Welcome

Welcome to this new blog. My name is Joel. I was raised in a nominal church where I never heard the gospel. In fact, when I was going through confirmation class at the age of 12 I was eager to know about God. I asked many questions and received no answers. Why attend church. The peoples lives in that church were no different than the unchurched. After my high school years of drugs and no direction in life I joined the military. On May 30, 1980 I came under the crushing conviction of the Holy Spirit and heard the gospel for the first time in a military barracks at 2:00 AM. A fellow airman had just completed a personal evangelism course of study 5 days earlier. He had learned how to share the Gospel and I was his first convert. God revealed himself to me through His word, I repented of my sin with tears of sorrow and Christ Jesus saved me. It was a powerful transformation of the Damascus road type that the apostle Paul experienced. For the next 7 years my walk with God was intimate and powerful. During those 7 years I had close friends who I prayed with, shared scripture and had fellowship in sweet communion. After leaving the military and completing Bible College I took a position as an assistant pastor. That sweet one on one fellowship I had known for 7 years ended.

The pastor I served with is a wonderful man of God and a great preacher. And the congregation was very good to me. But the one on one fellowship was not present. I attempted to establish that fellowship to no avail. Nearly 3 years after arriving at the church I left in search of fellowship elsewhere. For 20 years I searched in vain. Church after church that I attended I found the manifest presence of God absent and the holiness of its people non-existent. I had the strangest experiences that could only involve the providence of God. Pastors would preach things they don’t believe and do things they don’t support when I was in the church meeting that day. My paths would cross with people I felt a kindred spirit with and God would take them from me. God shut down every attempt of me finding fellowship in and out of an established church. I will share more of these experiences in later posts.

During this 20 years of searching for fellowship my life was a microcosm of the Israelites in the old testament. I would seek the Lord and find repentance, rebel and fall into sin, God would chastise me and I would seek the Lord and find repentance. I repeated this cycle several times. However, like the Israelites the time I spent living in rebellion was more often than the time I spent in communion with God. I longed for fellowship and rebelled against God when I could not find it. For nearly a quarter of a century I also sought fellowship with my brother to no avail.

My brother was a very eccentric but brilliant person. Eric was seven years older than me so growing up he had little interest in his younger brother’s life. He was converted at age 16 in a youth revival meeting at a Wesleyan Church. My parents thought he took religion too far but in fact he became a true convert to Christ and not just a name on a church roll. My brother went to Bible College. I remember visiting him at college when I was about 13. I thought the people there were religious kooks. After I became a Christian I attended a Bible College much like the one my brother attended. My brother had a congenital defect that came to fruition in 1981 at the age of 27. At the time there was only one other known case in the world like his that left him in a wheel chair with excruciating crippling pain for 33 years. His condition was so rare he had experiments done on him at NIH, a federal research hospital, and his case was written up in the New England Journal of Medicine. Throughout those 33 years of suffering he kept the faith or shall I say the Lord kept him and Eric never questioned the sovereign will of God. He went on to earn a Masters degree in Classics studies. He loved studying the Greek New Testament and early church fathers and amassed a huge library of over 5,000 volumes.

Socialization and intimate conversation was very awkward for my brother. He was very introverted and calculated in his speech. Ever since I was a young pastor in the late 80’s I sought not only his friendship but fellowship. It was very difficult for him to let the barriers down even for his own brother. The last two years of his life he opened his heart and shared very personal things with me. It was not uncommon to spend 2 or 3 hours on the phone talking with him. We talked more in the last two years of his life than the previous 50 years combined. I finally found the fellowship that I sought with my brother for 25 years and God took him from me on Thanksgiving day 2014. I mourn his loss but rejoice that his journey to his heavenly home is complete and his suffering ended.

January of 1981, only 7 months after my conversion, I stood during a revival meeting at my church and gave a testimony. God had been dealing with me for three months. I had these haunting inescapable experiences whereby God was calling me to preach His word. I could pick up the newspaper and it read “Preach the Word”. I would pass a billboard sign and it would read, “Preach the Word”. I could turn on the radio and the voice would say, “Preach the word”. I dreamed about preaching and often it was glaring at me in devotional Bible reading time. When I rose and gave that testimony it went something like this, “I don’t understand what it’s all about. I’m still new in this Christian life but I feel that God is calling me to preach”. The pastor got a big grin on his face and a few people shouted, “praise God”. Several Godly people in the church approached me afterward and said, ”We're not surprised”. The sweetest older couple in the church came to me and said, “We’ve known for some time now and we’ve been waiting for you to acknowledge it”. It brings tears to my eyes right now as I type this. I am not worthy of this calling but it’s of God and I can't deny it.

My brother’s death has been an epiphany for me. I have come to a clearer understanding that for 30 years I invested my tears and passion in finding earthly fellowship when all along God was calling me to Himself. I long for social interaction and human fellowship and have placed too much emphasis upon these earthly desires though natural they may be. I have expected too much from people instead of enjoying the inheritance of God. When the Hebrew children went into possess the land of Canaan God divided up the land among the tribes. Every tribe got a piece of the promised land except Levi. God told them in Deut. 10 and 18:1 that God Himself would be their portion and their inheritance. God alone is my inheritance and I must tread this path with Him.

One of the last sermons I preached before leaving the pulpit in 1991 was a message about life in the wilderness. Little did I know that God would lead me into a wilderness for the next 25 years. During that time of sinful wanderings the call of God never left me. It sometimes haunted me with great dread. Yet, I always felt that God was not finished with me and would one day restore me into fellowship with Him and service to His Kingdom.

I have no expectations of what may come of this blog. I do know that some of what I will blog will not be well accepted. Most people in the church today are comfortable with familiar customs and notions that have no basis in the scripture. I will address some of these issues. The main thrust of this blog will be to call the church to holiness. When one is saved they are sanctified and set apart by God to be His children. We are not only declared holy by God but we are commanded to BE HOLY as HE is Holy.

My hearts desire is that the reader will have a burning in their heart along with me to love the Lord with all their heart, mind , soul and strength and their neighbor as themselves. This is the greatest commandment. As we strive to live this life we realize we are incapable of doing so and only the indwelling Holy Spirit can enable. My intent is that you may have a deeper more intimate relationship with God. Establishing intimate relationships can be painful because there is usually something we must surrender.

When God made Adam he gave him authority over the earth. Prior to Adams sin the greatest possession he had was not this vast world and everything in it but the communion he had with God. I desire for myself and for you that fellowship with God which occurs in everything we do. “Whether you eat or drink or whatsoever you do, do all to the glory of God”. I Cor. 10:31

Lord willing, I will also be posting podcast preaching.

May God bless you and cause His face to shine upon you and grant you His peace.