Revive us, and we will call on your name Restore us, O LORD God Almighty; make your face shine upon us, that we may be saved.”-Psalm 80: 18,19My first decade or so as a Christian were heavily influenced by a compassionate pastor who very much fit into the mold of the social justice theology that I had been introduced as a young person in the Methodist church. He preached frequently about one cause and then another; some of which I agreed with some others, well, I would give him the benefit of the doubt. After all, he was theologically trained, and I, well, I still rather rarely cracked open a Bible.
In the late 80’s this pastor started preaching and teaching a rather seductive doctrine of universalism. After all, if God is love, doesn’t that love extend to all people no matter what it is they believe in? And if God did not do that, would that not be unjust? And we all know that God is a God of justice. Frankly, Jesus Christ began to seem almost an afterthought in his teaching and to a point in my thinking. I know I was beginning to worry Susie more than a little bit. Then one evening, after not opening up a Bible in several weeks, I opened one up (I can’t remember why), and it opened up to John 14:6 –
"I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me...”
In the electrical trade (I worked as an electrician for 22 years), when one has a difficult day, or more specifically when one spends a day terminated large, heavy and stiff wires, it called “wrestling the bear.” A day of wrestling the bear guaranteed a good night’s sleep. I believe at this moment when I opened up that Bible the Holy Spirit was chastising me, disciplining one of His own who was being led astray, God again was in pursuit. I remember needing to come to a decision. I had one heck of a bear to wrestle. Was I to believe what I was being taught (and what I wanted to be true) that salvation, or whatever you wanted to call it, was a given no matter how you did or did not approach God? Or were these words that I had read in the gospel of John for seemingly for the very first time, mean what they clearly seem to say? I knew I had to make a dreadful decision. Was I to trust the message of the world that had been creeping into my home church and into my life, or was I to trust the words of Jesus Christ, whom I professed to be my Lord and Savior?
I had a terrible choice to make, but in reality there really was no choice to be made. I believe that those who are in Christ will be tugged at and pursued by the Lord to stay on the right road, and that is what so clearly happened to me. Needless to say, I chose to believe and trust the plain words of Jesus, and that was the beginning of what I sometimes describe as the weird call of Christ on my life.
From that moment on in what time and energy I could muster, I became a student of the Way. Christ transformed me from what had been a worldly pursuit of the things of God into a gospel oriented Christ follower. In 1990 I read the Bible front cover to cover for the first time. Wasn’t easy, but I did it. I was determined to become a better educated and prepared elder in the church (having been ordained in 1985). To that end, my then interim pastor convinced me (after several tries) in 1992 to take a church history class at the Southern California extension of San Francisco Theological Seminary. My pastor added that I ought to consider continuing taking classes in case “God might be calling you into doing something else.” That something else, of course, would be ordained ministry. A thought that at the time I thought was rather funny; well actually the thought still is rather funny. But a pursuing Lord of the universe, sovereign and in control, was dead serious….
Like my parents, I am flawed and decent. And His.
I think there will be a part 4 to this series, but it will probably have to wait a bit. I'll be on study leave next week in Green Lake, Wisconsin. It's been a summer for car traveling. Got to keep the petrolium companies in the black....
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