John Harper: Why Jesus Christ is relevant in my life.

When I was asked to take over the task of maintaining the Fairport Baptist Church website, I developed some ideas of content that I thought may be beneficial to the church and viewers of the site. One of those ideas was to create a page of testimonies from members where they could share their journey to the church and why our Lord Jesus Christ is relevant in their lives.

As a child I was born into a family that made the effort to raise their family in a Christian environment though I do not look at that time as us being overly religious and later during my elementary school years our involvement had slipped away.  I was also fortunate that in the 1960s our American society in general still placed a high value on church and Christianity. In our current times I do not believe our society is still on board as it was in the past, but the church is still strong, well at least the ones that maintain Jesus Christ and the scriptures as their only foundation. As a teenager I had other friends that still went to church with their families, so they invited me to join them, which I wanted to do, mostly for the youth activities their churches hosted. (Here is a plug for how important it is for the church to have youth group activities because those experiences may be what keeps a person close to the message of Christ). As a young adult I continued attending church and I knew overall that I wanted to be on the right side of the God equation, I was a better person than I would have been otherwise, but my value system mirrored the worldly society as it was.

While still the young adult of only 22, I meet and married a wonderful Christian woman who brought me into the Baptist denomination of Christianity. After the many years of growing up and believing there is a God who is in control, and I had also read through the New Testament at least once over those years, I knew that it was a yes that I wanted to be baptized as a believer in Jesus Christ. I was baptized in 1982 at Goshen Baptist Church in Spotsylvania, VA. During my walk as a new Christian, I met a fellow Christian/mentor who referred to their earlier life as being a rascal which led him to knowing that he needed the forgiveness of Jesus Christ, so I liked that analogy and borrowed it as my own. For the following years I grew slowly as a Christian and at times I still bumped up against the guardrails.

One of the scripture parables I like is Matthew 13:18 – 23 where God’s word is referenced as seed, I like to understand where I believe that I fit into the story.

¹⁸ “Listen then to what the parable of the Sower means: ¹⁹ When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in their heart. This is the seed sown along the path. 

I do not believe this to be myself, but it is so easy to see so many in the world here.

²⁰ The seed falling on rocky ground refers to someone who hears the word and at once receives it with joy. ²¹ But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away. 

I am not here either but have seen this with friends and fellow believers and it is disconcerting.

²² The seed falling among the thorns refers to someone who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, making it unfruitful. 

Here I find some of my life as well as so many other Christians that I know.

²³ But the seed falling on good soil refers to someone who hears the word and understands it. This is the one who produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.”

I believe that much of my current life does fit here while acknowledging that parts still struggle with the thorns and weeds.

In the mid-nineties as I struggled with the thorns, I asked myself if God is Whom the scriptures said He is, then I need to make more changes to follow Him closer, and of course I believe in God.

One of the things I did is envision the nonsense of evolution, where some type of plant and all life started in the waters as theory likes to say. I envisioned that some escaped out of the water and became a grass type or weed then some of this somehow decided it would rather be bush and some a tree, then one tree decided to be a pine while another identified as an oak. I think this gets silly very quickly.

God’s very nature is written into our heart. I can’t look out with my eyes and not see God. One of my favorite pastimes is just to sit out in a natural setting and dwell on the greatness of God’s creation.

Romans 1:20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

In order to move forward I knew that I needed to work on the spiritual disciplines of my life. Fortunately, about this time the Promise Keepers movement for men was gaining momentum and our local church wanted to be involved, large groups of men from our church attended a number of these stadium gatherings where we learned so much. We had a number of men’s weekly bible studies hosted throughout the week that helped us learn and understand the scriptures more fully, along with helping each other remain accountable.

Spiritual Disciplines:

• Everyone needs to be involved with regular meeting and fellowship with other believers.
• Scriptural literacy is a must, this was something that I needed to improve on. One of the ways other than group bible studies and regular church attendance that helped me was to begin having the Bible Gateway website email me bible chapters to read each day which forces me to keep up with my personal bible reading, I dare not delete these emails without reading the assigned scripture which over the years has helped me read through both Old and New Testaments numerous times.
• Prayer: I do pray but I am sure that this is my weakest discipline. I do set some routine things up within my daily walk that forces me think of God as I go about everyday task
• Giving: as a couple when I became more serious, we began the tithing challenge instead of just what I thought we could afford.
  Malachi 3:10 Bring all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be food in My house, and try Me now in this,” Says the Lord of hosts, “If I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you such blessing that there will not be room enough to receive it. Since tithing we have added other charitable giving also. We have proven the scriptures to be true here and consider ourselves richly blessed.
• Service: every Christian needs to be actively involved and serving within the Church.
• Love: Mark 12:29 – 31 ²⁹ Jesus answered him, “The first of all the commandments is: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. ³⁰ And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ This is the first commandment. ³¹And the second, like it, is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” Not only are we to love our families and Christian brothers and sisters, but also all of those that are lost where their seed of the Word has been snatched away, fallen on rocky paths, or beaten down under the thorns. This is where it is so important to serve outside of the Church also.

• I am sure that I have missed others not listed here

Twice in my life as I have been praying, I feel I have received a direct spiritual voice back that was not mine own.

The first as I was trying to pray and as my mind has a habit of wandering to other places, I asked God to tell Satan to stop messing with me while I was praying. An immediate response I received was “You tell him”. I was a little shocked but then reminded that we do have the power in the name of Jesus Christ to tell Satan to go away.

The second came during a communion service at our church in Stafford. I like to pray during this time to be clear not to take the Lord’s Supper in an unworthy manner. As I am praying, I begin to envision being at the foot of the cross. I am looking up at Jesus hanging there with dried blood streaks running all down his body. I then see tears running down his face and I begin to think “Oh how much pain He is suffering from the crucifixion”, just then that different spiritual voice said, “The tears you see are not from the physical pain, but from the pain that is caused by so many that He is doing this for that will never come to Him”. My prayer stopped there with wow.

Recently with this being the election season as I write this and so many people that are worked up over who their elected officials will be or what direction the country and world will follow, I say the following. Elected officials and leaders cannot fix things, the best we should hope for is that they don’t make matters worse. The only person that can fix our mess is Jesus Christ, and the secret that the majority of the world’s population does not understand and know is that He has already completed that task.

Why does Jesus Christ matter to me and should matter to all others, because I believe God is who He said He is, and I want to be in that relationship for eternity and not with the other side. When you have faith and hope in Jesus Christ then you are able to live a life of joy because you know the outcome. 1 Peter 1:7-9 ⁷ that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ, ⁸ whom having not seen you love. Though now you do not see Him, yet believing, you rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, ⁹ receiving the end of your faith—the salvation of your souls.

God has already won!