It's my hope that these confessional blogs serve a much greater purpose than to just reveal who I am, who I was, and what made me that way. This blog is much more than just a story about me. My intentions are not to be an open book to everyone that reads this, but rather, to encourage my peers, the children, and the teens in the church to open a book, namely the Bible. It's my hope that my stories and my confessions will inspire and motivate you to think about what it means to be a Christian. My story, I know all too well, is not a story about a Christian growing up. It was not until I went to college, moved out of the house, and started to mature that I was challenged to face a dilemma in my life: I called myself a Christian for as long as I could remember, but I did not know exactly what that meant.
After each segment of my story, I hope to challenge you (and myself) to think about the definition of the word "Christian." I aim to reflect on the Christian church, to reflect on Christians, and to examine biblical principles that might challenge all of us to re-think what has become mainstream Christianity today. Many things that I despise about the Christian church today are results of the story of my life in the church that I will slowly unveil piece by piece. I don't, in the least bit, claim to have it all figured out. In no way do I believe that I know all of the answers to the myriad of problems that are plaguing the Christian church today. However, I do believe that I have learned a few things from my past involvement with the church and how I hope to encourage God's people to prevent another boy from reliving my childhood.
I look upon my past as a young adult in the church, and I always have mixed emotions. Part of me hates, detests, and is deeply ashamed that such a story is my own. I look back with pity on all those that surrounded me and thought that I was a representative of Christ and His Kingdom. I look back with disdain on the boy and man that I once was, unable to grasp now exactly how much I was hurting my precious Lord and Savior with my hypocrisy. Much like Paul, I too persecuted Christ. However, I was not hunting Christ's followers down and seeking to destroy them. I was placing Christ's name upon myself, living a life of sin, despising the gospel, and perverting the truth in such a way that enabled me to label myself a righteous man. I saw the splinters in everyone else's eyes but missed the forest in my own, I was a young Pharisee, I was a legalist through and through, and I was only in my teens.
For you have heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it. And I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people, so extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my fathers. But when he who had set me apart before I was born, and who called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me, in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately consult with anyone; nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me, but I went away into Arabia, and returned again to Damascus. (Galatians 1:13-17)
Why exactly do these words of Paul resonate with me so much? I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age, however, the churches that I attended called it Christianity. I was being raised in Sunday School and youth groups to be a Pharisee. I was raised to be a good person, to do good things, and all because Jesus became a man to show me how to be a good person and we killed him for it. That was the gospel I grew up with, and oh how much of it is truly and distressingly missing from it!
Sadly, it is my greatest conviction that the Christian church today is a Pharisee factory, and those that attend are more prone to become self-righteous, do-gooders than the faithful people of God. We, as the church, are raising our children to be moralists, able to discern between the right and wrong thing to do and the only reason we give them for doing so is because Jesus loves them. Indeed, for a while, they will surprise us with their moral and ethical compasses when it comes to small, childish matters. However, as time passes and the problems they face, the ethical decisions they must make are a little less black and white, then they will begin to doubt the whole notion that Jesus loves them and their ethical compasses will begin to point south.
The mantra of youth groups everywhere when I was in them was WWJD: what would Jesus do? It did not take me long to hate that question with a passion. It presupposed an ability of my own to somehow do everything that Jesus did and make moral decisions out of the goodness of my heart. Faced with a moral dilemma, I knew what the perfect Son of God would do, but I hated the idea of following in His footsteps. I knew what the right thing to do was, but I never wanted to do it. I began to think that I was probably the only one that this WWJD thing wasn't working for. Everyone had their WWJD bracelets on, but I never wore mine because it didn't seem to work. It didn't make it easier to do the right thing, it just made me feel all the more guilty every time I did the wrong thing and knew that I was sinning. In my heart, I was crucifying Christ and His righteousness. What would Jesus do? He would call me a sinner, he would accuse me of being a white-washed tomb, he would say "Woe is Matt," and He would demand repentance. I was trying my best, I was trying to be a good person, but even as a young man, I came to the realization that there was nothing good about me except a false façade.
It is hard to look back at this past and find some comfort in it. However, when I look past my own heart and look at the hearts of the people that God surrounded me with as a young man, I find great comfort. Like Augustine, I had parents who were constantly praying for me, that I might crumble as clay before my almighty God, falling to my knees, weeping bitterly, not because my sins were great but because His grace was sufficient to cover my sins. I had a grandmother who bore with my stubbornness and bitterness towards her kindness and generosity, and loved me despite knowing more about the true person I was than she probably cared to. Romans 5:8 tells us that God loves us while we are still sinners. I made God my mortal enemy as a young man, and yet Christ died for my sins centuries before. Although I was not yet born, although my existence was millennia away, my every sin was nailed to the cross with Christ.
I look back upon my past, and although I see the life of a sinner in need of a savior, I also see the love of my savior in every aspect of my past. I see the life of a young Pharisee that despised God because he could not keep His Law, and I see the Lord speaking to me by His Word, revealing the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the Covenant of Grace. I see a boy who was lost in the church, able to fool everyone else except for himself that he was a Christian, and I see a boy who was seeking truth because the Holy Spirit dwelt within him and was drawing him to the way, the truth, and the life in Christ Jesus. I see the hatred and rebellion of a sinner and the love and grace of God.
I now recognize that the same church that led me astray from the Gospel also preached the Gospel to me. I now recognize that the same church that made love god, also taught me that God is love. I now recognize that the same church that taught me that God loves me because I am righteous also taught that I am righteous because God loves me. The same church that led me astray set me straight. The same church that taught me to be a Pharisee also taught me to rest by faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ for my salvation.
If nothing else, my story reveals that young people in the church today have every reason to be confused about what Christianity is and what it means to be a Christian. If nothing else, it reveals why the world claims to love Jesus but hate His followers. It reveals to me why many of my "Christian" childhood friends have since abandoned the church, have embraced homosexuality, drugs, fornication, pornography, hatred, drunkenness, and everything worldly as adults.
It also challenges me, as a Christian, to revisit my past and think about how it has shaped me. The potter has only just begun to shape this jar of clay. The shaping of the clay determines its purpose. God, as the potter, shapes all of us as vessels for honorable or dishonorable use. Nevertheless, the shape we possess determines our purpose and mission as His vessels. Some of us are shaped as pots for carrying water over long distances, some are shaped as jars to hold and keep the salt pure, some are shaped as pitchers for pouring wine to kings, and some of us are shaped as chamber pots to carry the refuse of the world.
My purpose is to tell my story and challenge Christians to know what they believe and why they believe it. My purpose is to tell my story and challenge the world to stop letting every church that calls itself Christian define what you believe Christianity is. My purpose in writing this blog is tell you a story of a man that didn't know what he believed, why he believed it, and allowed other Christians to define what it meant for him to be a Christian. My purpose in writing this blog is to steer you clear of making the same mistakes I did, jumping to the same conclusions I did, and to show you that if you are in the same boat as me that God's grace is sufficient to cover a multitude of sins.
The next part of my story is written, but before I can post it, I had to provide these words of caution. I caution you as a reader to read this blog carefully and circumspectly. I would not be writing this blog if I did not believe that it will be all too familiar territory for many who read it and useful in encouraging them to seek first the Kingdom of God. I would not write this blog if I did not believe that God can use it to convict those in and out of the church of sins and to draw them to Christ for the forgiveness of sins. I would not write my life's story for my own gain, because honestly, the fewer people that know my story the better for me. I have nothing in my past worthy of salutation but my past is fully the story of a boy and young man in great and terrible need for a savior.
Read carefully and tread carefully. I hope that my story is one that you cannot relate to in any way, but I am altogether aware that statistically my story is one synonymous to many other Christians. You're not reading fiction. You're not reading some revivalist testimony. You're not reading Christian propaganda. You're not reading just a blog. You're reading my life. You're reading my thoughts. You're reading my past like a book. You're reading my heart on a page. You're reading about real-life events, real people, real feelings, real heartbreak, real fear, and real joy. This is not just a blog for me, these are the pages of my life.
Read carefully and read cautiously. I fear that my story might be a stone of stumbling for some because of some of the sins that I was caught up in as a teen. I assure you, this will be a censored recollection of my rebellion against God, but I will talk about adult subjects nevertheless. However, I will address these subjects in a very biblical manner. Knowing from my own experiences, talking about certain subjects can cause us to recollect past events and images that can cause us to stumble. I implore you, reader, if you cannot handle reading my story without stumbling then stop. I do not want to cause my brothers and sisters in Christ to stumble because I stir up their pasts in a painful way. If this warning seems completely unnecessary to you, then thank the Lord that you do not understand what I am talking about. However, I know that there are many who will read this warning and know exactly what I am talking about.
Finally, read carefully and read wisely. I am hoping to organize my blog in such a manner that I provide an episode of my life and then provide personal reflections and challenges to my readers regarding that episode. I don't want readers to just know my story. I want you to know my story and to think about it. I want you to think about how you would counsel someone that comes to you with a similar story. I want you to think about how your church would address and treat someone with my story. I want you to think about what the Bible says concerning subjects that I touch on. I want to challenge you to consider whether my thoughts are outlandish or if I reached a similar conclusion that you did. I want to challenge you to interact with this blog, share your thoughts, don't be afraid to disagree with my reflections and thoughts, and don't be afraid to challenge me to consider something that I did not address.
I thank you for reading, and I hope you continue to read.
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