I was raised in Atlanta in a nominal Christian home. When I was very small we attended a local Southern Baptist church. The "old people in power" at that church ran off the pastor that my mom liked and we quit going. My parents never went to church regularly again.
Occasionally, I would go to church with my grandmother. She attended another SBC in the area. I remember listening to Charles Stanley on her tape player when I was young. When I was about 13, I went with her to a Billy Graham Crusade. I walked the aisle and said the "Sinners Prayer." I figured I was good and my "ticket out of hell was purchased!"
I had no subsequent discipleship, growth, or passion for God. I doubt now that I was ever saved.
I was a moral enough teenager. I did some bad things but the outside world would have thought I was a "good boy." When I joined the Marines, that changed.
I spent my military years in a bad place...sin upon sin. During this time I would study Christianity and the other religions, I would have identified as Christian if someone asked, but I was really just a Moralistic Deist.
When I left the military, I came back to GA and moved in with my family. Shortly after that I met a girl who loved God and she introduced me to her friend, a pastor who was able to answer my serious questions about Jesus and the ressurection.
In April 2005, I came to faith and I was baptized. I got married to that girl who loved Jesus and we were attending a local neo-charismatic church. I was all about some tongues and some Holy Spirit! Slowly, it clicked for me that the things I was learning at that church were different than what I was reading in Scripture.
I was hurt, we left that church and began attending a SBC. To counter-balance my initial charismatic side, I delved into evidential apologetics. I became filled with a head knowledge of what the Word said, but I was still in a selfish and sinful place as I resisted the power of the Gospel in transforming my heart.
I was brash and arrogant. I used my new understanding of Reformed teaching the same way I used apologetics...to hit people over the head with doctrine and truth. I had little love.
My wife and I went through a rough patch. I was a poor leader and a poor father. We had divorce papers drawn up when God spoke to her. She showed me grace and we reconciled.
Through the difficulties of my marriage, I came to understand the Gospel. I came to see how all that we do for truth must be rooted in love. I came to a realization of the things that had to die within me so that I could be a biblical man.
We left the SBC church to get a new start. We attended a PCA church for a year before finding our spiritual home, Momentum Christian Church.
I have spent the last 3 years in a phase of slow growth. Over time, and by the grace of God, I am maturing in my wisdom, my compassion, and my role as a leader for my wife and kids.
I still fail alot. I struggle with internal sin much more now, as I have cut out the most of the external behavioral aspects of my depravity. I fight against pride as I gain more knowledge and more recognition within my local body. I struggle against selfishness as I try and juggle work, a wife, and three small children. I struggle with lust as all men do.
I need your prayers and your recognition that anything good I do is only because of our merciful and loving Father. He deserves all the glory for who I have become and am becoming.
Soli Deo Gloria,
Jason
