A Red Letter Day!

A Red Letter Day!

Last Sunday I gave my testimony.  To the Church.  The whole Church.

But Cindy missed it again.

You see, this was the second time in my life that I had stood up and given my testimony for God.  Both times she was somewhere else in the church at the time.  This time she was in the Nursery.

It began the moment I walked into the sanctuary yesterday morning.  I sat down on the front pew and immediately I felt God telling me that I needed to stand up.  Stand up and speak for him about what has happened to me in the six plus years since I started coming to Highland Park Baptist Church.

As the service progressed, I listened and watched and at the same time kept thinking about what God wanted me to say.  Something would come into my mind and I’d think.  Yes!  I need to say that!  Then almost immediately that thought was wiped out from my mind.  That kept going on all through the service.  It was kind of like that ‘Whac a Mole Game’ you see at Chuck E. Cheese’s but it was all in my head.

Finally, during the Invitation I overcame that voice that was trying to keep me from standing up.  I forced myself to get up and walked over to Brother Eddie and told him I needed to speak after the invitation was over.  I think he asked me, ‘Do you want to speak to the Church?’

I told him “Yes.  I don’t know what I’m going to say.  But I’ve got to say something.”  And went back and sat down.

It wasn’t but just a moment and the invitation was over and Eddie called me back up.

In a rambling and emotional way, I told them how I had come here six years ago.  How I had stood in the spot where Mr. Packett was sitting now and screamed at a God that I didn’t understand and couldn’t believe in.  How I had been baptized in 1966 but didn’t stay with the Church.

I told them how I had watched them (the people of Highland Park Baptist Church) and had seen true Christians.  How my revival had started then and it had changed me!  I didn’t believe that much in God before, but I do now.  I still have doubts and I still have questions.  When Eddie would talk about Heaven, it used to be that I couldn’t picture it or believe it. 

But I can now!

You know, I think that is what I said.  Some of it I said in such a rush I may have gotten it mixed up.  But the feeling is there still.  I am changed.  I am not the man I was when I came here in 2010.

I feel God blessed me for my testimony.  He gave me understanding of something I had been wrestling with for a while.  I believe Jesus Christ existed.  I believe he died on the Cross.  But I didn’t understand why and why it had to be such a horrible death.

To quote a friend of mine, “Why did Jesus have to die in such a savage way to save us from sin?  If God has the power to create the wonderful universe we live in, why doesn’t He make the path to salvation in a more ‘elegant’ way?”

My friend and I were planning to research this together.  We were going to find scripture or other documentation that would explain the answer to this question.  We still might.  But the real answer is:

IT DOESN’T MATTER!

What I mean is – it doesn’t matter how solid of an answer we come up with.  No matter the source, no matter the evidence, it will still come down to ‘faith’. 

Do I have enough faith to accept in my heart that Jesus died for us? 

Do I believe that God did this to his only Son to make a path for me to come closer to him?  It doesn’t matter how thorough a job we do researching – I will always find some issue to cause me to doubt.  There will always be a reason or some missing shred of evidence preventing me from committing. 

I either have faith or I don’t.

To you that may not sound like a blessing.  But to me, the big picture just got a little bit clearer.

Sincerely,

Roscoe
Christian in Training