So some of you may have read my blog about my experience at training camp. If not I'll forgive you, this time. So basically before going to training camp I was a stuck up Christian. Not so much that I thought I was better than nonbelievers, but that my denomination was better than the others. I can specifically remember thinking at times "Man what is it about those ______'s they just don't get what the bible is telling them” I had to leave it blank because I don’t have the time to fill in all the different denominations that I've said this about. So I sat smug on my "understanding" of what the bible tells us. While I was driving to training camp, which was an 11 hour drive, I tried to listen to a sermon by David Platt. For those of you who don't know who he is, well get on the train dude. He is by far one of the most knowledgeable men of scripture of our time. He just knows it! He'll spend over 8 hours some days just reading his bible. When tested, by someone just throwing out a random reference, he can recite the scripture. SSSOOOO as I was saying, I was attempting to listen to one of his sermons. I only got about 15 minutes in when i had to stop because I wanted to write down the things that he was saying. So I quickly had to change it from him to music. However in those short 15 minutes of listening he said something, something that almost felt like it was aimed right at me. His words? "I have my thoughts and beliefs, but there are holes in my doctrine. The only problem is, I don’t know where they are" Now that is pretty paraphrased because it’s not so much what he said it’s what it meant to me. How humble a man that knows the scripture back and forth to say that he is absolutely for sure wrong on some of his ideas and points. Now he does go on to say that there are base truths that are not up for discussion. So I'm sitting at training camp in a meeting on the first night, and bam we're asked to all pray out loud at once (this is where reading the other blog comes in handy) I mean the idea is amazing, who better to pray for me then myself, right? This was my first experience of anything like this. It was difficult, I couldn't think straight so how am I going to be able to pray if i can’t think? My prayer was simply that God either strengthen my voice or make me go deaf. He didn't really have to do either because I've already become accustom to praying like that. No biggie! So great, I moved over my first hurdle with no real problem. Then comes the real hurdles, I've never been to a service or anything that is even remotely like what I was about to witness. I've never seen people worship God in such a way, dancing around, jumping, and not really even singing sometimes just shouting the words. Now I always knew that all of those cccooouuulllddd be a part of worship I'd just never seen it. It blew my mind. I didn't know what to do. As I looked around it appeared as if everyone was doing the same thing. Was I alone? Am I the only one who wasn't like this? All I could think about was the satirical way that this kind of worship was portrayed in pop culture. I didn't like it! I just closed my eyes and worshipped the way I always do. Later that night I sat up and prayed, I asked God to shed some light as to why these people were so crazy. In my smug over confidence i asked God to show these people that they were wrong. Well I'm sure you can guess by now that he didn't show them they were wrong. However he showed me how wrong I was. Then talking to another racer about the denomination gap I finally found out that I wasn't alone. However as our conversation progressed I was praying for God to give me words to speak to her. The words that he spoke through me, well I have no idea if they really stuck to her or even made sense to her. But they changed everything that I was thinking. I said "Denomination shouldn't and doesn't matter! Ask yourself three questions 1) how are you saved? 2) How do you know you're saved? 3) How do you talk to God? If your answers are the same as their answers then it doesn't matter the denomination one bit. Because those three things are the solid truths that are laid out in the bible. While those aren’t the only indisputable truths those are three that matter. Now number three isn't exactly what it seems. It’s asking, do you pray? It doesn't matter if you pray out loud to yourself, in English or in tongues, in public or behind closed doors. Simply do you pray? Those three questions are what matter.
I used to think to myself about all those Christians that were going to finally realize how wrong they were once they got to heaven. Finally the reality has set in. If I'm going to see them in heaven then they got the important part right. There are holes littered all over everyone’s doctrine, but there are at least three parts that should line up no matter what you believe. And that’s what matters. I've spent all this time fighting a war of interpretations for far too long. How effective is an army that does nothing but fight with each other? The battle is in front of me, not to my left or right, those are the people on my side
