E107 - Hope’s Harbor Gritty Bible Devotions - 3 People Who Influenced My Christian Life
Hope’s Harbor
Gritty Bible Devotions
Episode #107
Title: 3 People Who Encouraged My Christian Life
Date: May 22, 2023
Contact: info@hopesharbor.net
Key verses: 1 Thessalonians 5:11 – ‘Therefore comfort each other and edify one another, just as you also are doing.’
Edify in this verse means to build up. It is closely linked with encouragement and inspiration.
Intro: GOD intends the Christian faith to grow by the input experienced Christians can give those new to the faith. And by Christian faith, I mean as a way of life. One of the obstacles I’ve noticed during 46 years of living the Christian life is the church.
It can be a lonely road to Heaven. I was fortunate to have 3 people who helped me along the way. My grandmother, MawMaw, Chuck Swindoll, and Charles Stanley. In case you don’t know, Swindoll and Stanley were well-known pastors whose radio messages I listened to for a number of years
We are not meant to go it alone. GOD wants us to encourage and build up those around us. And he wants us to learn from those who are gifted enough to teach.
Devotion focus: The blessings from those who inspire us in the Christian life –
My grandmother MawMaw was a Christian for most of her life. She was one of the few people I knew who loved me without condition when I was young. Her life was a testimony of love. And how did she go about it? Not with so many words, but with how she always wanted me around, would take me to get banana splits, would always ask if I could spend the night at her house, and took me along on trips when she and my grandfather traveled.
As I got older and started to rebel against the ongoing violence in the place where I lived, MawMaw stood by me. Always believed in me. Never found fault with me. And would you believe my respect for her kept me out of more trouble than I got into because I didn’t want to disappoint her? Not so with other adults in my life, including teachers and school administrators. I went out of my way to break their rules once I found out they enforced them selectively, not fairly, and without partiality.
MawMaw took me to church whenever I spent the weekend at her place, so I grew up in church. Kinda. My parents used church as a babysitting service and I figured that out in my teens and so began to resist going to church, at all.
MawMaw would talk to me about Jesus and His love for us, but I began to equate Jesus with the hypocrisy I saw in adults at church. And eventually turned away from GOD. Still, she prayed for me, for my salvation, for years.
When I was 22 years old I met a neighbor who was a devout Christian. He and I had motorcycles and spent time on weekends riding together. He began to share his beliefs with me about how Jesus died for our sins. Do you know, after all those years in churches I still don’t remember ever hearing about Jesus’ death on that cross and about what it meant? I am sure it was preached, but it made no impact on me.
But one day as this friend and I were cutting firewood as part of a way to make extra money, we sat on a log sharpening the chainsaws. He asked if I wanted to pray and be saved. I told him I didn’t want to be a hypocrite, so… no.
But something happened during our discussion and I decided to settle the issue of salvation. I prayed, asking Jesus to forgive me. Afterward, I felt relief, I suppose because I knew hell was no longer in my future.
Not long after I became a Christian, I began visiting churches in an effort to find a place where I could begin to grow. But what I found was the same kind of disconnected experience that drove me from the Christian faith when I was younger. There was the ritualistic performance on Sunday mornings to be sure, but the people I encountered were shallow when it came to actually living out the commands of Jesus to love one another. (See notes in the Appendix on what it is to love one another in real ways.)
I still don’t know how to explain it, but something in my spirit can tell when someone is being fake. Before you do an eye-roll, this ability to spot imposters helped me immensely during my career in law enforcement. John Eldredge, in his book Wild at Heart, calls them posers.
After visiting numerous churches, I used the disconnect as an excuse to quit looking and for 6 years drifted. I tried to read the Bible, but couldn’t make much sense of it.
In March or April of 1983 after encountering serious marital difficulties I cried out to GOD for help, and sometime soon after GOD gave me a hunger for the Bible. I couldn’t get enough of it and I was reading the King James Version, the only copy I had from when I was a kid. But not matter, I read it in the morning before work, during the morning break, at lunch, afternoon break, and each evening. I was hungry for the Word.
On the way to work one morning, I discovered Chuck Swindoll on the radio, teaching a series called, ‘Living on the Ragged Edge.’ He quickly became the second person having the greatest impact on my Christian life and I supported and followed his teaching program, called Insights for Living. A link to that ongoing ministry is in the show notes. I also read several of Swindoll’s books.
During this same timeframe of 1983, I came across Charles Stanley’s teaching ministry, also on the radio. He helped me learn about GOD’s love as a father to us. Since I never had that as a child, Stanley’s messages helped me grow in my faith and trust in GOD. Stanley wrote numerous books, of which I’ve read several.
His ministry is In Touch. A link to his ongoing ministry is in the show notes.
Through the teachings of these men and others, I learned and applied Bible principles and in this process grew in the Christian faith and practice.
Summary: Through my grandmother’s love, faithfulness, and prayers I finally came back to GOD through salvation in His Name. After this, I grew through the Biblically sound teaching of men like Chuck Swindoll, Charles Stanley, James Dobson, and a pastor of a church I attended for 10 years.
Action to consider: May I ask you something? Who are you allowing to teach you? Who are you influencing in the Christian life? GOD has a place and a plan for you to fulfill, somewhere, somehow. Either you and I will stand one day before Him as He reads how we served Him, or we stand there empty-handed. So here it is, Do Something.
Next week’s devotion: The Foundation of Christian Faith.
Appendix:
How do we love others in the context of Jesus’s command in John 15:9? Well, one way is becoming involved with them, at least on a level of friendship. I’m not talking about being in everyone’s business, but rather, just getting to know each other. Have lunch. Spend a day at a park, lake, or meet somewhere and hang out.
Now, I like to backpack. And you know what happens when several men get together and camp out? They talk and share things about their life as they hike, build a fire, climb a mountain, fish, and so on… with each other.
This builds friendship.
For women, I’ve heard of retreats – of getting together and hanging out. Besides, women know instinctively how to connect with other women and become friends easier than men do. Well, most women know how.
Listen, this doesn’t come easy for all of us. Regardless, if you sit around waiting for an opportunity to help and encourage others to curl up in your lap like some kitten… what do you think?