The pilgrimage for me has been forty years so far. Oh if I had known how difficult it would be at times! I will tell a new believer of the cost of discipleship....but I generally clam up on the difficulty of discipleship as the years and decades roll on....for there are and will be so many times when the believer justs wants to quit....our weaknesses getting the best of us....but Christ is there if we but look to Him....to lift us up....gently at times....but abruptly when necessary....to stand us on our feet that we might press on!
I am thankful for the ten years that God had given me in Pentecostalism....an Assembly of God to be specific. They had their strengths....to go along with their errors. They knew that Jesus was about to return....whereas today we are much too intelligent to believe that. This was the 1980s....I don't know how much it has changed....but they actually knew that one had to be....born again....and they would look at loved ones and see them perishing. That is no longer the case....for we no longer can look at someone and discern that they are lost....that would be judgmental.
The time came though when I knew that I would have to leave. I was on a short-term mission trip in Paraguay when it came to a head. The Paraguayan Christians were wonderful....the worship services were loud and joyous....but something important was missing. Walking the main street of a small town one evening....in 100 degree heat....music playing and lights flashing....offset only a few yards from the street....was a Baptist church....its doors open in the sweltering heat....and a golden aura surrounding people gathered in a circle.....praying. Not that pentecostals do not pray....for they certainly do....but the contrast here was strong. I wanted that seriousness....and I came home and looked for it.
I wound up in a small....about a dozen people....Southern Baptist mission church....and with the help of MacArthur and R. C. Sproul....and particularly Michael Horton of the White Horse Inn....and Christian bookstores which we do not have anymore....stores that sold the Puritans....I started my education on the 16th century Reformation....leading into England's Puritanism....and John Bunyan. I was about fifteen years into my Christian walk by then....and thought that I knew all that there was to know....but would find out that that was not the case....by a longshot.
My pastor at the time....a Presbyterian church now....was from another century....the 17th century.....and I sat in that church....enraptured by his preaching of our glorious Lord and Savior....for ten years....until he left. This is when my wife and I opened our own Christian bookstore....and I began to write in earnest....so it has been at least twenty-five years now that I would write....like I'm doing now....always trying to find some new way to disseminate the thoughts....and always humbled in that God would continue to have mercy upon me.
So....how do you begin to tell a new believer or inquirer what might be ahead for them? Well....I just did it.....I put it in this little story....and hope that it doesn't scare anyone away. It's 9 o'clock in the morning and I already had a long conversation with a Christian brother....a charismatic....but so obviously born again that we never talk without him praising his Lord and Savior. He has a tendency to go off on tangents....I know so well where he is coming from....for I had been there. I don't know where his continuing discipleship will lead....but we are in spite of our differences....brothers in Christ.....redeemed by a gracious and merciful Savior....and therein is the unity that we need today....based on humility....willing to change if we discern God's Holy Spirit so telling us....loving our brothers and sisters in Christ....but not failing to warn when it is needed....when false prophets come into the flock....when the gospel is being distorted.
Gordon Lightfoot wrote the song...with its beautiful melody and sad words in 1964....and recorded it...as later did Peter, Paul and Mary....and Elvis....and Bob Dylan....and Judy Collins.....and others.....Early Morning Rain...the lyrics of which begins with this....
With an aching in my heart and my pockets full of sand
I'm a long way from home, Lord, I miss my loved ones so
In the early morning rain with no place to go.
I had to laugh....I have been raking leaves for weeks now....and they were piled up high in front of our house....It's not 9 a.m.....and it is raining....but I went out and dragged a few more loads out to the street. No sooner had I came in....but the vacuum truck came by. That is our Christian life also....we do not know when Jesus will come....or when the day will be too dark to call people in to the great banquet. Today it is raining in America....but there is work to be done....people walking aimlessly on the byways....with an aching in their heart....and no place to go....in need of hope....in need of truth....in need of Christ.
