Im 24. Wow! Time has flown by and recently I feel as though I have lived 1000 lifetimes only in the span of 6 years. I feel this way because it seems as though over these last 6 years I have gone from nearly two extremes in my walk with Christ. Ill explain.
I do not say this in meaning that I have gone from being some worldling who hated the things of God with a passion, one who was the chief of sinners in deeds; but I say this because at the beginning of these 6 years, I was full of zeal without knowledge, a professor of faith in a God who I really knew almost nothing about. I had a "man-centered" Christianity, which, if it was no Christianity at all, it was a very very shallow version of it. With ease and self -appeasement, I could live in sin, listen to the music of the world, lust constantly in my thoughts, lie and actually convince myself that I was ok with God. Because I was raised in a Christian home, I was moral, and I wasnt 'as wicked' as some of the other kids I grew up around, I really had convinced myself that I was ok in God's sight; that if I had died, I would enter into eternity and spend it with Christ because at one time when i was 6 I "prayed the prayer", and God knew my heart and knew that I "tried" to live right....This was nothing more than a works salvation: Rayshawn depending upon Rayshawn's deeds and intentions to get into heaven, and Rayshawn can adjust the standard for himself whenever Rayshawn wants to. Truth is, Rayshawn was nothing more than a decieved sinner. Yes, I was saved.Yes, I raised my hands in worship; Yes, I professed to be "filled with the Spirit"; Yes, I knew Scripture like the back of my hand (although I only knew it in appeaance only), I knew nothing of context and application, and Yes, I was heavily involved in church activities and "stuff". See, when it came to God, I wanted Him...I knew, because of conviction that I needed Him, and I knew that I should spend my entire life seeking after Him and Him alone....but my flesh, my mind, and my will did not want that and as hard as I tried, I could not- for the mind of the flesh CANNOT please God. Back then, I wanted both - most anyone who knew me could tell you that I wanted my Jay-Z and my Jesus, and I wanted to somehow make both worlds conform, I wanted the love of God poured out upon my heart by the Spirit, and I wanted my lusts as well. This produced an evil monster within me, a beast that hardened me, a force within that wanted to be acceptable to saints and sinners...and for a season I actually felt dead spiritually. I can remember one time in college, refusing to take a ride from friends, because I had an overwhelming sense of fear that if I went, and the car crashed, and I died, I knew I would go straight to hell, yet this fear wasnt enough to push me twoards grace.
As God's Sovereign hand was over my life, I pushed my sins away and tried to hide and cover them up as one sweeps dust under a rug. I put on morality, and actually tried to live more Christlike, all the while I still served the desires of my flesh. I justified my sins in my own eyes and I thought i was headed in the right direction, yet I never realized that my unrepentant, ignored sins cried out for justice and deep down conviction told me that it was not well with my soul. I stayed busy with church, work and school and I was simply "coasting" through that season in my life with all my self-righteounsess and morality. Thank God he shut that season down quickly, because not too long after that he began to work a deep work of repentance in me that would change me for the better. I can remember feeling conviction so strong at times that I couldnt funtion right on some days without reading scripture - and there were days upon which I had no classes and no hours at work and it was like God ordained these days so that He might break my hardened prideful heart because I was too far gone out of the way. I felt like a failure.Tears would stream down my face, my stomach would wrench inside of me and i would feel like a worm before the presence of the Almighty. I can recall crying out one day "God, why do you even continue to deal with me!" I felt hopeless, like I would never get anything right. In this hopelessness, I completely gave up hope in my works and in myself and many sinful chains and strongholds were broken in my life by Gods grace. This was the beginning of a work that God was doing that I wouldnt even begin to realize until much later.
During this time a search began, a search guided by zeal and not by knowledge. I knew the Lord had a call upon my life for ministry and therefore I took it upon myself to search out and seek teachers and teachings which I believed would be helpful to me. Name after name, teaching after teaching, personality after personality, I was learning things (I thought), yet for some reason I felt as though this learning was only surface, when the people teaching professed it to be deep...I took alot of things hook, line and sinker and just nodded my head, without really asking myself "What does scripture saith". I devoted hours and hours in study and prayer over the things I learned, and I was really going after trying to be the most "empowered,mighty, knowledgable, gift-working" preacher I could be. I knew the terms, read the books, watched the shows, ordered the products, and more, and the fruit that I saw from all my learning was not holiness,not brokenness, not a deeper working of repentance or even a genuine working of regeneration in the heart; what I learned was man-centered: how to "be positive", how to "grow my faith", how to "get God to work" for me, and how to "have power to do" a whole bunch of things, and how to get a whole bunch of "manifestations" in my daily walk. Not that some of these things were wrong, because some of them arent, most of them are, but it was like I was standing at the "highest level" of 'Christian maturity' (so i thought) and saying to myself "Is this it??" "The Kingdom?" "Your Best Life Now?" "How to be a miracle worker?" "How to create your world with your words?" "How to live in Health and Wealth in God?".. I was just following after every new mainstream Christian fad and adding it to my "Christianity".. I felt empty, and I watched as some of these "personality" preachers just started sounding like redundant broken records...it was all the same...it was all man-centered. "Have a good time in God, get Him to bless you, and go home"...
I can remember walking around in the back of youth group some nights listening to the awesome worship and hearing the Spirit convict me saying " Do you even know what happened at the cross?" "What is the Gospel?" "Do you desire holiness, for without it, no man shall see the Lord?""Do you feel the seriousness of God's grace?" These were just a few of the questions that echoed through my being and I honestly couldnt answer them, and felt stupid that I couldnt. It was like God was saying "Ill show you how 'mature' you think you really are" and He questions me with something that I thought was "basic"...but in reality I was missing out completely on what it meant to be a Christian...to be saved, chosen by God before the foundation of the world by the free grace offered in His Son so that whosoever believes in His wrath- absorbing sacrifice will be saved - and no one can come to Him except God draws him first.
See, I thought the gospel, the cross and God's grace were just basic Christianity 101 topics...something everyone knows and then you move on to bigger stuff...but the Gospel is everything, Christs death and resurrection is everything and none of it could be possible without God's Grace.
My search continued, my spiritual life was ups and downs, until I hit a valley that I didnt even know where I was. Temptation, dullness, and complacency really threw hard blows at me and I went through a season where I just didnt care anymore. Now although I didnt return to the sins I had previously committed and though I didnt stop seeking God in my own time, I was tired.... of teacher after teacher, conference after conference, fad after fad, and I stopped reading books, listening to sermons and even listening altogether while I was in the midst of live preaching. I would go to another passage of scripture and just read until the service was over....but it was in this valley of dullness where God would strike the hardest.
A friend of mine began reading some books by dead guys, listening to sermons that were not man-centered or entertaining, and he was putting me onto them. At first, I began reading and listening passively, not really even grasping what was being said too much because it was so different, but slowly these Zac Poonen's and Art Katz's and Carter Conlon's and David Wilkersons, and A.W. Tozer's began to wake me up a little and grasp my attention. I was still coasting and complacent as I listened to these sermons and read these articles until one day I came across a sermon on a forum that someone said was "too harsh". The sermon was by a man named Paul Washer, a young looking, striaght up guy who I thought looked too serious; but I listened to this sermon called "Modern American Christianity" and my world came crashing down....
Until I finished the last seconds of that YouTube video of brother Paul, I was paralyzed, shocked and my eyes were glued to that computer like my life was in the balance. I had started off following him through Matthew 7 as he preached on the narrow way, and I was thinking "this would make a good message", but by the end of the sermon, i was broken, crushed, and so heavily convicted that I had nothing to say, but to run to another room and cry out for forgiveness and repent ...God had come down in my little apartment and tore my "Christianity" into pieces. From then on I felt as though I did not know ANYTHING! I had to start all over and this time ask the Lord to guide me...This same friend that had been sharing these sermons and things with me introduced me to a book by A.W. Tozer called the "Knowledge of the Holy" and through this book I was re-intoduced to God, not the God of my imagination and of my customization, but the God of Scripture, Holy and Transcendent, yet Immanent and Omniscient. I had to repent so many times as I read this book, and I have never been the same...
As time passed, it was like God began to draw me twoards Himself in a way I had never experienced. The power of Scripture along withWasher's words and Tozer's writings resonated in my heart and mind and God began to work humility within me, I was afraid to open my mouth, afraid to speak of the things of God and it was God who never gave me a preaching opportunity during that time becaue I really had no clue as to what I would say. I knew Nothing. He slowly began cleaning out all the man-centeredness that I had hoarded up within me and He began to work repentance and faith. I began to study scripture in context, to see the God of scripture who wasnt hurting and waiting on man, but who was Sovereign and in control of all. Things like Justification, Repentance, Regeneration, and God's attributes were things that were consuming my study times and in my devotional times, I found the Psalms to be comforting and yet humbling - I would tremble before God wondering if He had even saved me, and how could such a sinner as myself ever stand before Him? I cried out for brokeness, grace and mercy because I had begun to see how sinful I was. I knew that without the Spirit giving me assurance and blowing as a wind upon my heart, I would be lost and no better than a cracked piece of pottery. I realized that God's goodness to me was not a reflection of how well I knew Him - for He rains on the just and unjust - but I saw that if I did not trust Him and believe on Him entirely with all, and if He did not rescue me by His grace, then I would just be another "professor" of Christianity, looking to be justified on the Great Day of Judgment because of my works.
Today, its like the scriptures have never spoken louder, The Spirit has never convicted stronger, and The Day of Judgment has never been so clear before my eyes. At the same time, Ive never felt more broken, and more appreciative of grace. Temptations, trials, and sins still knock upon the door of my heart, and whether they get in because of my frailness or because of my stupidity, I realize that my house will not fall because it is built upon the Rock of Christ and it is Him that will keep me from falling and failing. My prayer is like David's in Psalms 19:12-13 "Declare me innocent from hidden faults. Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins;let them not have dominion over me!" Everyday day and night there must be repentance, and every morning there will be joy and new mercies. I desire to have that Christianity that says that God must be glorified and praised in my life even if He sends me to hell at the end of the way. I must trust and cleave to Jesus Christ and kiss the Son or there is no hope for me and I will perish forever. All that I can do is to thank God for 24 years of Grace, and humbly pray that He would graciously bless with 24 more.
May God be glorified in this life....
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