calling, Oh, Sinner come home.”  The note of the “oh” was supposed to be held longer, but it seemed everybody had their own idea of exactly how long it was supposed to be held.  Still, everyone seemed to be trying to stay together which resulted in the sound of “Calling, OOOOHHH, SSSSSSSSSSSSSSinner, come home.”  It always sounded like there were a bunch of snakes in the church, but I digress.)  The pastor would stand at the front of the church waiting for people to “walk down the aisle” to the front of the church.  People were supposed to go up front if they wanted to join the church, if they wanted to become a Christian, if they wanted to be baptized or if they wanted to “rededicate their life.”  (The latter meaning, I believe, something like “I have failed to be perfect.  I’m sure I could do better if I just tried harder.  Maybe getting up in front of the whole church will make me do better.”)  I said the pastor stood at the front of the church waiting, but that was not all he was doing.  Sometimes he was looking like he was praying.  Often he was looking around the congregation as if he were looking for someone to come down the aisle.  Usually between every verse, he would say things like, “I believe there is someone else here today who needs to make a decision.  I believe we should sing one more verse.”  Every week I would wonder if I were the one who needed to walk down the aisle.  After all, the pastor kept saying there was “someone else.”  I remember that the quality of the service (and the church too, for that matter) seemed to be judged by how many people ended up at the front of the church after the altar call.  Consequently I had little peace and lots of guilt.  I wondered why I kept doing things that were wrong if I were really a Christian.  Maybe I didn’t pray the prayer right.  Maybe I needed to “rededicate my life.”  

Burden #2:  Witnessing.  To a Christian, witnessing means telling other people about your faith in Christ in the hope that they will believe in Christ as well.  I know now that God is the one that calls people to believe in Christ.  The Bible tells us that no one can come to God unless the Holy Spirit draws (persuades) him. (John 6:44 “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.”)  This does not mean that as a Christian I don’t talk about my faith, but it does mean that what someone believes or doesn’t believe is up to God, not up to me.  I know that now, but I didn’t know that for most of my life.  I remember a youth minister that taught that every encounter we had with anyone was a “divine appointment.”  He taught that it was our responsibility to share our faith with anyone and everyone we met at any given time.  If we failed to do this, that person’s eternal destiny was on our hands.  We were told that one day we would stand before God and anyone we knew that we hadn’t “witnessed to.”  Would say to us, “Why didn’t you tell me about God?  Now I have to go to hell and it is too late.”  I spent many hours feeling guilty about the many “divine appointments” that I had botched.  I had those several hours with someone in an airplane, and I hadn’t talked about my faith.  I had those 3 minutes in the elevator with someone, and I said nothing about God.  There was that classmate sitting across the aisle, and I had no idea whether or not she was a Christian.  Why didn’t I witness to her?  It was an awfully heavy burden to be responsible for so many people, especially since I am naturally a rather shy person, and many topics of conversation are hard for me to bring up, especially one as controversial as my faith.

It was rather a long “road to recovery.”  When I look back at my life, I see that God has used everything, even my mistakes (He’s had a lot to work with. :) )  The first step was when God brought me to understand at last the depth of my sin.  For much of my life I had mistakenly believed that as long as I wasn’t drinking alcohol or having sex outside of marriage and as long as I read my Bible every day (because otherwise God would be disappointed with me), I was not such a horrible sinner.  If you don’t know the depth of your sin, you cannot understand the magnitude of your need for a savior.  Through difficult circumstances (whose details I will kindly spare you), God brought me to realize that I was truly a sinner, that I truly could not do right apart from him.  In Jeremiah 17:9, the Bible says, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked..”  My heart had indeed deceived me to believe that I would go to heaven one day because I had prayed a prayer to “receive Christ”, because I had read my Bible every day, because I had prayed hard enough, because I  had served in church.  This deceit had put me in a state of constant doubt.  Was I doing enough?  Had I done things “right?”  When God caused me to realize that I could never, ever do enough, that I could never, ever do things “right”, only then did I understand that  I have absolutely no hope of anything but eternal punishment unless I absolutely throw myself on the mercy of Christ.  For the first time, I had peace in my faith.  If everything were up to me, of course I could have no peace.  If it were up to me to keep God’s commandments, I would always fail.  If it were up to me to witness in the right way and “save” enough people, of course I would always fail.  In trying to explain this, I am reminded of two excerpts which our pastor reads during every Lord’s Supper / Communion.  (The whole text can be found here:  http://www.rcus.org/index.php/worship/directory-online/211-direct-supper)

First, let everyone consider by himself his sins and accursedness apart from Jesus Christ, so that he may be dis­pleased with himself and humble himself in the presence of God. Second, let everyone examine his heart as to whether he truly believes this certain promise of God that all his sins are forgiven only for the sake of Jesus Christ. Third, let everyone search his conscience whether he is determined to show his gratitude to God the Lord all the days of his life by walking uprightly before Him.

We confess our dependence for pardon and cleansing upon the perfect sacrifice of Christ; we base our hope of eternal life upon His perfect obedience and righteousness

At last it’s nothing about me and everything about God.  That is why I can have peace.  I don’t have to earn God’s love and forgiveness.  I NEVER COULD.  My only hope is to throw myself at God’s feet and say, “Have mercy on me.  I can offer you nothing.”  I do not deserve any forgiveness or any mercy.  But God who is the personification of mercy gave his only son, Jesus Christ to suffer the blame for all my sins.  Maybe I never killed anyone.  Maybe I never robbed a bank, but all sins are the same to God.  Sin is disobeying God.  There are lots of ways to do it, but each one is still disobedience.   

God is perfect.  He makes no mistakes.  He knows everything.  He is all powerful.  He is absolutely in charge, and He does not owe me any explanations.  Many people are familiar with the story of Job in the Old Testament in the Bible.  Job was a very blessed and wealthy man who went through more trials than most of us can imagine.  If you read, starting in Job chapter 38, you will see that God teaches Job that He (God) is in charge, and that we really have no place to ask questions.  For example, in Job 38:4, God says, “Were you there when I laid the foundation of the earth?  Tell me, if you have understanding.”  There are many things that I don’t understand, and God has taught me to be at peace about that.  In fact, it is much easier to be at peace when I know that God is in charge and that it’s o.k. for me not to understand.

My prayer is that my experience will cause you to think. I believe that faith is a process, not a one time event.  Although I heard about God from my earliest years, it still took over 20 years for God to bring me to the whole truth, and I am still learning.  “For it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.”  Philippians 2:13  I pray that God will draw you to His truth and His peace.