Monday, June 6, 2011

How I found Freedom From Religion With Christ Part Two

Finding Freedom At Last

In my previous Blog I wrote about my experience growing up in organized religion and how this experience actually drove me away from God. For many…many…. years I felt like a spiritual orphan wondering around with this void in my heart where God used to reside. I was confused because I was raised only knowing God one way and if that’s what worshiping God was all about I wanted nothing to do with it. Years would go by and slowly and slowly my life began to distance itself from the morals that were once in my heart. In a lot of ways I feel like to protocol son. I feel like God allowed to try this life thing on my own by releasing me to the wolves as they say. Almost a decade would go by and one day I found myself attending a church with then girlfriend (now wife).


The funny part about God is he never really let’s go 100%, just like a parent who allows their children to fall so they learn to trust their advice, I believe God did the same so you learn to appreciate his guidance in the bible. The problem I faced was I was looking at a whole new way of belief systems that conflicted what I was raised to believe. So I finally said to heck with it and decided to purchase a bible and hit the restart button. You see I lived my life up to now going off of what others taught on the podium. I figured they were a ton more educated then me, and most religious leaders seem like they are far more advanced in life then what we’ll ever achieve. The problem with living life this way is you never quite come to a complete understanding of God, and where does the relationship begin when all the knowledge and faith you receive comes third party a couple times a week.

Imagine if you never met your parents (as some out there can relate to) and the only way you would come to learn about them is through random conversations from different friends and family members. For one, you never know if the information or stories are biased. For two, it their interpretations of that person’s experience with your parents. Lastly, do you ever really get a clear picture of who your parent’s are if they are random stories here and there from different people adding their spin on things? How can you know for sure, and how can you begin to build an appreciation and love for them through such a structure. On the other hand, what if they kept daily journals throughout their life documenting their every experience. How would this change your relationship and understanding of who they are? How wonderful it would be, and what a clearer picture would this help paint on who your parents really were.

This is what I eventually came to when I decided to start all over in my relationship with God. I decided to clear my head, heart, and mind of what everyone else around was saying about how I had to worship God, and what I should believe. I decided to go out and by a good study bible and read it for myself and allow the bible to educate me from the ground up of what God was all about. I never thought this lone decision would change my life in the way it has. I began with the book of Matthew and worked my way to Revelation, then went back and read the Old Testament. What an eye opener it was. I began to read about Christ first hand, and learned what kind of man he really was. I was shocked by how laid back and down to Earth he was. He didn’t go around casting judgment and spitting the fire and brimstone I had faced throughout my life. I would come to appreciate the loving kindness he bestowed to the people society had given up on in their day, like the poor that everyone choose to ignore, the sick society choose to discard and forget about, those whose lives were riddle with bad decisions and yet he was always there to help them understand that they were still loved and desired.

That spoke to me at a time in my life where I really did feel like an outcast. According to my past religious orientation I was excommunicated, and some of my closet family members choose to separate themselves permanently from me in the name of God. Even to this day I have family members who have never met my kids, and some I haven‘t talked to in over a decade…sad. As I read on I would get to the book of John that really laid out how much God truly loves and misses mankind. I started to realize that my walk with God was not one based on what organization I was a part of, on the contrary it was a one on one relationship that the bible was created for. It was about you and God and everything else was meant as a compliment, encourage, and develop your relationship with God and nothing more. When I got to the book of Roman’s I had truly found some of my greatest questions being answered.

I had still felt that I was so unworthy and that I was labeled for hell because of my standing in my organization. Then Paul began to teach how all men were imperfect, and no one would ever be perfect enough no matter what kind of good deeds they did, you could never earn your salvation. He would go on to teach how Christ’s death had covered all of mankind’s sin, and all one needed to do to start this wonderful journey from scratch was to have faith and believe in Christ and proclaim your repentance for your sins. You would always….always…always fall into sin throughout your life, but in doing so God would help your conscience grow and it would be followed by true repentance….followed by God’s grace and forgiveness. MAN……when I realized I needed no man to receive forgiveness from God and I could fall to my knee’s to restart my relationship with God, I literally fell to my knee’s and cried out to God. I felt like a million pounds of anxiety, depression, and unworthiness had finally been sand blasted off of my very soul. I would go on to read about our first congregations and what church was really about and how loving they were all throughout the world from Jerusalem to Asia Minor, there was nothing but universal love for one another. There wasn’t anything separating Christians. I would go on to learn so much more about God and who he was and develop a new found relationship that I never thought was possible. I found freedom in Christ, in learning that a relationship with him is far less stressful then what we are surrounded with today, there was really no strings attached to this relationship.

In doing so I found a church that mimicked what I would see in the New Testament. It had nothing to do with an allegiance to a organization, or a strict regiment of must do’s in order to be allowed to advance in your relationship with God. Instead I was able to wash Oak Creek Assembly of God against what the bible taught about how a proper church should look like and found a place that promoted free spiritual growth with no strings attached and I believe there are more like that out their. It just takes some time, prayer, and strong biblical foundation to have the patience to find them. The bible is one of the greatest gifts I have ever received from God and it has help me through some tough times, more then that it has helped me find God in a world riddled with confusion, pain, judgment, and cut through all of the clout that’s out there when it comes to God. I hope if you get anything out of this blog, it’s God has never changed…mankind has done a good job of painting layers over his originality. I truly hope if you can relate to my testimony and if other have caused you to feel as if you aren’t good enough for God or maybe the persona of a Christian has turned you away from anything to do with God to give him a chance. Pick up his book and let him get to know you on a one on one level and I bet you’ll be shocked to see how different he really is from what you thought. God Bless