Page 8 - Evidence of Things Unseen

Beginnings of Faith

do not think it is possible to begin a walk of faith until we come into a relationship with
Ithe Lord that to us is personal and intimate. It is one thing to confess Christ and believe
the things the Scriptures testify of Him, but it is quite another thing to enjoy a measure of
fellowship with Him. I had my first experiences in Christianity as a child growing up in
Portland, Oregon. My parents both became Christians when I was a small child, and we
began attending church where the man pastored who had witnessed to them of Christ.
The church I grew up in was a member of the Conservative Baptist denomination. Its
teachings were considered fundamental and evangelical, and I learned many things about
God and about His Christ while attending Sunday School, children’s church and the other
meetings held there. At the age of ten I was baptized, having confessed faith in Jesus Christ
as my Savior.
I have never doubted my conversion at this early age, and although I certainly had no
breadth of understanding of Christ, I did understand and believe in certain specific things.
I knew I was a sinner, and I knew that my sins had caused a separation between myself and
God. I also understood that Christ was the Son of God, that He had led a sinless life and had
died to pay the penalty of my sin. I believed that by trusting in His work of redemption that
I could be saved and go to heaven one day when I died.
This is about the extent of what I understood at the age of ten, and from that time
forward I learned other facts about Christ, about the Old Testament patriarchs, the children
of Israel, God’s law, and the lives of the disciples. What I did not learn about was a walk of
intimacy with the Lord where He would speak to me personally and where I could
commune with Him. I did not understand life in the Spirit at this time, but instead I was
raised to try to walk out in my own power a modified Christian version of the Old Testament
Law. This I found I could not do, and in my many defeats I was met with tremendous
feelings of guilt and failure.
When I was fifteen my family moved to the coast of Georgia, and a couple years later
we settled in Central Georgia. In my senior year in High School we began attending a
Southern Baptist church of about 150 members. The pastor’s name was Mac Goddard, and
it was under his preaching that I first began hearing a message of salvation of faith by grace,
rather than by works. Of course, I understood all along that Christ had died and risen again
that I might be saved, and that it was my faith in His finished work that provided my initial
salvation. But I had picked up the concept through the teachings I had been raised in that
I had to do something to remain saved. I was led to think that I had to keep the church’s
version of the Law, and that failure to do so could result in my being sent to hell for eternity.
Mac Goddard, through his consistent teaching of a message of grace, refuted these
ideas and for the first time I was able to come to a place of rest where I did not worry about
whether I was at that moment a child of God, or not. The message that God chose me, and
that He did so on the basis of His own mercy, not on works which I had done, allowed me
to attain to a measure of rest in my relationship with God that set the stage for future
fellowship with Him.
It took me considerable time to make the transition from a Law mentality to a grace
mentality, for a message of keeping the Law had been deeply ingrained in my mind, and
many of the things I did as a young Christian I did because I had been taught that it was the
Christian thing to do. I prayed because Christians were supposed to pray. I read the Bible