Milestones

Milestones

                Ok so this last Saturday, the 17^th of September was my 14 year anniversary of entering into military service. The 11^th of September was the 10 year anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the Two Towers and Pentagon. 28 July was the 10^th anniversary of the day that I married the most wonderful person in the world. June 11^th 2011 was the day that I gave my life to Christ and God. All these events in my life were decisions that I made that define the man I have become today, I also truly believe that they are decisions that were joined within themselves. I believe that without any specific decision made I would not be in the place I am today.

                I joined the military late in life on 17 September 1997 after losing my job as a Paramedic. I had a wife and child and needed work to support them. My initial reason for joining the military was not out of a duty filled obligation that I might have felt for my country. The recruitment process was easy and I was enlisted into the Infantry in a few short days. What I received from this decision in my life was a sound work ethic, discipline, and a sense of love for my country that I did not have at that time in my life. I was also in a environment that I was enjoying and a job that I loved as well as the people associated with that job. Through this decision to join the military I had the opportunity to experience my first divorce but was able to take from that marriage a good friend who is now more like a family member and my oldest son Colby. I was able to meet the most wonderful person in the world, my wife Shannon. After only a short time of dating we got married and shortly starting popping out children like it was going out of style.

                The events of September 11^th 2001 changes mine and my family’s life forever as it did for so many people living in this country. I was no longer in a army that was operating during peace time, I was suddenly thrown into the real possibility that I could be put into harm’s way and possibly never see my family again. I was married just over a year to Shannon and we had one child already and another on the way. I spent 2 more years in Germany after the attacks, but as soon as the time for me to leave Germany came, I had volunteered to go to a unit I knew was deploying to Iraq. Just like all the other Soldiers of this time frame I had this insane urge to serve my country in the best way that you could and that was in a war zone, I made this decision without telling my wife and when it came down to it, I lied to her by telling her that the Army had made its decision to send me to the unit I was going to. I wasn’t until after my tour in Iraq that I actually let her know that I had volunteered to go. This decision that I made was a life altering experience, you can never truly prepare for war and what you might have to do or what you will see and who you will lose. I came back from Iraq a different person with a different outlook on the world, started drinking a little more that I had already been, and distancing myself from my family. My family and I picked up again from Washington and moved back to Germany with the unit I was with. We got to Germany and within a year I was back on deployment orders. This was not something we had expected and I found myself going to war again but this time for 15 months. It finally hit me that in a 4 year period I was gone for 27 months and missing my children growing up and time with my wife. In October of 2010 I was medically retired from the Army and we settled down in Louisiana.

                After 36 years of fighting the fight within myself, my lovely wife led me to the Church. Sure we had gone before and I wasn’t really into it. Then I met my Family at First Baptist Rosepine. Right from the beginning my wife and I knew that this place was different. I found myself and my family immediately accepted into this community and in a very short succession I found myself on my face giving myself to Christ and the Lord. On 11 June 2011 I was forgiven by Christ and the Lord for my sins and I vowed to live my life for the glory of God. Since this time my wife and I have dedicated and built our family around the Church and God. There is nothing that we do that does not involve the Lord. We shape our lives and our time around the Church and have volunteered everything and every moment we have to helping to build up the Church and its body.

                You see, if I hadn’t made the decision to join the military I would not have met my wife. I would not have experienced the war, would not have ever came to Louisiana, would never have met my Church family, and probably would never have found my Salvation. I believe now that God had a plan for me through all this and was helping to guide me in the decisions that I made. Even more now, I know that God is guiding me as I start my journey into becoming a Pastor hopefully. I begin school in under a month and I can’t wait to begin. The excitement and spiritual completeness I feel is something I don’t ever want to lose. So if you are in a bad place, or you think that you might have made a bad decision, look back to all the decisions you made to get you to where you are. Are these decisions all linked in some way. I bet if you look hard enough you will figure out that they are. God Bless and thank you for reading.

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For Christ or Yourself

               There has been something eating at me for the last few weeks and I have been praying about whether or not I should share this with those who read this blog, and the decision that I have been led to is that it is something that should be addressed. I warn you before you start reading, I am going to be frank in the writing and it might offend some who read it, remember that at anytime you have to option to stop reading or to continue.

                I have been trying to come to terms with why it is so hard for people to believe and make the decision to accept Christ into their lives and become a believer and receive their salvation. I know from personal experience that it is so much harder to fight the Love that God puts into your heart and accept Christ than to just completely submit to that same Love and live your life for Christ and God.

John 3:16

“For God loved the world in this way: He gave His One and Only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life.”

    

Think about that verse right there, in the Old Testament God was exact and unforgiving in his decisions. If you disobeyed him you usually died or had some sort of really bad thing happen to you. With the coming of His One and Only Son that brought a changing of the times so to speak. God had put his Son on this world to teach us about God and show us the way to our Salvation. Yet people still didn’t believe and His own people crucified him. The above verse though says it plain enough; all you have to do to receive your salvation is believe in Him. Why do people find this to be so difficult? For me I think the problem for most people is the complete submission to the Lord that gets people stumbled up. I was one of those people as a matter of fact. What I can tell you is that once I made that leap and just submitted my whole life and everything in it to the Lord, I now have a feeling of spiritual completeness that I never had in my life. My whole life I always felt as if something was missing and after 36 years I finally found it.

Colossians 2:6-12


“Therefore, as you have received Christ Jesus in the Lord, walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him, just as you were taught, overflowing with gratitude. Be careful that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit based on human tradition, based on the elemental forces of the world, and not based on Christ. For the entire fullness of God’s nature dwells bodily in Christ, and you have been filled by Him, who is the head over every ruler and authority.”

So let’s say that you are one of the people out there who believe in God and in Jesus but have not found your salvation because you are too scared or stubborn to submit your life to the Lord, what are you waiting for? I caution you though because receiving your salvation is not the end of the race, it is just the beginning. Receiving Christ into your heart starts the longest, hardest, and most rewarding race of your life. From the moment you accept Christ into your heart it is your duty to live your life for Christ and do everything to Glorify the Lord through your actions. This is not a onetime deal but a lifetime decision to do everything that you do to Glorify the Lord. I deal with this everyday in my life and in my family’s life. My wife and I are now constantly vigilante to ensure that everything that we are doing is being done to Glorify the Lord, and reinforcing this concept in our children as well.



Colossians 3:16-17

 “Let the message about the Messiah dwell richly among you, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, and singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, with gratitude in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”

My family has definitely taken the saying in the Word, under the Word, and in Prayer, to heart and put it to use in our everyday lives. We read the Word every day; Sometimes on our own, but also as a family. It is my responsibility as the spiritual leader of the house to ensure that my Children are doing this and we have Bible study at home to accomplish this. We study the Word every day in the home and EVERY opportunity that presents itself at the Church. Wednesday nights we attend our Thrive group at the Church and Sundays our entire day is dedicated to the Lord and the Church. We attend our Bible study, followed up with the Church Service, and completed with our night of AWANA. Lastly we are always in Prayer every day. We have submerged our lives into the Word of the Lord and the Church. There is not much that we do now that doesn’t involve the Church and I am not sure that our faith with be as strong as it is without the Church. You see you can’t have one without the other. You can have all the intentions of bringing Christ into your life, but if you stop at your salvation and then decide that that was all you had to do, it is much harder to grow spiritually. The Church has provided a place where we can worship our Lord with others that we Love and has provided a place to where we can continue to learn more about the Word each time we go in to the House of the Lord. If you are just attending Church to get that once a week feeling of spiritual relief, I challenge you to extend yourself out more and attend every event that your Church offers. I promise you that you will feel more spiritually complete and you will be built up stronger for it. If you refuse to do this or don’t think you need to, if you find yourself making excuses continuously for why you can’t be there, maybe you should ask yourself this question; am I just Playing Church? Thank you for reading and God Bless.

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Obedience

Obedience

Exodus 19: 5

Now if you will listen to Me and carefully keep my covenant, you will be My own possession out of all the peoples, although all the earth is Mine

                When you see the word obedience in your normal everyday life a lot of different things come to mind as to what that can mean. Some see or hear the word and do the exact opposite; they relate obedience to submission and become immediately defiant against what they are being told to do. As a Christian I have learned that when God puts something on your heart and leads you in the direction that you should go that it is my responsibility to be obedient and do His will. Some things here recently in my life that have come up are perfect examples of this.

                I have been going to college on-line now for about 6 years I think. My level of dedication to this adventure had been minimal due to a few factors in life that I would love to blame, but I am starting to understand it was because I never had a true direction with what I wanted to do or was being led to do. I started my degree in criminal justice with a minor in forensics, then when it was apparent that I would not be able to be a police officer because of my disabilities I switched to homeland security. That did not last so long as I lost interest in it, I then kicked around the thought of going through nursing school, and then quickly switched over to business management. I was kind of just floating out there. It wasn’t until I had accepted Christ that I had that overwhelming sense of direction laid upon my heart. That is when I realized I wanted to study everything that I could about Christianity and our Lord and the Ministry. Since I had obeyed what was put on my heart everything has been pretty much gravy from there. Sure there was the speed bump with Moody Bible Institute but I now know that was Gods way of telling me he had a different direction and school for me to attend. This was even more reinforced last week when I was talking to my mother and it finally donned on her what I was going to college for and that I was going to be pursing spreading Gods word and working toward becoming a pastor. The first thing that she said was that there was going to be no money in it, it was hard for me to explain to my mother that this decision has nothing to do with money or fame or acclaim, but that it was something that was put on my heart and I had no other choice that to obey what I was being led to do.

                My professional life here recently has given me some very interesting opportunities as well. I have had the chance to apply for higher paying positions that would help out in my house financially. Given the opportunity to make a good amount of money in a short period of time which would help to financially take care of my family. The problem was that with each one of these opportunities it would have affected my schooling. Although they each looked so good when I first heard about them, after talking to my better half and us praying about these situations it just was not what God has in store for me. It is clear that school is what I need to be focusing on and I will not let anything material get in the way of that.

                Most recently I have the opportunity to be a part of a team that will help to expand our Church growth and reach other people in the community. Reach, Share, and Serve is the focus for my Church body/ family and it is definitely more than just a motto to my family. My children thoroughly enjoy the S.O.U.L. program this summer and love helping people. My wife and I pour all our time into whatever our Church might need, whether it is in Children’s Church, the Nursery, AWANA, or media we are here to serve the Lord in whatever way He commands us. With this new project that my Church has going we were asked to pray over whether or not we would like to participate. I have been praying and I have made the decision to obey what has been put on my heart and to commit myself to this project. I know that this is the direction I am supposed to go, through this project not only will I be able to help Grow my Church body, but I will be able to Reach, Share, and Serve the community, and I will also continue to grow spiritually through this process. The whole time doing this being able to Glorify God through my faith with my works.

                So as a Christian I my views on obedience are fairly simple. I said at the beginning that obedience is a responsibility but let me correct that by stating that obedience to God is not a responsibility but as a Christian it is my Duty to be obedient. Thank you for reading and God Bless.

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