In 2 Timothy 4:7 the Apostle Paul wrote to his young disciple these encouraging words, "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith." This is the burning desire of my heart and it has been for sometime.
In the last two devotionals I have tried my best to show you that when you live out your faith and invest your life in others, you never know whose life you are affecting for the gospel inadvertently. God used everyday people to bring me to Christ and to mature me in my faith.
After graduating from West Memphis High School in 1979, I enrolled at what was then called Memphis State University as a newspaper journalism major because I had already had two years of sports writing experience at my local paper and I figured by the time I got out of school I could pretty much have my pick of sports writing jobs but God had different plans.
Once on campus I got involved at the Baptist Student Union, a Southern Baptist ministry for college students. I believe it is called Baptist Campus Ministries now (I love being Southern Baptist but for some reason the leadership loves to change the name of their various organizations). It was there I was able to use my gifts and build relationships with great Christian people, which I hold and cherish to this very day. It was the summer of 1981 that I was selected by the Home Mission Board as a summer missionary to Michigan. It was there I felt God called me to the ministry. Initially I thought it was foreign missions but I eventually learned it was being a pastor/teacher. At the start of my senior year my entire world changed for the better. It was then I met my eventual wife, Kathy. I fell for her almost the moment I saw her. Initially I was attracted to her because of her outward beauty but I grew to love her passionately because of her spiritual beauty.
Within the year I asked her to marry me and thankfully for me she, for some reason, said yes. I went off to Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Ft. Worthy for two years while she was completing her degree in the University of Memphis. I transferred back to Memphis and got married August 15, 1987 and completed my Masters of Divinity at Mid-American Baptist Theological Seminary.
Then from June of 1990 to May of 1997 I tried to pastor four different churches and while they all grew I was asked to leave each one for different reasons. None were moral reasons or theological reasons, thankfully. After the last heart breaking church I just didn't have it in me anymore to be a pastor. I had two little girls and I didn't want them to grow up hating the church just because some people were mean to their daddy.
During those almost eight years of trying to be a faithful pastor, notice I didn't say perfect pastor, and without going into detail, I got beaten up pretty bad and I beat myself up even worst. I feel sorry for the wonderful people at Central Baptist Church in Jonesboro, AR who had to deal with a very spiritually beaten up me after I left the pastorate. I pray I did more good than bad but now looking back I was pretty damaged. I just didn't know it.
While those four pastorates ended badly, I knew that to be a follow of Jesus means being faithful to His call and that means, if nothing else, being faith inside the local church.
Ephesian 5 talks of the church as being His bride and I knew that despite what I went through if I was going to be a good minister and model to my wife and two girls I had to be faithful to Christ in His local church and that is what I tried to do. Sometimes I was successful and sometimes not so much.
In the next 14 years I was a regular church member, at Central Baptist in Jonesboro and then Bellevue Baptist in Memphis, it was my primary desire to lead the family that God gave me on how to be a faithful Christian inside the local church. Not to quit just because someone did or said something. So many times I have heard people say that they don't go to church anymore because of the actions of someone else.
One of the things I have taught anyone who would listen is this: To love Christ with all your heart, soul and might means NEVER allowing your circumstances dictate your obedience to Christ. What that means is no matter what any body else in the world is doing around you, that doesn't give us to excuse not to be obedient to the One who loved us and gave Himself to us. NEVER.
Whenever I tell people some of the stories of what happened to me in some of those four church the usual response is "Man if that happened to me I wouldn't ever join or go to another church ever." I would be lying if I said it didn't cross my mind sometimes but Hebrews 10: 24-25 says, "and let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near." So I would just tell people to be faithful to Christ at least means be faithful in His local church because it is His Bride and it is through the local church that Christ primarily uses to honor and glory God through the fellowship, worship and witness of His followers.
The object lesson for today is finish well in your Christian life. Don't let circumstances dictate your obedience to Christ. If you have been hurt by other Christians in the church or by pastors or ministers, I completely understand and hurt with and for you but don't allow Satan to gain a strangle hold in this area of your life. You are more than conquerors in Christ (Romans 8:37).
At the end of our life we will all meet God to give an answer for our life. The key is do we want to meet with the Sovereign Lord of the Universe with some lame excuse why we weren't faithful to Him or do we at least want to say like Paul, "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith."
Never let circumstances dictate your obedience. Finish strong.
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