To Pastors, and leaders.
Anyone who wants to make a difference.
Why I was a Christian yet hated Church
I grew up in church, my freshman year in high
school I was done with it, couldn't take the falseness anymore. I asked Jesus
into my heart in 2001 yet I always felt like an outsider by those who I thought
were my church family. I went to a church for something like 5 years! When my
parents left the church I was glad to go. Went to another church and fit in
great but something was missing, it was still the same kind of teaching, but I
always felt empty, I wasn't sure what kind of god I was living for, one Sunday
I hear how he's a loving god, the next Sunday I'm a dirty rotten sinner and god
hates me.
The first
time I ever heard God audibly it freaked me out, He didn't condemn me or tell
me how terrible I was, He just asked me if I trusted Him. Here I was living the
Christian life in front of my church friends, but when I wasn't around them I
was swearing, telling dirty jokes all that stuff. God had every right to
condemn me, but He didn't. He told me to trust Him, give my life to Him 100%
everything laid down, nothing held back. A God I didn't understand was telling
me all this, all of this He put in my heart and it never left, still to this
day. A verse in the Bible finally came clear to me (Proverbs 3:5) "Trust
in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understandings."
I didn't understand God, but it finally clicked that even though I didn't
understand who God was I was still supposed to trust Him. It was as if God was
telling me to step out onto a tight rope and only look forward, to not focus on
what I had done or couldn't stop doing but to only look at Him.
I was a
Christian suffering with suicide, and Christians everywhere commit suicide
every day. Why is that? Because in churches we're told that we're sinners and
that’s all we hear. So we live our lives feeling like we're forever separated
from God, so what’s the point of going through the motions, looking like the
perfect Christian if it doesn't get us any closer to God, what’s the point of
living.
See what
I struggled with was the fact that I couldn't cause harm to myself, I couldn't
even rip a bandage off my skin because it stung. So here I was, a Christian
with thoughts of suicide, didn't want to live this life anymore because I
didn't see myself as worth anything and I couldn't even kill myself. So I
thought about joining the military, seemed like a more noble way to go. I mean I
could picture in my head the headlines and everything, just messed up stuff.
All this while going to church, looking like I had everything together but each
night I would fall apart. It was during the quiet times that everything would
flood into mind, nothing but negativity, telling myself I wasn't worth
anybody's time.
I got out of that stinking
thinking when God asked me that question and opened my eyes to Proverbs 3:5,
granted it took a breakup with a girl I thought was the woman of my future for
me to sit on my floor in my bedroom, spit in Gods face and tell Him I wasn’t
going to do it. Cause I tried to give Him everything, and I thought He gave me
her in return cause my mom and dad always told me to seek first the kingdom of
God, and all those things I wanted would be added to me. But I lied to myself,
made myself believe that she was the one for me. I had one day of separation from
God, not even a full day. At around 4pm the next day I went back to the break-room
at the job I worked at, put my head on the table and told God I was sorry, that’s
all I had to do. He asked me again if I trusted Him, it was almost as if He
just needed a true response. Not the good Christian response I always gave of “yeah
Lord, of course I do” but an honest response “I don’t know if I can trust you,
I don’t know who you are. I need to know you before I can trust you” Proverbs
3:5 “but Lord how can you, a perfect God chase after an imperfect me!” John
3:16[my paraphrase] For God so loved me, that He gave His only son to be made
imperfect in place of me, so that through His(Jesus) perfection through the
shed blood, death, and resurrection I am made perfect. (2 Corinthians 5:21)
That’s why God was chasing after
me, because when I asked Him into my heart I was made perfect in the Spirit, it
wasn’t a perfect God chasing after an imperfect me, but a perfect God chasing
after a perfect me. Now my body(flesh), or soul is still imperfect, that’s where
the sinful desires come from and that’s where most of the church gets confused.
Most churches preach that we’re sinners saved by grace(Ephesians 2:8) which is
true, but they leave out the part of grace through faith, we have to believe it
to receive it for the grace to save us. When we believe it, have faith in it,
then the grace works, saves us, and we’re made new as the righteousness in Christ
Jesus. (2 Corinthians 5:21)
My parents started going to a
new church, smaller in size and I went a couple times but was too caught up in
the fact that it was a small church with no live music that I didn’t pay
attention to the message. One Sunday I finally did, and everything that God was
dealing inside of me this pastor was preaching. God gave me a direction to go
but I didn’t know where to begin, and this pastor opened up a whole new chapter
in my life through the message that He preached. God told me to go to a Bible
college, I had a new love for church and the pastor gave me a list of colleges
that taught the same stuff he was preaching. I looked at all of the options and
decided to check one out, Charis Bible College where I currently reside in Colorado
Springs, Colorado.
See what a message of Gods love can do? I
no longer struggle with suicide, and I love church. But most of all I know who
my savior is, it’s Jesus Christ. I didn’t get anything from church until I went
to the right church, the problem with that is every church should be the right
church to go to. People shouldn’t feel condemned or not welcome when they walk
into your church, they should be shown love, the love of God. God wills that
none perish, yet churches turn their backs on sinners when they walk into their
“holy” building. They shriek when they hear someone swear in their “holy”
building, like God hasn’t heard those words before, and when someone turns
their sexual desires against the Bible we kick them out of our church instead
of counseling them to find the root of those desires. Most times we just throw
the Book(Gods word) at them and tell them the popular phrase among Christians “God
created Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve”, I’m so tired of that line. No matter
how truthful it is, it’s beginning to grate on me. It’s our way of pulling the
stupid card on someone who is lost, like they don’t already know that.
We need to step up, step out, and be an
example to a lost and dying world!
We love to tell sinners that
God is a good and just judge, and we think that we’re omitted from some
truthful judging because we’re His kids. Any judge on this earth would have to
account His kid the same as a stranger. Can’t forget to mention this verse to
all you leaders in the church (James 3:1 Amplified version) “Not many [of you]
should become teachers ([a]self-constituted censors and reproves of others), my
brethren, for you know that we [teachers] will be judged by a higher standard
and with greater severity [than other people; thus we assume the greater
accountability and the more condemnation].” This includes Pastors, Teachers,
Evangelists, Prophets, and Apostles.
So the next time a gay or
lesbian walks into your church seeking refuge or advice, or a homeless man
looking for a warm meal, and maybe a teenager who has lip rings, tattoos, and
gauges in his ear needs help for an addiction, suicide, or cutting. Or a
pregnant teen girl thinking of abortion and can’t see any other way out of the
mess she’s in. Maybe, just maybe you’ll reach out your hand just as Jesus did,
and offer a refuge of safety, and comfort that will in turn save a life, instead
of just throwing the book at them. They already know the mess they’re in, the
last thing they need is for you to tell them how bad they really are.