God bless everyone who is joining me on my journey to ministry! I have been through many tribulations in my life and spent much of my life blind and not knowing the Lord. Now it is my greatest hope to walk in the ways of God and through bible study, minister to the children of God as Paul did. I claim no advanced knowledge of God or prophesy, nor have I spent the majority of my years in religious study. I am not an ordained minister and have not attended any seminary school. You may be asking yourself, why should I keep reading? It reads in 1Corinthians 1:27-28 “But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chose, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are.” And in Matthew 11:25 “At that time Jesus answered and said, ‘I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them to babes.” My purpose for these writings is not for reputation, money or recognition I am just hoping that I may bring one soul to Christ. The inspiration to write these pages came to me in what I would consider my darkest hour, when the scales were removed from my eyes and I felt that this was a purpose God had for me. To reach out to my brethren in an honest bible study that meshes my experiences and thoughts with scripture. As Paul said in 2Corinthians 12:9 “And He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” So here is my infirmity resume.
I was abandoned as a child (which turned out to be for my own good) by those who were supposed to love me. I was adopted by an amazing and supportive Christian family. I walked through most of my life however, with a chip on my shoulder and could not explain its origin. I spent most of my adolescent days with drugs and alcohol. I felt back then that my companions were as much my family as my real family. In these adolescent years I had contemplated suicide, gone through therapy and rehabilitation. I am a college graduate that has been both married and divorced. I have suffered through a custody battle, a bankruptcy, repossession, a cancer diagnosis, unemployment, incarceration, public humiliation and the loss of my wife and children; all before age forty. I have moved nearly 20 times in my lifetime and have spent the majority of my life hovering around the poverty level and sometimes below it. I am a father of children varying in age. I have lost loved ones for many reasons including suicide, accidental death, malpractice and terminal illness. I have spent the majority of my life believing that there is a God but making no effort to know him. When it came to religion I spent most of my time playing the devil’s advocate by questioning and testing other people’s faith. I was an outspoken advocate against organized religion and always viewed religion as a private path that is catered to the individual.
In spite of all the tribulations and trials in my life, I have no doubt that God loves me and was with me all the while. Throughout my whole life I felt inside me a comfort that would come to me in my darkest hours, to give me hope and make me feel that everything was going to be alright. In my defining moment as a Christian the Lord made it clear to me that I was not fulfilling my purpose and it was time for some tough love in order to bring me to Him. I thank the Lord that my stubbornness melted away in that moment and His message to me was clear. One of the great lessons I learned was that living my life for the Lord was a way of life and not a lifestyle. I feel these writings may be the first step in my journey to fulfilling the Lord’s purpose for me. My mission is to inspire or help one person along the way. It may also be God’s purpose that the person I help and inspire is I and for that I would be blessed also. I feel that I need to write under a pseudonym to ensure that all the credit for these writings remain with God. As it reads in James 1:27 “Keep oneself unspotted from the world.”
I am starting these writings off with the last chapter of the From Saul to Paul writings located at servantsjourneytoministry.wordpress.com. I feel it is a good connecting chapter because it leads us into Doctrines of Division which is a follow up to From Saul to Paul and will place us in the right mindset. I encourage you to experience this journey from the beginning at the above link.
Doctrines of Division 