Personal Testimony of My Journey of Faith. How I discovered the rich heritage of God, the Pure Gospel, and the Original Teachings of Jesus (Y’shua) and the Early Church.

My Journey Began with this Question 

I had no answer, but I knew he is my God and I must obey him in order to please him.  I knew the 10 Commandments were very important to God for me to obey, but why did Christians not teach and observed God’s Sabbath on the 7th Day just as he commanded?  So I started to study and ask questions.

If You Seek After God – You Will Find Him!

In Jeremiah 29:13, God said:
“And you shall seek me, and find me, when you shall search for me with all your heart.”

In Matthew 5:8, Jesus (Y’shua) said:
“Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.”

This has not been an easy task, at least initially, but now that I’ve re-discovered the original faith and doctrines of Jesus (Y’shua) and the Early Church, the entire Bible has now become much easier to understand.  The Pure Gospel is so easy that a child can understand, and that is the way God intended it to be.  This has been the greatest treasure I’ve discovered in my life and that I hold most dear:  To know God purely, without the corruption of man, the world, or religion.

In one’s life you get both good and bad seed (ideas) planted and grown.  When growing, both good and bad seed (tares) can look much alike but are the exact opposite.  I’ve learned that we must view our heart as a garden.  In order to be a good steward of our garden (heart) we must be an active gardener that continually identifies and removes weeds.  We must also break up the soil to allow for planting and growth of new good seed from God.

We need to actively seek out hard soil areas in our life where we are doing our will instead of God’s.  Yielding to God’s Will breaks up the hard soil creating “good soil” in our heart which allow God’s Word (seed) to firmly take root and grow strong.  Secondly, we need to ask God to help us identify the bad seeds or weeds in our life that have already taken root and grown, and have him help us carefully remove them.

“Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves.”
– the Apostle Paul, 2nd Corinthians 13:5

The path of a good disciple of Jesus (Y’shua) includes occasional reviews of one’s beliefs or views on a topic.  This is what I have done for over 40 years to much great reward.   It is also very important to be open to correction by other brothers and sisters in the faith.  Not that they are always correct, but if they come with an earnest, encouraging, and non-condemning attitude then we should always be open to listening.  It takes a humble spirit, one that discards pride and remains focused on one main goal in life: that is to always be growing stronger in our relationship with God.  The result is a much stronger faith and walk than you can ever imagine.  We must be truly willing to lay down our lives, just as Jesus (Y’shua) did, and pick up our cross daily in denying our will for God’s.

The son of a minister, I was born and raised into a traditional Southern Baptist culture in the Deep South (the Bible-Belt).  Participating in church ministry activities since I was 4, actively involved in ministry since the age of 14, and having been a Southern Baptist minister myself, it was sometimes hard to re-evaluate one’s beliefs.  Re-evaluating the traditions handed down to me from my parents, church, and society was not an easy task, but little-by-little it was very rewarding.  It took much time, prayer, and study.  When you re-evaluate your beliefs you grow much stronger and confident in the faith, because you know why you believe what you believe.  You discover errors and strengths in your faith.  But why re-evaluate my beliefs?  I didn’t want to offend God by doing things unknowingly against him because I really wanted to please him.  I also understood that we only have a certain amount of time in the day, week, and life and I didn’t want to be bothered with doing things that did not bring me closer to God.

As a teenager, I guess it started with me questioning why we do things at church and sometimes getting an answer, “that’s the way we always have done it.”  Well that was not good enough for me.  I wanted to know why and where in the Bible it says that we should do that.  Feeling somewhat abandoned spiritually by some church leaders I had made the second best decision of my life, next to accepting Jesus (Y’shua) as my Lord and Savior.  That decision was to ask the Holy Spirit to teach me.  Little did I know, that is what the Holy Spirit was there for!

In John 14:26, Jesus (Y’shua) states:  “the Comforter, which is the Holy Spirit … shall teach you all things”

In 1st John 2:27, the “anointing” John is talking about is God’s Holy Spirit:  “But the anointing which you have received of him abides in you, and you need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teaches you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it has taught you, you shall abide in him.”

It is God’s main desire, that we know him and his Will – and to know them without any doubt.

When I was young, one of my school teachers provoked me to “ask questions.”  She said, “If you don’t ask questions you will never learn.”  Well, much to the evidence of my parents’ gray hairs that concept took hold of me at a young age and transformed my life in many ways.  The greatest was in asking God questions about everything – and I did all the time, and got answers!  I asked God about life, family, church, society, girls, the Bible, himself, political stuff, and on and on.  Much to my amazement, God really answered me and helped me understand so much.

In addition, I cannot speak more highly that all should read or re-read the book of James in the Bible.

God viewed King David to have a pure heart.  That made a very big impression on me.  To know God, undefiled by man’s thinking, religion, and the world, this was my goal.  Because no one could give up their life for any greater purpose than to know God, to serve him, and to allow him to re-create you according to his perfect plan.  Even if I got nothing out of it, no salvation, no “fire insurance” from hell, no eternity, I felt God deserves my life focus and obedience simply because he is God.

Around the year 2000, just when I felt that I had done more ministry than many churches, learned more neat Biblical things about God, and gotten really close to him, I discovered that was just preparing me for the next level.  But this next level I found out was in fact the original level, unadulterated, uncorrupted by men’s laws (legalism) and doctrines, religion, and the world.  This is what this website is about.