Not WHAT or HOW MUCH but WHO! - Pt 3

By the time Piper and I both came home after attending a year at Chico State University in the fall of 1974, I was working full-time at Sears and developing a photography business on the side.  Piper enrolled at the SRJC in their Early Childhood Development program and was also soon employed as an intern teacher at a local Pentecostal church’s large pre-school.

From then on, I was pretty much attending her Baptist church full-time and we were fully ensconced in their services, events and outreaches.  We were there just about every time they opened their doors.  A church event did not seem complete until my little black MGB and her red Pinto woody wagon were parked next to each other in the church parking lot!  And besides her church’s activities, we had also branched out and become involved in some community charismatic meetings.

At Chico we had joined both the Christian College group InterVarsity and the Catholic Newman Center and regularly attended their events.  During that time Piper had given me my first complete Bible.  It was a large orange covered New American Standard Bible.  I still didn’t know very much about the Bible at that time, but I sure felt self-important with that big book that I proudly carried to church and our college group meetings as we walked around campus together.  But as I’ve mentioned in past blogs… I was drawn to that book in a special way.  At times it almost felt like it was calling my name!

The first thing I did – and continued to do for many years later with every new Bible I picked up – was to put a tab on the Table of Contents page so that I could quickly find the book of the Bible that was being taught or preached on… without looking like I didn’t know where it was!  That book got a lot of use over the years that we dated.  Today it is a WELL-WORN tattered, stained and torn book that still get some regular looksie’s.  In the first year of our marriage, Piper surprised me and presented me with a hand-made (machine sewn... I had given her a sewing machine for our 1st Christmas), custom blue jeans Bible cover for my orange book, that she designed and sewed, complete with pockets front and back.  So now the book was not only special to me but COOL as well!

In those days and months leading up to our wedding, Piper’s and my conversations over our faith continued, but I began to notice that many of the scriptures she talked about, spiritual thoughts we shared and even the Christian lingo people spoke in the foyer of their beautiful church, that used to seem foreign to me… was suddenly beginning to make sense to me… and I not only enjoyed hearing it, but also being a part of the family of God.  It was then that I began to feel a real connection between me and Jesus Christ… the “Mystery Man” of my childhood, was also becoming very familiar to me!

I never responded to all the different “Altar Call’s” that were made in the many services we attended because I always felt that I was already a Christian.  But I clearly recall one night a few weeks prior to our wedding day when Piper and I had been to a special service.  After I had dropped her off at her home (complete with a few… okay… maybe more than just a few… good night kisses) I could literally feel what I would later learn was the presence of God in my MGB as I drove back to my parent’s place.

I can’t even explain the way I felt, except to say that the atmosphere in that little two-seater was charged with an energy of peace and joy that I had never experienced before.  It was slightly similar to… but yet 100 times better and stronger, than the night I asked Piper to marry me (in that car… I know… very romantic…) some two years before!

I was thankful that my parents had already retired for the evening as I stumbled in the front door and down the long hallway to my bedroom.  I don’t think that I even turned the light on, but closed the door and threw myself onto my bed where I began to quietly worship the Lord!  After a while, I finally stopped talking and singing to the Lord and just laid on my back with a big smile on my face.  Then I suddenly got serious and said “Lord, I’ve always believed that I was saved, but tonight I want to make sure.”

The Apostle Paul tells us the exact formula to get right with God in Romans 10:9 where he declared, “that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and you believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved.” (EMTV)

So right then and there, laying on my back in my little twin bed, I closed my eyes and verbally confessed Jesus as the Lord and Savior of my life, while believing in my heart that Jesus had shed His blood for me on Calvary and died for my sins, and that God had raised Him from the dead, so that I could live forever with Him… totally cleansed and forgiven… as a born-again Christian.

I’m not sure if I actually got any sleep that night, but I couldn’t wait until the next day when I could tell Piper what had happened to me!  From that night on, I lived my life with a greater certainty of my present and future.  The Word of God written in the big jean covered Bible of mine began to take a greater and stronger place in my life.  And while I didn’t necessarily feel a great desire to hit the streets and tell people about Jesus, I did soon discover that I really enjoyed teaching others about Him. 

It’s when that creative gene in me began to bloom!  Both Piper and I wanted the people we had the honor to lead in Christian ministry, to come to know Jesus as a trustworthy, fun, rewarding, loving and all-inclusive, miracle working God with Whom they could ALWAYS depend on.  So, we tended to use a wide variety of teaching tools, drama, music, film and other fun methodologies by which to present the gospel of Jesus Christ.

But just like I had a whole live-time ahead to learn about, cultivate and make a wonderful life with my new wife, I also had a lot of things to learn and develop in my Christian life and within my personal relationship with Jesus Christ.  But don’t take that wrong… it was to be a VERY GOOD thing… and the best was yet to come!

Have a great new week, stay tuned for part 4 in our series on it’s:

 “Not WHAT or HOW MUCH but WHO”

…and as you do, keep expecting God’s best for your life!