Like most Christians,I was raised in a fake faith home.Everyone in my family assumed they were Christians without ever making any meaningful attempt to discover what being a Christ-follower really meant.Yes we attended church but none of us realized that it was a faith pretend church.
Like most true Christians I didn’t attain faith until I experienced a major problem and really thought that I needed God in my life.For me it was a career decision.My father was putting a great deal of pressure on me to join the military and although I was very patriotic,I had grave doubts about the zest for war that the American military had.For the first time in my life I thought that because this was a moral decision,I would ask God for an answer.So I started asking Him on a regular basis,”is war justified”.I guess He was really surprised to learn that I was suddenly interested in His opinion for the first time in my life.That probably explains why He didn’t answer me for months.Maybe He was waiting to see if I would lose interest in Him as I had my whole life up to that time.But I thought I needed His input to help me make such an important career decision so I kept asking.
One morning I was loafing around the house and all of a sudden these words popped into my mind,”sermon on the mount”.I didn’t have the slightest idea what those words meant so I just put them out of my mind.But they kept returning.Over and over again.I kept dismissing the words from my mind but a few minutes later they came right back.Finally out of curiosity I thought I would look the words up in a Bible since one word that kept entering my mind was “sermon”.I found an EXTREMELY OLD Bible on our bookshelf,printed decades before Bibles were published with study aids in them.However this Bible had what looked like a complete alphabetical index in it and sure enough it had an entry named “sermon on the mount”.Even better it told me what page to go to in order to find whatever this thing was.If it listed the location by chapter and verse I would have never found it because I had absolutely no clue how to look up verses using the Bible’s location system.
So I sat down to find out what this mysterious sermon on the mount was all about.As I read it I fell into an increasingly deeper and deeper state of shock that lasted literally for days.EVEN WITH ALL MY YEARS OF CHURCH ATTENDANCE,I NEVER HAD BEEN TOLD ABOUT THESE TEACHINGS!”Love your enemies”? WHAT? I had always been taught to attack and destroy them,the mission of the military.I walked around in a confused daze for several days not really knowing what to think.Three days latter, suddenly for a period of 45 minutes, a whole flood of ideas kept entering my mind explaining why war was morally sick and why “Do good to those who hate you” actually was a practical way to live for both individuals and nations.There was no more doubt or confusion in my mind any longer.I now knew God’s position on military service.The very next day I received the Baptism of the Holy Spirit ! At long last,after so many years, I was a Christian!! I then proceeded to turn the 45 minute explanation God gave me into a one hour lecture that was then presented in numerous churches.
Oh and you remember that EXTREMELY OLD Bible? Well a few months later I tried to look up something else in that Bible.IT DIDN’T HAVE ANY ALPHABETICAL INDEX! It only had one when I really needed it!