My Testimony

After being born into a Catholic family and baptized as an infant, I grew up in my young years in a Methodist church.  We were in Church most every Sunday, did VBS, etc. As God started to work on Mom's heart, she left the Methodist tradition and we visited just about every baptist and non-denominational church in San Antonio.  My mom was saved during this time period and I witnessed the change in her.  I saw how seriously she took her faith, how she loved Jesus, and how she loved and served other people around her.  It was obvious that she was a new creation.  She started to teach us about Jesus and read the Bible to us.  Because of her testimony, I had no good reason not to want to be a Christian, and at 18 years old, I was baptized and I thought I was saved.  I believed the facts about Jesus, believed that he was who he said he was, and believed that He died for sinners.  However, I did not fully understood why he needed to die for me.  I wasn't as bad as lots of other people I knew, and I knew lots of "Christians" who did things that I didn't agree with.  I was okay with who I was and didn't see any reason to make any changes in how I did things, or to deal with the sin in my life and heart, that I loved.

Because I didn't have a right view of the holiness of the father, my reaction to the sacrifice of his son was lukewarm.  I continued to live in a way that satisfied my fleshly desires, pride, and need for man's approval.  I ignored verses like Romans 6:12

Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts, and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.

(Romans 6:12-13 NASB)

Once I was out of the house and didn't have the fear of disappointing my Mom as a deterrent, I was in full satisfaction of flesh mode.  None of the decisions I made reflected those of a true follower of Christ.  As I got out of college, met my wife, and had to be an adult, the blatant, obvious sins started to decrease as responsibilities of life increased.  My desire to be a good husband and father motivated me to straighten up, and although there seemed to be some fruit in my life, but there was no true repentance in my heart.  Even though we faithfully attended Church, participated in Bible Studies, and would occasionally read my Bible, I continued to be deceived about my standing with God. 

During this time, I read books like "Mere Christianity" and "The Case for Christ" and would find myself even more convinced that God was the creator and that the historical account of the Bible was truth, but it still didn't affect my day to day actions or thought life.  I remember hearing people preach/teach the parable of the sower and the soils in Mark 4, and not knowing what kind of soil I was.  Wondering if I was rocky soil and destined to continue to live in slavery to my sin.  When I was honest with myself, I knew something wasn't right. I had no assurance of faith and I couldn't figure out why.  I kept praying for assurance, not realizing that because I was ignoring God's call to purity and holy living, he was giving me the answer I deserved, as Proverbs 28:9 tells us.

He who turns away his ear from listening to the law, Even his prayer is an abomination. 

(Proverbs 28:9 NASB)

I was just hoping that I would get it figured out somehow.  Like our pastor tells us, the decision between Heaven and Hell was easy, but deciding between Heaven and this world was much more difficult.  As a result, I continued to straddle the fence between heaven and this world.  Until November 23, 2014. 

I was really excited when our pastor announced in October of 2013 that he would be teaching through revelation.  I was looking forward to hearing what he would teach us about Jesus’ return.  I was not expecting or prepared to have my world overthrown.  However, as he explained the letter to the Church in Laodecia in Chapter 3, I knew that Jesus was describing me to the apostle John. 

'I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot; I wish that you were cold or hot. So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth. Because you say, "I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing," and you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked,

(Revelation 3:15-17 NASB)

I realized that what I thought was an adequate, but "lukewarm" faith was in fact, no faith at all. 

Because of the great teaching that we had received in our time at Believers Fellowship, I fully understood what that meant for me.  I knew that I was exposed to the wrath of the all powerful, holy, and perfect creator of the universe. I knew that Jesus offered me protection from that wrath if I truly repented and followed him, and like the Apostle Paul, I knew I was the foremost among all sinners, but I knew that unlike him my life had never taken a 180 degree turn away from the sin that I loved, and that needed to change.

I did not want to end up like those described in Matthew 7.

"Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to Me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?' And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.' (Matthew 7:21-23 NASB)

So that day I prayed that God would take over and call the shots in my life, and that he would send the Holy Spirit to ensure that I would not have a faith that would make Jesus reject me.