Hello! And welcome to church. I know it seems a little odd to have religious stuff on a commercial web site, but, really, what is more important: God, or e-commerce?
If you are offended by this, please don't be. I suppose I might even lose a few customers over this... but again, what answer would you prefer to give to Jesus when you stand face to face with him? A person has got to keep the right perspective and live up to the light the Lord has given them -- or why even bother? What would be the use if you knew God but did not glorify Him as God? What are the consequences if we are not thankful to Him for all He has done for us?
Romans 1:21 because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened.
We are free to choose, but there are consequences to our choices.
I desire to share with you the good things that the Lord has done for me. I want to share that Jesus is "the way, the truth, and the life" and that God does draw near to those who draw near to Him. He will speak to you and show you "the way everlasting." He will teach you what He wants you to know about Himself and truth if you seek that knowledge from Him.
Heb 11:6 But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.
I'll begin by talking about the great deal of "conviction" that He placed in my heart when I began to read about Jesus from the New Testament so many years ago. I had been raised in the Mormon church and had been very active in the church as a teen-ager, but at about 23 or 24 I began feeling deeply unsatisfied. And the Holy Spirit kept saying in my heart, "You don't know Jesus. You don't know Jesus."
Since I did not know how to get to know Jesus, (that is not something that I had been taught in the Mormon church), I just kind of figured that if I wanted to get to know Jesus, I should read the New Testament. So I embarked and began reading in Matthew. Things were uneventful until I started to read the Sermon on the Mount. At that point, I began to be under a great deal of conviction. I did not have the word "conviction" for it at the time, I just knew that I felt guilty and fearful, and burdened because I already knew I was not able to live up to the instructions that Jesus was giving in His sermon. I knew I was not able to live that way and felt very bad about it.
I had been trying for years to honor my parents, but had a rebellious and independent spirit. I knew I had secret sin in my life and did not know how to be free from it, although I desired to be. I had no idea what grace was, or who Jesus Christ really was. I had been taught some things about Jesus, that, looking back from here, seem bizarre in the extreme. But they were things that were taught and that I had read about in the Mormon doctrine and believed were true. For one example: I had been taught that Jesus was supposedly the brother of Satan who had chosen the good path. This idea is not true and not even remotely taught in the Bible. But rather than go into a lot of detail about the false teachings I had learned there, I'll get back to the conviction I was under.
Romans 2:4 Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance?
It was not until I became a Christian and read Romans 2:4 (above) that I began to understand what the conviction I had felt was all about. As I read Jesus' Sermon on the Mount I began to feel like I was a horrible person. I didn't know that feeling was actually meant to lead me to repentance by showing me, first, that I needed it. It is meant to make a change in me and take me down the path that truly leads to being near to God, but I was completely unaware of that. This is a lesson I never learned from the Mormons who taught me more about Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, than of Jesus Christ. And they have no idea what "grace" really means! So, since that was my learning base, I lacked that knowledge.
Psalms 51:17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, A broken and a contrite heart––These, O God, You will not despise.
If I had been raised in a church that truly focused on and believed that the Bible was the correctly translated, error free, word of God, I would have known what to do with that feeling that I was not worthy. I knew I was not able to live up to the teachings in the Sermon on the Mount about going the extra mile, about loving people, and respecting your parents. I had always been selfish, self centered, and had a mean tongue because I was resentful. I had been the fat kid growing up and had been the butt of not only the meanness of my peers but my own brothers had said some of the most awful things to me, to make sure that I knew how ugly I was. The worst one they said to me was that I was "so ugly, that when I grew up, no man would want me." That one just cut me to the heart and I secretly believed they were right and I resented it. I had no idea why I was so awful, or how I got that way or what I could do to fix it. Instead of learning from them how "not" to act and speak, I took on the same mean tongue that they had used against me and became just like them. I imitated them.
The words I read in the Sermon on the Mount, that Jesus was teaching and blessing with, were hard on me, because I knew, absolutely, that I did not have the ability to live up to them. I could not do it. I had tried. I knew I could not do it. Therefore, instead of understanding and believing that God would help me to become what He wanted, I believed there was no hope for me. I thought I was supposed to accomplish these things on my own, out of the goodness of my own heart, but I knew, full well, that I could not accomplish them because my heart was not good. I knew this as I looked back at my own uncontrollable behavior believing that I could not be, what I was not.
I did not understand that I could repent and turn to God for help, I assumed there was no hope for me and threw the Baby out with the bath water just to end the enormous struggle. I decided I was no longer going to be under the heavy-handed authoritarian Mormon church any longer. They taught that I was supposed to be happy being a Mormon. But I had no happiness. I saw no happiness in other members of the church, either -- what I actually noticed was a lot of depression and frustration at trying to follow all the rules. I decided to be an atheist and was only going to follow what I truly believed in my own heart. The fact that someone else said something was true, was no longer going to mean anything to me, until I had checked it out for myself. I had read that other people had found joy in being a Mormon, but saw no real evidence of it. I did not know any Mormons who were happy or joyful. I no longer wanted just words -- I wanted facts. I wanted real evidence of the truth -- and of the happiness. And so the journey began.
The good part of the decision I made was to begin to look elsewhere for what my own heart needed. The bad part was that I was looking to find what I needed inside myself. I did not realize that "looking inside my finite self" for eternal and infinite answers could only lead me in circles -- you cannot find inside yourself, what is not there -- I was simply doing the only thing I knew how to do. I had to finally take matters into my own hands. I knew I was unhappy and I began to look for happiness. I somehow knew that happiness and truth were bound up in each other. It was not even so much, needing to be happy, but I was really tired of the lies -- shouldn't I have felt happier if what I was living by was the truth? Isn't the truth supposed to set you free? I was neither free nor happy. I had tried what I had been taught and found no peace in it. I knew ultimately that I was looking for truth. If I had been raised in a truly Christian church, it would not have taken the next twenty years to find it.
I began the search for happiness and truth with a psycho-therapist. We talked weekly for about three years. We covered everything I could talk about. There were some things I did not talk about. I was too ashamed of them. But I shared all the hurt feelings, all the mistreatments, all the unfairness from being the middle kid, the fat kid, and the ugly kid. I began to notice that the dips into depression were coming farther and farther apart, but they did not disappear. And because they were farther apart, it took a while for me to notice that they were not any more severe than they had ever been, they only looked that way from having been out of them for longer periods of time. The contrast was more vivid.
When I noticed that I was still not "happy" I left the therapist behind and tried out "est," which is now called "The Forum." I did the two weekends and became a groupie for the next four or five years. It was fun. It was sometimes exhilarating. It was sometimes very scary. I began to not only be sharp tongued, but also foul mouthed – as they were. I again took on the characteristics of the folks I looked up to and hung out with. Did I know any better? Not yet.
I gave up the virtuous lifestyle and jumped on the worldly bandwagon. I was looking for love in all the wrong places and got the bad reputation that goes along with it. I lived with an alcoholic for a few months, had a relationship with a married man for a long while, but nothing seemed to satisfy this heart of mine. I knew I had a hole in my heart. It had been broken a long time before and had never mended. I was addicted to sex, now, and that is what filled my thoughts and desires night and day. Most of my jokes and conversation were related to either the body or sex in some way or another. I went down that path about as far as a human can go, but did not find any peace. My heart was still as troubled, as empty, and as broken as it had ever been.
I remember the day I was in one of the seminars at est and sat there listening to the same stories being endlessly shared by the same people over and over again and realized there was nothing more I could get from this association. I knew I was still not happy. I still suffered with bouts of depression, only now I was also foul mouthed, which I was beginning to realize was offensive to many people, and that the sexual road I had taken, did not lead anywhere that was useful or positive. There was no "truth" in it, only indulgence and who knew what disease you might pick up from it. I did not stop doing that, yet, but did at least realize it had no real "point." So, although I did not know where I was going, I knew "est" was not it.
To make a long story shorter, I tried everything from nearly every self-help book that promised happiness and truth, to even a season of witch-craft with a friend. But in every one of the things I tried from goddess worship to "A Course in Miracles" I would check the references. I wanted to know where these ideas and "principles" came from. As I read books I searched for what the source of the teaching was and ended up realizing that most of the self help books and teachings out in the world are simply imagination. They are all made up. As made up as the theory of evolution. I read about Charles Darwin and discovered that he was on a ship when he imagined that one. It was not based in facts and that is why it was called a "theory" in the first place. Theory and conjecture are imagination.
I took a couple of classes in anthropology at the university I lived close to at the time, and realized that the "people groups" that were supposed to have been the ancestors of humanity were often based on finding one skull -- sometimes not even a whole one. An entire society made up by the imagination of one man or woman and taken up as if it were actual fact. I finally realized it was all hogwash. Just theory and conjecture. How could I put my faith in that? If the principles have to change every few years to keep up with the facts, then they are not really principles. Principles endure, imagination does not. There is no truth in them. It seems to me that that might be the reason people no longer believe that truth even exists -- because what they are taught at one point by the scientific community soon changes to something else and they end up with nothing to believe in or to trust. I am not saying that science is a bad thing. I depend on science to even write on the internet -- but the philosophy that gets attached to facts needs to be taken with a grain of salt. Theories are good tools to use to search -- meaning they are a direction, like east or west, not a destination, like your home town.
Now here is the odd part of my personal history. And I knew it was odd at the time, too. Very soon after I decided I was an atheist, I had to make a revision in that declaration. I had to acknowledge that I was not an atheist, I was really an agnostic which meant that I knew I did not know. I had to make this revision very quickly because every time I got scared of something, such as things that go bump in the night, I would pray. And not only would I pray, I had to pray in the name of Jesus Christ. It was not a prayer if I did not use His name. I had been taught to do that as a child and could not abandon the practice. So I had to tell the truth about it. I could not claim I was an atheist and pray at the same time -- that was absurd. I fully believed it was just superstition on my part, but it made me feel better, so I kept doing it. I didn't mind and didn't care that this was illogical. I simply acknowledged it and went on. So since I was obviously not an atheist -- I moved up a notch to agnostic -- I knew that I did not know. I was afraid of Jesus, Himself. I knew I had thrown Him out – He was the Baby that got thrown out with the bathwater. I had turned my back on Him and could not face Him. I knew nothing about His grace.
The one and only good thing I got from any of my many self help studies was from the book "A Course in Miracles" where I did, once again, open up to the possibility of Jesus Christ, maybe, being a possible place to look into, again. The book itself, was suspect, because of the imaginary way it came about – by channeling. I had no way to know whether this was from God or some other spirit and I suspected it was from some other spirit. So, while I did not take those teachings on, I did at least, begin to take baby steps in the direction of Jesus.
After I allowed that maybe I should look into Jesus, again, I went to church with a roommate that I had at the time in California. She attended the Unity School of Christianity and the pastor was a woman. That was odd but since I was a feminist, I tried it out. I participated in that church for a while when I was in California and when I moved to Houston, I looked up the same church and attended there.
I was investigating. I used their library and read the teachings of the founders but did not fully trust them. I was still looking for the truth, not willing to just swallow anything whole, but willing to listen and try it out. So I tried their brand for a while. As I read, I did open up to Jesus more and more, but they do not really teach Jesus in a traditional way. I was still really afraid of Him. They teach a sort of "spirituality" that can be "used" to make desired things happen in your life. This seemed a little "greedy" to me. They are nothing short of sincere, but something just did not "click" with me. It was, in a way, reminiscent of the Mormon church, to me, although not a duplicate in any way. It was all "lovey, dovey" and "God is good", but never addressed "judgment" or "heaven and hell." I did not realize at the time that that was what was missing, I just knew something was not exactly right. I was still not a "lovey, dovey" sort of person. I wanted more facts. I wanted more evidence of real and actual truth.
Then, while I was in Houston, life sort of took over again. I had my dream job at the Houston Post. I loved it. I was in charge of teaching the folks who built the display ads in the paper how to use the new software the Post had just bought. I was an expert in using the software. I had already taught folks in Salt Lake City, and in San Jose how to use it and that is how I got the job in Houston. But soon after I got there, I was depressed again. I decided to go home to Ohio and visit my family for Christmas. Now, I had not been home for Christmas for probably twenty years, but I wanted a dose of "home." I'll never forget, after the gifts for all the kids had been opened and the adults had a few presents, too, my brother-in-law leaned back in his chair and placed his hands behind his head and said, "Well, Marcia, how did you like our Christmas?"
I was shocked. I had not realized that it was not my Christmas, but their's I had been enjoying. I don't recall what I said in reply, I just know that at that moment my spirit went right over the edge I had been teetering on. When I got back to Houston, even the people I worked with would say things to me like, "Are you alright?" "Are you OK?" "What's the matter?" I never admitted anything, and kept it all at bay as much as possible. But not long after that, I noticed I was having thoughts of suicide.
One night, as I sat on the edge of my bed, I decided to do it. I did not know how I was going to, but I was going to. The decision was made, and I was not going to turn back. But the thought of it was a little overwhelming to me, so I also decided to postpone until the next day the decision of "how." As I laid my head on my pillow, I said "God, help me!" and went to sleep.
I lived in a one bedroom apartment by myself and after I drifted off to sleep, I woke up a couple of hours later, not feeling any different than before, so I rolled over and went back to sleep. The next thing I knew someone was in my room, leaning over my bed, speaking into my left ear. I remember pointing out to myself that this was odd and I needed to pay attention to what was being said to me because it was important. So I listened and as I came up out of my sleep I heard, "You are loved and you are worthwhile." "You are loved and you are worthwhile." "You are loved and you are worthwhile." Over and over again the same words were being repeated, until I began to say, "I am loved and I am worthwhile." I sat up in bed, with my eyes still shut, repeating these most amazing words over and over again. I wanted to see who was speaking to me, so I opened my eyes. And there was no one there! I knew that God had just been speaking to me! He had sent one of His angels to say the words to me and He rescued me. I knew at that moment that what I wanted was God! And I was going looking for Him. I did not care about the "form" that the Mormon church had required, I just wanted Him! I did not care where I found Him, I just wanted Him.
I got out the Bible that a man named Don Croup that I worked with in California had given me when I left. I did not really want a Bible when he gave it to me, especially one that had been marked all over, but he was kind, and it was a goodbye gift. So I accepted it from him and took it with me. I had not opened it since I got it, but I opened it that day -- even though I did not really find anything in it that I remember that day, I was joyous to finally have real evidence that God loved me, and that I was more than what I had ever known I could be. I was loved. He had just said so to me! And not only that, I was worthwhile! I did not understand the depth of those words, but they made me feel real good inside. So I began in earnest to look for God. I did not recall at that time that the Bible said that if we seek Him, we will find Him, but that is exactly what happened.
So many amazing things happened after that. I began to let people know I was looking for God and people began to share their version of God with me. The first was my friend Suzanne Norton, who again shared "A Course in Miracles" with me. I was familiar with it, and since I had left the form behind, I tried that again, but it was not the solution for me. I continued going to church and seeking. Then one of the ladies in the plate room at work, Sharon Vaught, gave me a pin to wear that was an angel with a sword. I had no idea of the significance of that, and really kind of "pooh-poohed" the idea of angels with swords, but accepted the gift, because of her insistent sincerity.
And another lady, Brenda Rather, gave me a poster that said I should lean on God and not my own understanding. I know these two ladies prayed for my salvation and I believe their prayers were answered, because, eventually I got saved and began to put my trust in Jesus, the first one who ever loved me. I began finding confirmation in the Bible, too.
1John 4:19 We love Him because He first loved us.
The Lord began waking me up with verses from the Bible that I had memorized when I was a child. The first one was:
Matthew 6:33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God, ...
I didn't even know what the kingdom of God was, so I began to search the Bible for passages about the kingdom and I learned that Jesus said it was like a mustard seed, and that it grows, and that it was like a pearl and of great worth, but had no real understanding of what I was reading.
I recall this one day, that I was thinking about all the studying I had done of the many different things from self help books, to Zen, the Book of Mormon, and Buddhism, and the Course in Miracles, and witchcraft. And it was as if all these books were laid out in a horse shoe pattern above me. I wondered if I had to choose one of them to live by, which one would I choose. I scanned all of them and thought about the Bible. I knew that people had trusted it for not just a few years, or even hundreds of years, but thousands of years. That was evidence of "staying power" so I decided to let all the others go and I remember reaching up and taking the Bible as my own. It was the only one that I knew that God had truly given us.
I knew it was the word of God, but I could not read it without getting angry. I thought maybe it was the translation, so even though I loved the language of the King James version, I talked with a friend, Mary Alice Harder and she told me she liked the New Living Translation and that it was easy to read. So I bought a copy of it. I was extremely disappointed in it. It was like reading a first grade primer. I equated it with the "Dick and Jane" stories or "Kim and Wendy" that I had read in first grade. So I tried other versions. But, I still could not read it without getting angry. I wanted to read and understand it so desperately. I had watched a TV evangelist and I was amazed by the way he would open his Bible and begin to speak and the words would blossom off of the page, like they were little scenes. I wanted that. That is how I wanted to be able to read the Bible. I wanted it to come to life… but I still kept getting angry. So angry that sometimes I wanted to throw that book at the wall.
Until one day, when I finally had had enough. I finally accepted that I could not do it on my own so I turned to God for help. I felt so stifled and I desperately wanted to read the Bible and could not, so I prayed, "Please make me able to read the bible." About three days later, I realized I had been reading the bible for three days and had not gotten angry, even once! A miracle had happened. God made me able to read the bible. He simply reached down and changed me on the inside. I was different -- that angry spirit was gone from me for good. The only thing I had done was pray and ask God for help. That was my first evidence of the Holy Spirit working in me. Things were changing because of God's intervention in my life. He was doing things, I was not able to do!
And God, being Who He Is, does not give "partial" gifts. I found out later that He had also given me the ability to share the teachings with others. I began by writing devotionals for a ladies prayer group that I had been attending at Jan Liesenfelt's house. I knew I was a new Christian and I did not want to lead anyone astray (as I had been so often) if I made mistakes, so I found a mentor, Darrell Pruitt, who had been a pastor at Calvary Chapel. He attended CCSM, just like I did, and I heard him speak one day, and was very impressed with his spirit, his knowledge and his style of teaching. I asked him if he would read my stuff for me and tell me if I was doing anything wrong. Every week, I would e-mail my Bible studies to him, he would read them, make any necessary comments and corrections and send it back to me. I told the ladies what he was doing and they began to think of him as the pastor who watched over our group. He kindly watched over everything I wrote for a year and a half, until one day, he said that I no longer needed anyone to read my stuff, that I had graduated and could write Bible studies on my own. I was really excited that day.
The Lord also put it on my heart to know that I would be teaching in the Ladies Ministry at the Church and that I did not need to seek to set that up. It would just happen. So I simply waited. And sure enough, one day, my pastor's wife, Kathy Adams, came to me and wanted to know if I would be interested in teaching one of the sessions at the women's Bible study. I was elated. She said she wanted me to tell the ladies about "Hagar" as one of a series of teachings on the women of the Bible. I didn't know much of anything about Hagar, but I plunged in, asked the Lord to lead and teach me, so I studied and wrote and delivered the speech. Kathy gave me a very good evaluation and even one time said that she was my biggest fan. What a blessing. I remember talking with my friend Darlene about that speech a few months afterward and I asked her what she had thought about my teaching that day. The one comment she made that stuck with me was, "You knocked my socks off!" She said it was like I had come from nowhere and suddenly God was using me. Thank God!
There have been other amazing things that God has done for me. Like the day that I noticed there was no longer a hole in my heart. I was mended and whole again, from knowing Jesus Christ. I give him the praise and the glory for using such a wretch as I have been, to teach His word. He truly is amazing. I know that He loves you, because He loves me. I know that you are worthwhile, because He has said that I am worthwhile. I remember wondering why those words assuaged my soul so deeply, until one day I read the word "worthless" in His word and realized what He had been saying to me. I don't actually recall the particular verse but I think it may have been this one:
Isaiah 41:29 Indeed they are all worthless; Their works are nothing; Their molded images are wind and confusion.
After that, I realized that, to God, a worthwhile person is one who seeks Him, worships Him and lives in obedience to Him. Amazingly, as I had been searching for truth, I was really searching for God and Jesus Christ -- He knew that, even though I didn't at the time. I now know that knowing God is worthwhile simply because of Who He is and What He is. He can do things for us that we cannot do for ourselves – like sending Jesus to die on the cross for our sins. And knowing Him, makes you worthwhile. I am not saying that this is the reason to seek God, but, when you look to Him, you become different. When you trust in Him, you find peace. The reason to seek God is to find Him, but in so doing you will find yourself too, because He made us.I don't know why God chose me, I just know that He did and I am grateful. I have the evidence from His word and my own life.
1Peter 1:2 elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace be multiplied.
If when you read the word of God, you come under conviction, like I did, don't turn away – run to Him with your broken heart and ask Him to mend you. If you seek Him, you will find Him. And hopefully it won't take most of your life, like it did for me. And I am grateful. May you be blessed in knowing Him. May you grow in grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ. May you come to know His peace:
Romans 15:13 Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
I really do recommend doing the Bible study of First Peter that is on this website. Not because I wrote it, but because in doing the study it changed me. I grew from it. The ladies who did the study with me, grew, also. The word of God can change you too, if you seek Him, and let His word permeate deeply into your soul.
Jeremiah 29:13 And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.
Isaiah 55:6-7 Seek the LORD while He may be found, Call upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, And the unrighteous man his thoughts; Let him return to the LORD, And He will have mercy on him; And to our God, For He will abundantly pardon.
