A bit more about me.

Not that all of you necisarily care.

I grew up in an uber-conservative family. My grand-father is a pastor for the American Baptist Association (ABA), as well as one of my uncles.

For those of you who don't know, the ABA split from the Southern Baptist Convention because they felt that the SBC wasn't strict or literal enough.

Any way, when I was somewhere around 3-5 (I can't remember), my mom and dad got a divorce. Mom woke me and my sister up in the middle of the night, put us in the car, and drove us to a city in Arkansas called Judsonia to live with the affore mentioned grandparents.

From that point on, I grew up hearing about God, Jesus, Hell, Heaven, and every Sunday School story you can think of. How all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and people who die without accepting Jesus as their savior will go to Hell, while those who do accept him will go to Heaven. I was getting ready to go to sleep one night and realized that this Hell place sounded pretty sucky and I didn't want to go there. So, I talked to God and said these words,
"Jesus, I know I've sinned and I've done wrong. I want you to forgive me and come into my heart."

Sinner's prayer as I've heard it all my life.

Sweet. Now, I'm not going to go to Hell. I went to the living room where all the adults were and said "I got saved," and every one was thrilled.
But nothing changed.

I was a good little boy. I learned to be polite, well behaved, and just good all around.

When I moved to Beebe with my mom and sister, we stopped going to church for a few years. It didn't occure to me that I should want to go if mom wasn't going until a friend from school invited me to the church that his Dad preached at.

I didn't know the difference between ABA and SBC at the time, but First Baptist was an SBC church.

I started to learn more about the Bible and God, but things still weren't changing. Why should they? I was a good boy, and I know I'm not going to Hell when I die.

That's what Christianity was about for me. Tell people about Jesus if I can, and get people out of Hell.
But fire insurance isn't what God is offering.

I didn't know that until the summer before my second or third year here at MSU.


I remember what started it. I was listening to Switchfoot's beautiful letdown album. The song was 24.

There was a line there that said "I wrestled the angel for more than a name," and that triggered a slow but steady process that started me off into REAL Christianity. The kind where you have a real, breathing, living relationship with Jesus. The kind where you're really following God, and not just doing what he says.
Yes, there is a difference.

I began to realize that Christianity isn't about some far off distant future. Yes, that's part of it, but that's not the end-all, be-all of it. There's an aspect of reality that has to be there, or it's not real.

...

Yeah, that last statement sounded less redundant and more epic in my head. Oh well. No use in pretending like I'm some kind of epic man.

Any way, it's true. If you spend your Christian walk focusing on the future, you miss the now.

"But master Yoda says I should be mindful of the future."
"Yes, but not at the expense of the present."

That is why I am so specific about the Gospel when I'm talking about it.

If you leave out the here and now, then Christianity is just fire insurance. That's not what God wants.

God wants a relationship. He created us with the capacity to love greatly because he wants to share love with us. That's why we are made! That relationship doesn't come in the future, it comes now! Yeah, it will be better in the future when we are all perfect, but we don't have to wait until then to have it.

My life with Christ became real when I realized that. Why would I share my Gospel, my good news, in any other way?