A quarter century in Christ

A significant milestone

Happy Birthday to me
This week I celebrated my birthday. Not my physical birthday; that’s in January, and it happened 41 years ago. No, this week I celebrated my spiritual birthday, and a milestone one at that. 25 years ago, the Lord graciously called me out of spiritual darkness and death into the glorious light of new life in Christ. Let me tell you a bit about it.

I grew up in a part-time Roman Catholic family, which means we went to mass on Christmas and Easter, and then eventually not at all. I, however, remained quite committed and involved at my local parish. I was attending youth group regularly, I was serving at Sunday mass, I was involved with the spiritual action group at my school, and at one point, I was actual considering becoming a priest.

Then, through a series of providential programs, events, and people, in May of 2000, the Lord cracked open the hard shell around my heart, poured in His spirit, claimed me as His own, and forever changed my life. I remember having His presence invade my entire being, and I responded with a simple prayer of faith and commitment by saying, “Okay God, from now on, I’m going to do life Your way.”

After that, I left my Roman Catholic parish, because what I grew up with did not square with the Word of God. I become deeply connected at my new Evangelical church, I began to devour the Word of God, serve in every ministry opportunity I could, and I pursued Christ with a new mind, new desires, and new love for my Saviour. I eventually went to Bible College, spent 15 years serving in various pastoral ministry contexts, and even planted a church in 2015. By God’s grace, I have had the joy of following Christ for a quarter century.

25 years is a long time. I have experienced tremendous joys and successes, and I have tasted bitter depression and failure. It would be near-impossible to recount every lesson and every mercy of God, but I thought it would be fitting, given such a spiritual milestone, to share the four things I have learned over that time that I believe to be the most impactful and important for me. I continue to learn these lessons, but after 25 years, I can say that have significantly impacted my life and faith thus far.

A family resemblance
The ancient process of refining metal was rather involved and arduous. The refiner would take a piece of raw ore, place it into a receptacle, and place that into the crucible of the furnace. As the heat of the fire increased, the metal would begin to melt and bubble, forcing any impurities to rise to the surface. The refiner, who must be intensely focused the whole time lest the metal be ruined, would then scoop out any impurities. Once the metal was pure, it was then poured into a mould and fashioned into something good for use.

The Lord tells us that it is this process through which He takes His people, in a spiritual and not literal sense, of course. God turns up the heat in our lives, brings our sins to the surface, deals with them, and then makes us more pure and more usable for His purposes. This process is called sanctification, whereby God makes us look less and less like we did when we were dead in our sins and more and more into the image of His Son who called us from death to life.

“For my name's sake I defer my anger; for the sake of my praise I restrain it for you, that I may not cut you off. Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver; I have tried you in the furnace of affliction. For my own sake, for my own sake, I do it, for how should my name be profaned? My glory I will not give to another” (Isaiah 48:9-11).

“Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts. But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner's fire and like fullers' soap. He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, and they will bring offerings in righteousness to the Lord. Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord as in the days of old and as in former years” (Malachi 3:1-4).

If there is one thing I have learned in 25 years it is that sanctification is a lifelong process that is difficult and painful. God will often bring us through suffering, loss, difficult circumstances, and take people and things away from us, in order to increase our dependence on Him and make us aware of our finiteness. I have been fired, lost a serious relationship, experienced significant hardships, and failed spectacularly, and while many of these were the consequences of my choices, they were all a part of the Lord’s intentional and providential sanctification process in my life.

As I have become less like my old self and more like Christ, and as the Lord has dealt with the sins and impurities in my life, my love for Him has grown, the awareness of my need for Him has grown, and the experience of joy, peace, and His blessings have also grown. It hasn’t been easy, and it hasn’t gone as quickly as I would have designed it, but I love my Father who has disciplined me as a Father does for the son whom He loves. Proverbs 17:3 says, “The crucible is for silver, and the furnace is for gold, and the Lord tests hearts.” He has and continues to see what I am made of, and He lovingly directs that process with His careful hand upon my soul.

It should be about more than just one holiday
Depending on which English version of the Bible you use, you will see an example or command to give thanks/thanksgiving some 75 times, praise and thanks/thanksgiving tied together some 30 times, offerings of thanks/thanksgiving some 10 times, and other mentions of thanksgiving some 40 times. In Colossians 3:15-16 the Apostle Paul writes, “Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.” In Ephesians 5:20, Paul has a similar command as in Colossians 3:16, except he writes this: “Giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

In the 25 years since God made me born again and gave me a new heart, I have both become more thankful and I have realized that God expects and commands His people to cultivate a thankful heart. In 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 Paul writes, “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” I have grown ever more thankful for who God is, what He has done for me, what He has given me, and what He has not given me.

This has been driven, in large measure, by the reality that other than the wrath of God poured upon me in His righteous fury, anything else I receive from God is an infinitely worthy gift of His grace and mercy. I deserve nothing but the just judgement of God for my sins. However, not only has He given me life, breath, and countless gifts of His common grace, He has also given me His own Son as the propitiation for my sins. Now, clothed in His righteousness, I stand innocent as His son, and I look forward in hope to the end of my sin once and for all when He returns.

I have a truly amazing and godly wife and best friend, who, other than what I just noted, is the greatest gift of God’s grace to me. God has given us 6 children, 5 of whom are alive with us today. I have had the opportunity to minister to people all across our country, in person and online, and have been able to watch many people grow in their faith as God shapes them into the image of His son. All of these are things I do not deserve, and for which I am deeply and immeasurably thankful.

I have also learned that thankfulness matters because when we are thankless, we believe that God is holding out on us, that He has chosen to be stingy rather than generous. A thankless heart also believes that if they were God, they would do a much better job of bestowing upon themselves what they deserve. Buried deep beneath the surface of a thankless heart, deeper than perhaps we or others understand, is a blasphemous idolatry that worships a false god – the weak and pathetic god of self.

“I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart; I will recount all of your wonderful deeds. I will be glad and exult in you; I will sing praise to your name, O Most High” (Psalm 9:1-2).

Bread for my soul
Other than Himself, there is no one and nothing the Lord exalts more highly in the Scriptures than the Word of God itself. It, accompanied by the power of the Holy Spirit, is the primary tool of sanctification God uses in the life of His children (John 17:17; 2 Timothy 3:16-17; Hebrews 4:12-13). It is the only way God speaks and reveals with authority and without error (Hebrews 1:1-2; 2 Peter 1:16-21). It is the primary way the follower of Christ is to gain wisdom and discern the direction of their life (Psalm 19:12-13; Psalm 119:105). His Words give life, both new spiritual life and abundant life (Isaiah 55:10-11; John 6:68-69). I could keep going, but I trust you get the point.

Over the last 25 years, I have become convinced that it is impossible for a person to grow in their faith, to deepen their love of Christ, to increase their knowledge of God, and to see the sanctifying work of God’s Spirit in their life if they neglect the Word of God. The degree to which a person does not regularly and intentionally engage with God’s Word is the degree to which they will experience a dry and empty faith, along with anxiety, apathy, and an unsettled spirit.

I have always loved the Word of God, ever since God loved me and used His Gospel to give me new life. I have always loved reading it, studying it, memorizing it, sharing it, praying it, singing it, and teaching it. People have often asked me how I have so much memorized, or how quickly I can recall references, or how it is always accessible to me whenever I am defending what I believe. The answer is not me. I am not that special. The answer is God’s Word has planted itself deep into my heart, mind, and soul, because I have been filling my eyes with the Scriptures for most of my life.

While there are certain passages I have studied dozens of times, or individual portions I have read hundreds, if not thousands of times, I have read the entire Bible, every single word, some 15 times since becoming a follower of Jesus. While that might seem impressive and staggering to some, I wish it were more. I wish I had not squandered so much time doing other things. I wish I could say I have read the entirety of the Scriptures once for every year I have been a Christian. Not to impress anyone, and not to earn bonus marks with God, but because I know how much the Word changes me, and I love His Word, because I love Him to whom His Word points.

I want to know and breathe the Word of God more than anything else, and I would exhort you to do the same. More than any statistics, trivia, or information about anything, I want to be a man of the Book, and I want to have the Word of Christ dwell in me richly (Colossians 3:16). Spurgeon once said that, “A Bible that’s falling apart usually belongs to someone who isn’t.”

An anchor, the storms, and a small boat
As a child, I struggled immensely with issues of identity and self-worth. I was picked on and teased in school mercilessly, all the way through to the end of high school. I did not like myself. I felt unlovable. It was in this context that the Lord poured His love into my soul, claimed me as His own, declared His love for me as His son, and began the process of dealing with these insecurities. Just one year after becoming a Christian, my dad left, and that had a profound effect on my family. Because God had revealed Himself as my true Father in Heaven, I was able to deal with this loss well, with the help of godly surrogate spiritual fathers at church.

Yet, as time went on, even into adulthood, I carried this nagging thought that would rear its ugly head whenever I failed or sinned greatly, and that thought was, “God has abandoned you. You have messed up so big that this time even God has to back away. He has moved on to someone else.” Every time that would happen, the Lord would remind me of the truth that, “it is the Lord your God who goes with you. He will not leave you or forsake you… It is the Lord who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed” (Deuteronomy 31:6, 8).

There is also this promise in Psalm 32:8, where God says, “I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you.” And then the one that hits me like a gracious hammer, from Isaiah 49:13-16, “Sing for joy, O heavens, and exult, O earth; break forth, O mountains, into singing! For the Lord has comforted his people and will have compassion on his afflicted. But Zion said, ‘The Lord has forsaken me; my Lord has forgotten me.’ ‘Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before me.’”

I have been following the Lord for 25 years. I can say, with every fibre of my being, and without a shred of doubt, that in 25 years, the Lord has never failed me. Never! Not once. Not for a single second. The Lord has never disappointed me or shown Himself to be lacking or limited. I have leaned into Christ like my life depends on it, so much so that if He were to go away, I would crash into the ground in a heap, yet He has always been there. The Lord has always shown Himself to be faithful, powerful, and kind to me, even though I know myself and my sins full well. Nothing will ever shake this foundation I have found in the ever-present and always-loving God, not cancer, not loss – nothing.

“When darkness veils His lovely face, I rest on His unchanging grace; In every high and stormy gale, my anchor holds within the veil. His oath, His covenant, His blood, support me in the whelming flood; When all around my soul gives way, He then is all my hope and stay. On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand, all other ground is sinking sand.” – The Solid Rock

“Be Thou my battle Shield, Sword for the fight. Be Thou my Dignity, Thou my Delight. Thou my soul’s Shelter, Thou my high Tower. Raise Thou me heavenward, O Power of my power. Riches I heed not, nor man’s empty praise. Thou mine Inheritance, now and always. Thou and Thou only, first in my heart. High King of Heaven, my Treasure Thou art.” – Be Thou My Vision

God is so good!

The next 25
Still, I echo the words of the Apostle Paul when he wrote, “Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. Only let us hold true to what we have attained” (Philippians 3:12-16).

By God’s grace, I am not the same boy I was when the Lord saved me 25 years ago. I am not the same man I was when I got married 15 years ago. I am not the same man I was before COVID hit 5 years ago. But there is still much more work the Lord has to do on me. For as long as He gives me breath, I will be constantly pursuing Him and moving away from that old man that is dead and buried with Christ. I would encourage you to make your life’s mission the same.

If the Lord is gracious enough to give me 25 more years, I will look back, at 66 years old, marveling at what the Lord has done in my life for the 50 years I have been following Him. And if He is extra gracious to give me another 25 after that, then I will be overflowing with joy that I got to walk with Christ for 75 years on the earth, and that as a 91-year-old man, surrounded by dozens of grandchildren, I will be able to tell all of them about the wonderful mercy God has shown to me. Christ is so precious to me now, and His Word is so much my delight, I can’t even imagine what He will be to me in another 50 years, and how much more of His Word will be hidden in my heart as my soul’s greatest delight.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. I will follow Jesus one day at a time, as you should too. For now, I will declare and desire these words to be true in my life: “O God, from my youth you have taught me, and I still proclaim your wondrous deeds. So even to old age and gray hairs, O God, do not forsake me, until I proclaim your might to another generation, your power to all those to come. Your righteousness, O God, reaches the high heavens. You who have done great things, O God, who is like you? You who have made me see many troubles and calamities will revive me again; from the depths of the earth you will bring me up again. You will increase my greatness and comfort me again.” – Psalm 71:17-21