Baptism Speech

Tonight I was baptized at Riverlakes Community Church in Bakersfield California. In order to be baptized I had to participate in baptism classes and prepare a testimony to give in front of the church body. The following is the speech that I prepared but as I was getting ready for my turn I decided to give it from the heart. Hopefully I will be able to post the video of my actual baptism soon and you can see what I wanted to say and what it sounded like from the heart.

Baptism Speech

I grew up in a Christian family and we attended church regularly. As I got older, I became separated from Christ. I quickly latched on to societies’ definition of success and began the endless and unfulfilling pursuit of empty goals. Moreover, my definition of success for any one day could be anything and tomorrow I could be off to the races by a completely different definition. I have had a really interesting life; I have owned a couple of different companies, traveled a little, and had a relatively good life. Not too long ago, I went through a tough time in a difficult relationship that really made me question the way I was living my life. So I tried to remember the last time that I was truly happy, and happy being me but I could not remember when. With the support of close friends and especially my mom, I rekindled my relationship with God and Jesus Christ.

And this very moment is an example of what my life is like with Christ. Before I would have been bolting for the door or having a panic attack but I stand before you now professing my commitment and faith in Jesus Christ.

There are two difficult and important truths we have to understand in our lives. First, is that we have to learn to trust God explicitly. No matter what happens, God will never turn away from us and He will, if we let him, make us happy and successful. The second truth is that we will face many, many trials, and some of those trials will hurt us deeply, and in our moments of deepest despair, we have to remind ourselves that we will not turn away from He who loves us most. And I can attest to this personally, that in my darkest hour, I kept repeating to myself “I will not turn away”, I was delivered to the dawn of a new life. And what a beautiful day it was.

Today I live my life on God’s inspiration, peacefully waiting in the dark for Him to reveal the next step. There is no worldly pursuit that is so critically important anymore that supercedes waiting on God’s plan and spending time with friends. I wanted to be baptized today to demonstrate my commitment to my walk with Jesus Christ and as an affirmation that no matter how difficult life seems, I will never turn away.

Forgiveness

Forgiveness is essential to physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health. Holding on to negative experiences from the past hurts me, perpetuating the damage done by the original offense. What did Jesus have to say about forgiveness?

“Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, "Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?" Jesus answered, "I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times” (Matthew 18:21-22, NIV version).

But what does forgiveness actually mean? According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary online, forgiveness means to “give up resentment of or claim to requital for” or to “cease to feel resentment against (an offender).” That sounds great, right? It sounds simple. Just give up a claim and to stop resenting the offender! No problem. Not exactly! Let’s first think about forgiveness as a process. It is a linear process, meaning it follows a straight line. In the ideal, from the offender or sinner’s perspective, it happens like this:

Confess -> Repent -> Request -> Accept

These sound like religious or “churchy” words, but what do they really mean?
Here are the definitions:

Confess = to acknowledge or admit
Repent = to feel regret
Request = to ask
Accept = to receive willingly

The result is that the event or issue is forgotten or at least not brought up again. That’s the ideal. It sounds great!!!! But in the human realm, the ideal is rarely achieved. Why? For major offenses, the human tendency is to skip the last step and make the process circular, rather than keeping it linear. It looks something like this:


Let’s look at an example. Suppose I intentionally stepped on Jenny’s foot. First I would need to realize I had done something wrong, then I would have to be willing to admit it. At that point I can enter the process by going to Jenny, telling her that I stepped on her foot intentionally and that I feel really bad about it and I can ask for her forgiveness. Assuming she forgives me, the ideal is for me to accept the forgiveness, let it go and move on. In the circular process, instead I would not believe that Jenny really forgave me and I would go back to telling her what I had done, in a slightly different way, like “no, really, I stepped on your foot on purpose and I’m really sorry. Please forgive me.” At that point Jenny may begin to be irritated that I have not just dropped the issue.

Following a circular process is destructive and unhealthy. While stepping on another person’s foot is an offense, when I think about the really big offenses or sins in my past, it is easy to be so horrified and overwhelmed with regret. Even if I have taken it to God in prayer, admitted what I’ve done, expressed my regret and remorse and asked His forgiveness, it is sometimes very difficult to reach the step of accepting forgiveness. Instead, when I recall the situation I tend to go right back to confess and start the process again. That grieves God’s heart. It shows we don’t actually believe Him. We don’t take Him at His Word.

But why do we do this? At the core, it is self-centeredness. We tend to think our own “stuff” is much worse than other’s stuff. We think our sin is too big, too awful or unforgiveable. In a sense, by not accepting God’s forgiveness, we are suggesting we are equal with God or beyond His ability to forgive. Rather than believing God’s promise, we are rebelling against Him.
So how do we accept forgiveness? It’s another linear process!
Believe->accept->let it go (if it comes into your thoughts, deny it space!)

Final suggestion:

Resist any temptation to let past sin influence your present….thoughts, feelings, or behavior.
Instead you are free to be who God created you to be!!!! Then we can more readily become the forgiver when others offend us (more on this later).

Luke 7:47-50
“Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—for she loved much. But he who has been forgiven little loves little."… verse 50 Jesus said to the woman, "Your faith has saved you; go in peace."

Quick Thoughts: Inspired?

This is going to be just a short post but I wanted to share some thoughts as the day is getting started. Very often we have terrible days where we let the bonds of being human drag our emotions through the mud. Further, when events happen to us, be it work stress, relationships, or our own thoughts (most of the time) it drags us back into this belief that this world is about us and serving our own purpose. We constantly need to remind ourselves that our lifetime is a small drop in the bucket compared to eternity and we should put aside our own self-interest to live out God's purpose. So, I will leave you with two thoughts that help put me in the right place. First, everyday is a new day. No matter how poorly yesterday went today is the dawn of a new chance to live our lives. Second, try to look at everyone you encounter with the same love you have for a brother or a sister. Recognize that they too have hurts and pains and see if you can ease their burden if only by listening. Then, and only then, will we be able to see them in a light of compassion. I hope you all have an inspired day!!

Jesus Take the Wheel

Jesus take the wheel
Take it from my hands
‘Cause I can't do this on my own
I'm gonna let it go
So give me one more chance
To save me from this road I'm on
Jesus take the wheel

This song, performed by country star Carrie Underwood, describes a situation where a woman driving home for Christmas has a near-accident because she was driving too fast. When the car finally came to a stop she reconciled with God admitting she had been living her life too fast and with little faith.

We too are passengers in a car with God. We are the passengers and God is driving us to eternal happiness through a relationship with him. But what is the meaning of true relationship or friendship? True friendship is founded on trust. We trust our friends with our deepest emotions and desires. The interesting part is that our friends sometimes don’t act like our friends. They will sometimes pursue their own interest even if it causes us a great deal of pain. And many of us will have very few true friends in our lifetime. The most interesting realization is that we are more than willing to trust our human friends with our feelings and emotions but we will not give them to God, who is not sabotaged by imperfection. However, if we are to seek true happiness, we have to have faith in God and let Him lead us there. So, what is your biggest obstacle for achieving your own happiness? It is you. We are the reason that we are not happy because we refuse to trust God with our lives. We constantly want to reach over from the passenger side of the car and take the wheel from Him thinking that we can do it better and that we know what we want. But ask yourself this: How have you done so far driving the car? I can honestly say that when I have jerked the wheel from God my track record has been everything but perfect. And the sad part is we do this to ourselves because we want to be in control. But God has a plan for us, and every time we jerk the wheel and head down a destructive path, He lovingly gets us back on the road.

We tend to self-sabotage ourselves by not trusting God with our happiness. Why do we do this? There are many reasons why we do this and I will cover them in more detail in later posts but for now, suffice it to say that there are two central reasons that prevent us from fully trusting in God. The first reason is that many do not really know God and have a personal relationship with Him. We have not truly experienced Him. Many of us go to church every Sunday to hear the word of God but how many of us take that home and practice it in our daily lives? God loves us and He wants us to be happy. The second reason we have trouble trusting God is that we feel we know ourselves better than He knows us. We think we know what will make us happy and we think we know what we need to do to achieve it. When given an opportunity to do something on our own, we will always take it.

So how can we fix this? First, we have to recognize that God is sovereign, that He is good, and that He wants us to be happy. Psalm 56:11 says, “in God I have put my trust, I shall not be afraid.” Having trust is one of the most difficult tasks that we encounter. It takes a long time to develop and can be broken in a second. But we can trust God because he wants nothing more than for us to know Him and have a relationship with Him. His love for us is perfect and cannot be sabotaged. And just like our parents want the best for us, God wants us to be happy and successful. In fact, He wants this so much that He is willing to tolerate the times when we take control of the car to our own downfall and suffering and He suffers sadness with us. So, what can we do in our daily lives to have more trust in Him and His perfect plan for us? We have to pray often for His guidance and recognize that we will inevitably find ourselves in bad situations where we will make bad decisions. He wants to help us and guide us, and He wants us to ask Him! Secondly, we should sign a contract with God and commit to living His purpose and having trust in Him. This does little more for God other than make him smile, but for us, it signifies our absolute commitment and resolve to trust Him with our life. Think of it like this. Imagine the person you trust most in this world and then take away all of their flaws and imagine that all they want from you is a relationship and your eternal happiness. Such is your relationship with God! He simply wants you to trust Him.