Rough Drafts

So, I was looking back at some of the Blog posts that I have started in the past but never actually finished. I would start typing and just realize that much of what I was saying was just to complicated and way to long to post. However, I have decided to go ahead post some of these feelings or rants or testimonies even though they are not finished or complete. These feelings have been part of my struggle and are a part of who I am.

It might not make much sense or logically final but here goes . . .

For most of my life I was caught up in a religious system that hindered my faith and would have kept me from following God's plan for my life had not a great miracle happened in my life. Now, I would not change those experiences for anything because it was from being in that environment that allowed me to meet my wife and some of the greatest friends in the world. So not everything was bad, but . . .

The problem? I was dead mentally and spiritually. It was not until I got to the lowest point in my life that I started searching God's word for truth. Still, the culture that I grew up in kept me in constant fear and bondage because of my perception of what living for God was. See, and I am not sure that I was ever actually taught this, but it is what I came to believe and what the majority of the United Pentecostal Church believes, but I was taught that salvation was something that we did. Salvation was basically a three-step formula that had to be followed exactly in order to accomplish our new birth. So, probably three years ago I decided that I couldn't take it anymore. I had to get my life right with God and find answers to the double standards, contradictions, and a whole bunch of other issues that I knew were not sound biblical doctrine.

The change first began when, my sister sent me the entire audio from Dan Seagraves class at CLC on Romans and Galatians. Yes, I know that he is a three-stepper but the way he taught the class changed my life forever. I cried many times listening to him teach as I learned about the grace of God that I had somehow missed in my 20 plus years in the UPC. This got me to really thinking about other issues that I had always been taught. See, how could we be saved by faith yet not be saved until we performed a series of steps. It just didn't make sense and was against everything that the gospel means.

However, I loved my pentecostal heritage and the fact that we were a separate people. I loved the worship and at the same time I was searching for a spiritual breakthrough that I thought I needed in order to be saved. Yes, I had been in the UPC all my life, played guitar on the platform, and followed every standard and rule. Still, I was not convinced that I had ever spoken in tongues. I feared the altar call and the frenzy that went on and I couldn't make myself go "pray through". I was searching for something but I didn't know what it was. Either I could fake it and go along with something that I knew wasn't totally right or I could start looking for something else.

In the meantime I was starting to feel the burden for lost souls and I knew that I could not teach others something that I didn't 100% believe in. The scripture is very clear that we are justified by faith and that we are made holy by what Christ did and not by what we do.