An open letter to a loved one about my faith

About my faith, I cannot expect you to understand it if you have never experienced it. But I do think if there is any evidence at all that there may be a God, prime mover, intelligent designer etc. that we should want to know Him, it or who they were.

If the world is simply a mass chaos without purpose, design or intention as materialists believe then certainly we should eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die.

But if there is even the possibility of something beyond the material I would think it is the most important thing in life to consider and find out.

You are still young and your life seems like it will go on forever. But one day it will end. If there is nothing beyond that then it has been good to live for sure.

But if there is nothing then the only ethical framework that is valid is the subjective one that each generation and each culture creates. The categories of good and evil have no ultimate meaning except as defined by each person.

Ultimately materialism (not purchasing things but the idea that nothing exists outside of the material world) results in nihilism. It gets rid of God but at a huge cost to the individual, relationships and society.

In his writing "The Madman" Friedrich Nietzsche said of this

“God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?”

In my mind, if there is a God it is the single most important quest in life to seek out His reality, His purpose for our lives and His favor.

I do not believe in God like a child believes in Santa Claus. I know Him. I do not know all of Him nor am I deluded to think that my knowledge of Him is not colored by my own thinking. But I do know that there is another aspect to life that is not material. I know there is a God and I know He personally reveals Himself to those who seek Him.

When my sweetheart was dying and the words tubal pregnancy came into my mind over several days when I prayed for her those word are what saved her from death. I know God spoke to me. You were there and watched it happen. What ever explanation anyone might put on that event there is no explanation can be given that says the material world is all there is.

What happened to me when i was seventeen, my mind completely destroyed through the use of drugs, my life completely alienated through the use of women as objects, and my heart completely dead from exalting myself as omnipotent, convinced me forever of the existence and personal nature of God.

One night in that year when on acid laced with enough strychnine to kill four people, I asked "Is there a God and if there is does he have anything to do with us?" It was the most important question I had ever asked. July of that year I found the answer to my question.

I went to Dallas Texas to attend the second concert of Led Zeppelin in the US. Our band was invited by their manager who we had played for in a concert with Vanilla Fudge in OKC. That evening we were booked into the Cellar Club to play.

After the first set I went outside to get away from the strippers who performed during our 15 minute break. As I paced up and down the sidewalk in front of the club I saw a little piece of paper on the ground. I recognized it as a gospel tract - a small pamphlet that shared about God.

I was rabidly anti christian up to that point. The front row of the Baptist church my grandparents attended was filled with the football team that beat me up in the school halls and after the games when they got drunk. But that night I picked up the tract. I tucked it into my pocket went back in and played my next set.

I again went outside, walked across to the middle of the road where there was a large birdbath. I crawled up on it to get out of the light rain that was falling. I pulled out the tract and began to read.

I really don't remember all it said. It did have John 3:16 in it: For God so loved the world He gave his only begotten son that whoever would believe in him would not perish but have eternal life." As I read the tract I understood that God was real and that He loved everyone.

I cried that night for the first time since I was a child. Those tears were not tears of sadness. They were not really tears of joy. They were tears of finding my way to a safe place after having lived a nightmare for so many years.

Jesus came to me that night and let me know that I was important to Him. He revealed himself to me and I have never doubted His existence since.

My mind was restored to me. My heart found joy for the first time. I knew that He was real and He loved me specifically and intentionally. I knew that He loved everyone else the same including those football players.... I could forgive and be forgiven.

I could tell you of all the miracles He has done but unless you believe that He is there you would not believe they actually happened or you would have to find some explanation of how they could have happened without a God, gods, force, supernatural being etc.

You are right, unless you know Him it makes no sense at all.

I have seen though that if someone will honestly seek Him, even if it is the crazy prayer of a druggie like me, "Are you there and do you have anything to do with me?" He will show Himself to them. It is my hope and prayer that you will seek Him and find Him.

Knowing him did not make me a perfect person.

I still have so many wrong things in my life. You have suffered with some of those. I am sorry. I have not always represented God as he is to you. I hope you can forgive me for that.

But I know this. I know He is real and He is not like me. He is good, He is loving, He is perfect. He has nothing of evil in Him. And I love Him though I don't always love Him perfectly.

I love you too and have prayed almost every day of your life that you will find Him as I did that July night so long ago.

White as Snow

“Come now, and let us reason together,” Says the Lord, “Though your sins are as scarlet, They will be as white as snow; Though they are red like crimson, They will be like wool. Isaiah 1:18(NASB)

As I looked out through my bedroom window on the fields of the farm in back of our house, I thought of this word God spoke into the world through a man who lived more than two thousand years ago.

Isaiah had an experience only a few years prior that had shattered his world. He tells us about it in the first of his writing:

In the year of King Uzziah’s death I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of His robe filling the temple. ² Seraphim stood above Him, each having six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. ³ And one called out to another and said,

“Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of hosts,
The whole earth is full of His glory.”

 ⁴ And the foundations of the thresholds trembled at the voice of him who called out, while the temple was filling with smoke. ⁵ Then I said,

“Woe is me, for I am ruined!
Because I am a man of unclean lips,
And I live among a people of unclean lips;
For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.”

 ⁶ Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a burning coal in his hand, which he had taken from the altar with tongs. ⁷ He touched my mouth with it and said, “Behold, this has touched your lips; and your iniquity is taken away and your sin is forgiven.” ⁸ Then I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?” Then I said, “Here am I. Send me!”

 

Isaiah 6:1-8 (NASB)

 

Until we have an encounter with a reality outside of our perception we may not fully appreciate the severity of our wrong doing. When we come into an awareness that God does exist and taste of His presence we, like Isaiah, find ourselves facedown desperately crying out in anguish at our recognition of what the Bible calls sin.

 

I can remember well my first encounter of this kind. A fear came into my heart greater than any I had ever known. I have been thrown against a wall by a member of the Hell's Angels with a knife to my throat with the certian claim that he was going to kill me and it did not produce the kind of fear I felt in the presence of the all loving God. It was not God I was afraid of, it was my own heart.

 

The Bible says God is light. Light makes things that are not seen visible. Until I encountered God I could not really see what was in my heart. When He came His light revealed not only Him but my dark and wicked heart. 

 

Some might say that this kind of experience is reserved for the Old Testament before Jesus came. They say that God seemed like a horrible tyrant and so those who came into His presence had a wrong view of Him and so were terrified. A simple look at the life of Jesus shows us that is not true:

 

Now when he (Jesus) had left speaking, he said unto Simon, Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a draught. ⁵ And Simon answering said unto him, Master, we have toiled all the night, and have taken nothing: nevertheless at thy word I will let down the net. ⁶ And when they had this done, they inclosed a great multitude of fishes: and their net brake. ⁷ And they beckoned unto their partners, which were in the other ship, that they should come and help them. And they came, and filled both the ships, so that they began to sink. ⁸ When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord.

Luke 5:4-9 (KJV)

 

Looking at this passage we see that something is happening here that defies logic. Jesus uses Peter's boat and then tells him to catch more fish. Peter and his collegues had fished all night and caught nothing. Jesus instructs Peter how to catch the fish. Peter protests but then follows what Jesus says. This results in a full net of fish.

 

Why would Peter respond as he did? 

 

You would expect Peter to have said, "Please come back tomorrow and do this again."

 

Instead he falls on his knees and like Isaiah crys out, "Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord."

 

Why did he respond like this?

 

It is because he encountered the light of God and it revealed his heart.

 

We cannot fully appreciate what Jesus did for us until we know what our true condition is concerning this area of sin.

 

When we say we are "saved", what are we saved from?

 

We might say we were saved from the devil.

We might say we were saved from God's wrath.

We might say we are saved from Hell.

We might saw we are saved from death.

 

All of these are a result of salvation. They are not what we are saved from.

 

We are saved from our sin.

 

We are saved from the evil that lives in our hearts.

 

But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.

21 And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus: for he shall save his people from their sins.

 

Matthew 1:20-22 (KJV)

 

The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.

 

John 1:29 (KJV)

 

It may seem old fashioned or even hateful to say that the human heart's propensity for and participation in sin is the root cause of bondage to the devil, the reason for the wrath of God, the reason the eternal soul will spend eternity in Hell and the reason all die. But the Bible assures us that is is true.

 

That is why Isaiah fell down in recognition of the consequence of his sin. That is why Peter fell on his knees, begged Jesus to leave and confessed that he was a sinful man. That is why I begged God to change my vile heart and have continued to do so every day and often every moment since He first revealed Himself to me.

 

Today is New Year's. It is just another day in the year. It really has no power to change anyone no matter how sincere they might be to keep their New Year's resolutions. But culturally we see it as an opportunity to start again fresh.

 

I think it is a universal desire to somehow put our past behind with all the failures it has held for us and to have a new place to begin all over again.

 

But I have lived through sixty one New Years and they have not been able to clean the slate. Only one thing can -- God.

 

If we stopped reading where Isaiah fell down and confessed his sin -- If we closed the book at the point that Peter told Jesus to leave because he was a sinful man -- If you stop reading after I say that I too fell in horror before a vision of myself when God came to reveal Himself to me we would never know what God wants to do.

 

Seeing my heart led me to seeing His heart.

 

His heart was to forgive the sin that caused Isaiah, Peter and I to want to flee in terror from His presence.

 

And He has forgiven it:

 

 Then one of the seraphim flew to me (Isaiah) with a burning coal in his hand, which he had taken from the altar with tongs. ⁷ He touched my mouth with it and said, “Behold, this has touched your lips; and your iniquity is taken away and your sin is forgiven.”

Isaiah 6:1-7 (NASB)

 

When I see my sinful condition, confess the reality of what I see God comes and forgives it and removes it from me.

 

He does not kind of remove it. He completely removes it.

 

What an amazing thing! That God whose presence reveals the horror of my darkened heart does so only to clean it......

 

As white as snow.

 

As I look out on the new fallen snow I find myself immensely thankful that my heart has been given this treasure: 

 

“Though your sins are as scarlet,They will be as white as snow;

 

This has become the greatest truth to me. It is true that I am not longer under satan's sway. It is true that I do not face a wrathful God. It is true that I will not spend an eternity in Hell. It is true that death will not be able to hold me in its grip. but the most marvelous truth is that the darkness of my heart has, is presently and will be forever banished. The scarlet sin that turned my heart to evil will be turned to the beauty of the new fallen snow I look out upon on this New Year's Day.

 

Horatio Spafford in the most horrible moment of his life -- passing the very spot where his four daugthers lost their lives when the boat that they were in sank -- knew that he had hope because he knew that same truth. In one of the most loved hymns the words he penned at that moment have given hope to millions. Those words express my wonder as well as I think of my own encounter with Jesus:

 

My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!
My sin, not in part but the whole,
Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!

It is well,
With my soul,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.