My Short
Story
This is a confession, my confession of being a lawless Christian.
I became a Christian in December –January of 1974-1975; I was living in Jamul, Calif. with my aunt and her family. She was a Christian and regularly went to Church, on my 23rd birthday in December I thought I would go to Church with my aunt’s family, what the heck? Only my 13 year old cousin, Michelle went that day, so my aunt dropped us off. My cousin went to her Sunday School class and I went to the adult class. Everyone was friendly, it was a small group, I don’t remember if it was taught by the Pastor or Elder but I did not get anything out of it. Then during the worship and main service taught by Pastor George Runyan I still did not get anything out of it. No great revelation of me being a sinner and CHRIST being The Savior. But I felt like I belonged and so I kept going. By March I was a water baptized, SPIRIT filled believer in JESUS CHRIST. GOD delivered me from smoking, drinking and drugs, but I did not let go of sexual sin of which I always felt guilty. During that 4 months I met Charlene, the woman of my dreams, literally but that’s for another time.
About 15 years later, I have 3 years of Bible College and 10 years of teaching in our Church and things are going well for us even though I still have my sexual sin (lawlessness). Pastor George and his wife Becky invite Charlene and I to dinner where he asks me to consider becoming a Pastor. I refuse because I am a teacher and I do not want the responsibilities of pasturing (lawlessness).
About the 20 year point our Pastor’s ministry evolves into a city ministry pasturing other pastors and he steps down from the pulpit to focus on his calling and our Church breaks up. At this time Charlene and I have a personal injury to our marriage and I felt abandoned by the Church, so I stopped serving GOD. Charlene and I went to several Churches during my 17 years of rebellion and our gifts and callings still worked (they are without repentance) but the longer I stayed in my sin of rebellion the further I got from GOD. Our lives and marriage were cycling down when after 15 years of my rebellion Charlene heard that Pastor George was teaching at a local Church so we went for a visit. He was only teaching the adult Sunday School for a short period of time and then he moved on. But we met Pastor Chris Leeper and his wife Carlene. Over the next couple of years we were infrequent visitors and sometimes went to their home fellowship. In 2013 I felt GOD calling me to repentance, in my Bible reading I came across a passage I had read dozens of times in my life but never applied to my life, Matthew 7:21-23. That time it jumped out at me and I knew that if I was judged at that time I would go to hell!
Over the past 9 years GOD has been restoring our desire to serve Him, our marriage and prayerfully now our health so that we can complete His Call for our life.
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