I have run into many problems with the church over my time. Granted I am still a young man, I've seen many of Jesus's teaching being glanced over, or twisted for someone else's gain. This has always saddened me, I was raised by a strict Christian father, he was strict in his parenting, but through Christ he was always a loving and caring father. He didn't live an easy life by any means, he was abused heavily as a child from the age of 12-18, his father beat him relentlessly and he was beat, bullied, and demoralized by his schoolmates, friends, family, and teachers. Even through all of it, he was still a good man, but he always had a rage issue. He was a drug dealer until he was about 30 where my mom had introduced him to Jesus. From there God totally transformed his life, he no longer had a desire to fight, nor a desire to do or sell drugs. He wanted to devote himself to learning about God. He's spend 30 years learning, teaching, and preaching about God. Not as your regular pastor though, most teach out of a desire for personal gain, where my father taught out of love, as it should be, as Jesus had taught.
All my life I had been raised learning about the love of Christ, his forgiveness, his mercy. I was always confused, whenever we would go to church it seemed like everyone was in it for themselves. I never understood it, I was raised in love, yet these people showed very little. The church is supposed to be a family, yet they were all so dispersed, like the people after they had built the tower of babble. In my life I never truly understood it until my dad had 2 strokes when I was 18. I had never blamed anything on God, I was always questioning his motives, but never blaming, I always wondered why? Why would this man who was so devout to God be punished like this. My dad was unable to read, write, and barely speak after his strokes. Prior to his strokes my dad was under a massive amount of stress, he had just been laid off his job, me and my brother were the only ones working, but he also had a lot of debt. My dad raised us alone, my mom gave no child support, yet my dad with the help of God raised us on his own from the time I was 11-18 (another note: my dad was only a highschool graduate working a full-time job that paid 13$/hr.) If you don't believe in miracles, well there's one for you. Back to the topic at hand, he was becoming more angry and depressed after he lost his job, I remember the day he was going to take me to work. It's burned in my memory... He had told me, "I'm gonna brush my teeth then we're out of here." I sat patiently on the couch watching TV, I didn't realize it, until 10 minutes later that he was taking a but longer than usual, finally he walked out of the restroom, he had a different look about him. He looked at me like he had never seen me before. I asked him if he was alright? He kept looking at me confused... Then he collapsed, I went to him and guided him to the couch... I didn't know what was going on, I kept pleading: dad what's wrong... Yet he'd still look at me confused... Finally I called 911 told them I think my dad had a stroke, withing 15 minutes the paramedics showed up and took us to the hospital. It was there that I truly lost touch with the world. I spent 6 hours alone in that hospital, my brother was out of town and everyone in my family was at work... I had called repeatedly with no response, nothing, not even a text... I was numb. I didn't know what to think, in my brothers words, "we were in our golden age." Finally all 3 of us working together to get out of debt, but now, our dad was out, he couldn't function, I remember when he finally came to he said, "hey buddy." I was so relieved... Until... He repeated it... "Hey buddy." That's all he could say... From there he struggled heavily with his words...
My apologies for going into sort of a life story, but I had to show you where I've come from. I never open up about this stuff. I'm an Istp. So obviously, stuff like this is never spoken about. Anyways. From that time I was questioning what God was doing with my life, and where it was going. I looked to the church, but fell away... I left... For a year I left the church because they didn't understand, they said they cared yet, in my time of need they left, all those people I called friends had abandoned me, it was just me. I felt alone in fact I turned away from God for a while. Not out of hate, but something inside me (probably the Istp) told me, you've grown up with God, but that influence is now gone. Let's what happens. I fell away from the church eventually those people I considered friends I left behind, they never cared, they had no love, just their own selfish needs. Here is where I heavily began questioning the church and it's methods. I realized that they either didn't understand the Bible or didn't care about it's main teachings. A year later I met this girl, I thought she was hot, I wanted to date her and see where it would go, later I learned that she was Mormon. I never really understood them, I just knew my dad heavily disliked them and their doctrine. From here I learn what they were truly about. From I saw it, I saw why we are truly hated he the world. We're supposed to be Christians who love one another, but what we really are, are a people who put on our Christian face on Sunday's, then after church is over we go back to our sinful nature, like God is just an option. This knowledge hurt, I looked at the Mormon church and saw hypocrites. Like all religions they believe we get into heaven through works. No. As I headed this Sunday (weirdly) We're not saved by works. We are saved for works. True Christians know that Christ died for our sins. We have no more need from there to try harder and harder to get into heaven, we're free once we accept that Jesus died to forgive our sin. This is where it gets fun. People leave it here. That's it, that's all they see, they go on with their lives just with that Christian mask saying, "Jesus died for me I'm saved." Then take off the mask and continue with their sinful nature. It goes way deeper than that. People seethe Bible as a set of rules or guidelines that we have to follow to get into heaven. No, they're not guidelines at all, sure they help you live a better life, but when you truly accept that you're saved by Jesus, you realize that you don't want to live in sin, you want to live for God, you no longer want to live for yourself. When you feel God's love you realize that there are people out there who are so lost in their own lives. It's not that you're forced to preach the gospel anymore, in your spirit you now want to, you feel compelled in your spirit because you realize they could have so much more with God. They could find true joy in God. Many people see the Bible for all the bloodshed and all the rules in the beginning, yet what they fail to realize is all of it was brought upon us because of our sin. That's why God sent his son to die to forgive our sins. So we could have that relationship, that love with him. We could become the bride.
That's all I want in life now, to be with God. There's a passage in Galatians where Paul talks about wanting to be with God, but is also compelled to share him with everyone, why get yourself into heaven when there are many are lost and need him. Sorry for my long rant I have more to say, but my phones about to die. God bless, and be loved.
-Sohrin
Thanks!
