Walkin’

Yeah. So, I know it’s been a while. Been gettin’ settled in. I got home a couple months ago, and have been lovin’ family life ever since. I went back to my old job and got a promotion (no raise ). Oh well. The wife and I have joined a new church, and that’s great.
As a matter of fact, I met with my new pastor, at 5:00am this morning, at a coffee place that I’d rather not mention. We had a long discussion about marriage, sin, doctrine and our mutual love for all things Christ. He and I decided that we would meet every Wednesday morning and go through Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology together.
The wife is at the women’s Bible study, right now (they’re going through R.C. Sproul’s Knowing Scripture), and I just put baby girl in her crib. We’ve decided that Jennifer is going to stay home and become a career mom / teacher / chauffer / home manager, etc. I’m probably going to start going to school in the Fall.

Whatcha doing, baby girl?

Things seem to be going pretty well. Please be praying for us and our finances. Times are tough, and we’re certainly feeling the hurt. It’s never a good time to expect employers to show sympathy to a man who wants to allow his wife the opportunity to obey Titus 2. Right now is a particularly bad time to expect it.
Pray that I continue to walk in the Spirit, and that the Lord continue to bless my family. Never-the-less, if He decides to send trials our way, to test us, pray that we would be obedient to His word, and that we would be content in all things. Thanks for all that you guys have meant to us.

In Christ,
Billy.

testifyin’

                Okay. So, I’m going home in about a week, and the Chaplain asked me to share my testimony at the Chapel, this Sunday. I’m pretty nervous. There are about 40 servicemen/women that attend the service, on Sunday, and I haven’t addressed that many people since High School.

                Also, the Chaplain wants me to be able to share my testimony in 3-5 minutes. That’s not a whole lot of time. Especially for an introvert. What I have written down, right now, would take me approximately 8 ½ minutes to get through, but I don’t want to edit any of it, because I feel like it is too bare as it is. Please pray for me.

 

In Christ,

Billy

 

My Wife and I (Christmas 2007)

            If you are here, this morning, I am assuming that you are at least willing to hear from God. In the words of John the Baptist, my goal is to “decrease that [Christ] might increase.” Again, as John the Baptist said, “I am the voice of one crying out…” That is to say that I am not the One, but merely the voice. If my story doesn’t make little of me, and much of Christ, I have no right to tell it. It is for this reason that I must start with the gospel of God before I can explain how it is that He has worked in my life.

            The gospel starts with the holiness of God. God is pure and spotless in all things. If He is not holy, He cannot be good. God also holds me to His holy standard, which is evident by the fact that He gave me a conscience. The Bible even goes as far as to state that God wrote His law on my heart.

            In order for me to know where I stand with God, I must view myself in light of the law. This can be done by looking at the Ten Commandments. The Bible tells me that, if I’ve ever lied, stolen, blasphemed God’s name, commited adultery (physically or with my eyes) or broken any of the other commandments, I have violated the law of God and deserve to be punished by Him.

            The Bible goes so far as to say that we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Thus, on the day of judgment, we will all be found guilty before the eternally holy and righteous Creator of the universe, if an atonement has not been made for our sin. We deserve an eternity of punishment in hell, because of the Person against whom we’ve sinned.

            This is terrible news, but it only makes the good news seem all the more grand. The good news is that, 2000 years ago, God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to live the perfect life, die on the cross and rise again on the third day. Now, there’s a contradiction in that statement that I want you to see. Christ was sinless and yet He died.

            Now, the Bible tells us that the wages of sin is death. Yet we have here the only sinless Man to ever have lived, dying on a Roman cross. How could this be? Well, the Bible tells us that, when Christ died on the cross, He took upon Himself the sins of the world. Thus, His death was substitutionary. He died in our place. He took upon Himself the wrath of His Father, so that we would not have to.

 

            This is the most amazing gift that has ever been given. Christ, the perfect God/Man, died on the cross to save a sinful people. So, how can we know that we’ve been saved by His blood atonement. The Bible tells us that, if you turn from your lifestyle of sin and place all of your hope and trust in Jesus Christ, you can have assurance that He died for you.

            We do not come to Christ to escape hell, but rather, we come to Him because He loved us so much as to leave heaven, come to this earth, live the perfect life and die on the cross, taking upon Himself the wrath of God so that we would not have to. If you have never turned from your sins and put your faith in Christ, I urge you to do so, today.

 

            I grew up in church. When I was eleven years old, I walked the aisle, prayed a prayer and got dunked in an oversized bathtub. While all of this stuff has its place when rightly carried out, it has no saving power in an of itself. I was NOT saved when I was eleven. How do I know that?

            In the summer of 2005, five years into a failing marriage, the associate pastor of my church helped me to understand, from Scripture, where I really stood with God. Since the age of eleven, I had been floating through life. I had not been living for God, and I had destroyed many people’s lives because of it.

The Day I Left for Kuwait

            All while claiming to be a Christian, I developed an addiction to pornography, I got involved, heavily, in drugs and I did whatever I found pleasing. All of this I hid from my wife. When she finally discovered the depths of my depravity, we agreed to go and see my associate pastor.

 

Here are the scriptures that he shared with me:

 

            First, he took me to Matthew 7:18&19, which reads, “A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” In this passage, Jesus is talking about true and false converts, and how to tell the difference.

            After sharing this passage with me, my pastor took me to Galatians 5. In verses 19-21, we went over the deeds of the flesh (sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, etc). Then, he showed me the fruits of the Spirit, in verses 22&23 (love, joy, peace, etc). He explained to me that, in the context of Jesus’ words in Matthew 7, if someone is truly saved, they will not consistantly carry out the deeds of the flesh, but will more consistantly display the fruits of the Spirit.

            It was then that the Holy Spirit convicted me of my sin. I turned from my sins and put my full trust and allegience in Jesus Christ. I have had many struggles since then, but as my pastor said, I have more consistantly displayed the fruits of the Spirit.

 

Please turn with me to Matthew 9.

 

                And behold, some people brought to him a paralytic, lying on a bed. And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Take heart, my son; your sins are forgiven.” And behold, some of the scribes said to themselves, “This man is blaspheming.” But Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said, “Why do you think evil in your hearts? For which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Rise and walk’? But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—he then said to the paralytic—“Rise, pick up your bed and go home.” And he rose and went home.

- Matthew 9:2-7

 

            Ladies and gentlemen, which is better? That Christ would die on a cross to pay the price for my sin, so that I might be able to spend all of eternity with Him in heaven? Or that He would give me blessings on this earth? I would submit to you that it is the sacrifice that He made to atone for my sins is better.

A Happy Family

            But, so that you might know that He has power to do all things, I am here to report to you that He has restored my marriage, and so much so that we now have a four month old baby girl and, though I am in Kuwait and my wife is in Texas, we are closer than we have ever been before. Not only this, but we are continually in awe of the way that Christ is working in us to draw us both into a closer relationship with each other and with Him. Truly the fruits of the Spirit are evident in our lives, by the strength and power of Christ.

praisin’

            It’s really starting to sink in. I’m gonna be going home within the next month. I can’t wait to return to Texas and be with my wife and my daughter. It seems like it’s been forever, and yet it seems like time has flown. I guess that is, in large part, due to the fellowship that I have been blessed with, here in Kuwait.

            You know, I have to say that I really appreciate my lovely wife for all that she’s been through on behalf of my military career. She has truly sacrificed a lot, and often times that goes unnoticed. If it’s the only thing that I accomplish in my life, I want to commit myself to bringing awareness to the sacrifices made by the spouses of service members.

            Now, that’s not to say that I’m gonna copyright a car magnet and try to earn a bunch of money for a cause. However, I do think it is important that every married veteran deflect whatever attention they may get for their service unto their spouse. I truly believe, and I’m not making this up, that our spouses sacrifice much, much more than we do.

The Day I Left

            Think about it. We train for this. We are conditioned, physically and mentally for the challenges that await us on the battlefield. There is no training, however, that could ever possibly train someone for the challenges that await them when their spouses get deployed and they suddenly find themselves having to fend for themselves against the wear and tear of everyday life.

            Of course, in my case, this is only compounded by the fact that my wife went through an entire pregnancy and four months of motherhood without the daily support of a husband. I think she deserves a medal. She’s my hero, and I mean that with all my heart. That’s all I got for now. Talk at ya later.

 

In Christ,

Billy.