So many things I want you to know. I didn’t have anyone to train me intimately. You cannot be left in the same lurch, making the same tired mistakes, and feeling defeated in the way I was.
Backstory
I accepted Christ as a girl. As I’ve written before, I clung to the edge of the pew every week before I finally found the courage to go up front and be baptized. And that only happened at 18, because I sat in the front on that crowded Easter Sunday without a pew to grip. I asked Jesus in my heart so many times I cannot tell you when I got saved. I walked the aisle as we say in Christian circles, AND I was baptized all in the same day as baptisms were that evening. My sister followed right after and so together with one of my good friends we got dunked. This year Easter falls on the same date – 22 years later.
Growing up watching my Christian family go to church, I wanted to be a doer of the word, not just a hearer. I hid judgement in my heart. Life was black and white. I didn’t understand the pressures of adulthood. I set myself up to become a legalist.
That same year, I left my small town and moved to Auburn. Bound and determined not to “fall into sin,” I got locked into the Baptist Campus Ministry (BCM) right away. Worship happened on Tuesdays; Bible study on Thursday. Sitting on the BCM in my Freshman Insight bible study, I heard for the first time that I wasn’t good. It was confusing and shocking. What do you mean we aren’t born good? For a girl who thought she was good all her life, I didn’t get it.
So I went to Bible study and then as a sophomore, I was discipled. The BCM used the MasterLife curriculum. My leader, two years my senior, had been my freshman bible study leader. We talked about deep and heavy things. I was in the Word. I memorized the verses. But I was a little bit missing Jesus. Without doubt, I knew him. He spoke into my heart, but all this discipleship while good and right was setting me up to fall hard into the pit of works based theology.
Lessons from the Pit
When I left Auburn, life became hard. God had always paved ways for me to be in ministry, but this time jobs across the country were not opening up for me. Moving to a big city to do inner city missions wasn’t working. I had to move home, and my dad had to get me a job. Birmingham was not where I wanted to be. I was the most lost I’d ever been. God was silent. The Word seemed to say nothing. My prayers fell on deaf ears. <—- None of those things were true, but they seemed true. Instead of relying on truth, I relied on my truth. My truth was based on feelings and Satan’s lies.
What I didn’t know then was how to live out the Christian life. It is shocking to me to think of all the time spent in discipleship, studying the Word, evangelizing, praying, doing missions, that I didn’t really know how to apply anything to my own life to live in victory.
So after saving knowledge of Jesus, I believe there are more important things to know before you go and make disciples.
- You must be a disciple before you make disciples.
- To be a disciple, you must know how to walk in victory. Sure you will fall again. But you need to know how to get out of the pit time and time again.
- Sharing the gospel to save others without knowing how to use the gospel to uplift your own self is wrong. In our glee to fulfill the Great Commission, we are hindering the Great Commission. <– not all may agree because you can get hung up on perfecting yourself before you share.
- To walk in victory, you have to know that you are a sinner. (Ro 3:23)
- As a sinner, you have to know that you will have thoughts that are not godly.
- In order to transform, you have to renew your mind. (Ro 12:2)
- To transform your mind, you have to know how to think on things that are true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, excellent, or worthy of praise. (Phil 4:8)
- In order to think thoughts as listed, you must know that the Word is all true, all the time, no matter how you feel.
- If you don’t know that His Word is sufficient for all things, you will never understand that his grace is all-sufficient.
- Until you know that the Word is sufficient, you will stay in the pit. You will not live victoriously.
You will stay in the pit until you know the Word is always true.
However, I am afraid that we don’t always know that His Word is enough. For years, I read the Word dutifully and my heart was hard because God didn’t seem good to me. Just because He didn’t feel good didn’t mean that He wasn’t good. But I went around for years reading that way. The Word says _____________, but I say God does not do _____________ for me, so God must not really be ______________. For example, I was depressed and I read David’s letters of lament in the psalms. I would identify, but never with the part where David turns his heart toward God.
Currently, I am taking a biblical counseling class on marriage and family. It is rocking my world! I have heard people say all my life that the Word is there for all things in your life. But usually that meant if we want to know about marriage, we look up verses on marriage. However, as I am learning, there are lots of verses that apply to marriage in the Bible that are not specifically written about marriage. This is where at least in my life, I had not been adequately trained. And yet, too, I’m also known for taking the word and applying to life situations as a write. It’s kinda funny the way we enter into new Spirit knowledge and revelation.
So next time, when you are moping in your faith, read Psalm 103. It lists the Lord’s benefits. Read it not like the Lord doesn’t do this for me, read it as if He already has given you these things, even if you do not see it yet. He forgives all sin, heals all disease (the disease of self), redeems you from the pit, crowns you with love and mercy, and satisfies you with good. You don’t have to stay in the pit. He makes known his ways and his acts. He can be known. 🙂 He’s been so good to me. Let it be the same to you, dear friend.
I’ve loved our couch time today.
Until next time,
A kindred friend
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