Open Heart Report 3

It came to a head one day, after sitting with Karna (wife) for some time, listening to sermon after sermon. The fire and brimstone speaker was Pastor David Gates, a real good friend and semi-teacher of mine, we had listened to about five sermons earnestly, then suddenly I heard a very peculiar sounding voice, some guy asking if I could explain the relationship between the Spirit of Prophecy and the Bible.

The title was “The Authority of the Spirit of Prophecy", What? Who did this guy think he was? Asking me, ME! A 32 year vet in the field of Adventism, “o.k. o.k. I’ll play” I muttered, but as I began to listen I realized I couldn't’t answer, now I’m scared, but very interested.

Karna and I sit and listen spellbound at this strange voice that convicts us of our folly. After listening, I remember saying “I want to know who this guy is”, a few days later Karna informs me that she found his website and a book called Identity Wars. After we burn through the book we then began listening to as many sermons as we could before I decided “I wanna call him”, Karna thought I was joking until she heard the now-all-to-familiar “HELLOOO”.

Our relationship grew really quick and I was then asked if I would like to be mentored in this message, I thought “sure, why not, I’m not busy right now” but little by little I began to notice a change in my relationship with my wife, with my kids, and with ME. I remember being full of rage especially when driving (wow) I even had to have court ordered anger management classes, (yes lil ol me) but out of nowhere these felling began to dissolve, I recall apologizing to a guy for HIM being mad at me (I know there is a God lol). It was wonderful, suddenly I could see God, I could see His Son, suddenly my family and I began doing what we as Christians claim we should be doing, but the motivation was different this time, this time I was doing it because I REALLY loved Him, I wanted to serve Him, live for Him and if need be die for Him.

To steal the word from an old Toyota jingle,”O what a feelin” I wanted to share with everyone, and I did so but remembering how Pastor instucted me to remain submisive and respectful to my church leaders and not just go over there head and begin preaching it from the mountain tops. Yet still to my surprise, people did not seem to share the same enthusiasm as I did. I couldn't wrap my brain around it, “why” why wouldn’t you want this, why wouldn’t you want joy , love and most of all peace, peace of mind that no matter what you had done, we had a Father that promised He would never leave you nor forsake us.

I lost so many I held dear, most of my friends and some family wanted to have nothing to do with me, I began to get depressed. It was also around this time that my secular music career began to take off and our songs were all over the radio, iTunes, we were doing shows everywhere and our fan base was huge, but as I began to get closer to my Savior, I began to desire less and less the things of this world. I remember after shows sitting backstage or even outside trying to get rid of this sinful feeling that was gripping me, I couldn't stand the laughter, smoke, drinking, it just seemed to mock me until I couldn’t take it anymore and quit. If I thought things where bad now, I was in store for a real treat.

At this point I was beside myself, in my mind I was “healed” I knew of the “serpents lie” and therefor thought I was immune to it, I had literally threw out 9 black trash bags of DVD's and CD's and games that did not reflect a God like character, so why was all of this stuff sill happening? But what a gracious God we serve, that promises us He would never give us more than we could handle, so I began to search for Him like never before and it was at this time that my dad presented me with a task to research, no other topic than… yes you guessed it, the Trinity.

"Finally something I could focus on and fully devote my time to" I thought, I felt like I was grasping for straws for some time looking for a “calling”. It was at this same time that Pastor Ebens informed me that he had something he wanted to tell me but that he was scared because it would cost me everything, OK, now I'M back to being scared, “what in the world could it be? In our following study session it finally comes out, “Randy, Jesus Christ is the LITERAL Son of God……………"(it is at this point that crickets could be heard in the background) it was dead silent, I didn't’t know what to say, I stared at my beautiful wife letting her know with my eyes that we could no longer be this poor deceived soul’s friend, but as the initial shock wore off, Pastor began to explain, and the more he spoke the more I began to feel convicted. After a longer than usual session I told pastor that I trusted him but that I would have to study this information for myself with much prayer and study.

As I began to see the truth and accept I began again to want to share, I pleaded with the Lord to allow my Father to see the beauty in these words as well, which he did not, he began to tell me I was wrong and “dancing with the devil”. But I was determined to not allow Satan to gain a foot hold in this work, I bean to reflect a submissive heart to him and to show dad that I was not a threat to him nor him being my teacher. I continued to wrestle with God for light and some one to share this message with and he sent a double portion of an answer, He open my fathers eyes, now I had my dad which was also the someone-to-share- with. I was walking on sunshine, my dad came up from TN and we sat and we started going through the Elijah Message with the help of Pastor. There is so much more to the story than could be said here but this will have to do, but needless to say everything has changed, my dad and mom now are having a much, much deeper relationship and my dad is also teaching Identity Wars to a group of his, Karna and I are still growing in this walk but now it is an eagerness instead of a drudgery, worship is a time we look forward to, and Sabbath!!? WOOOHOO, We cant wait till it gets here and when its here, we do our best to drag it out as far as possible just hating to see it go but joyous in the fact that it will come again, just as our Father promised He would. Before I go I will leave you with words that ring true in my ears, wonderful words.

Sing them over again to me
Wonderful words of Life!
Let me more of their beauty see,
Wonderful words of Life!
Words of Life and beauty
Teach me faith and duty.

CHORUS
(Beautiful
Words! Wonderful Words!
Wonderful Words of Life!) (2x)

Christ, the Blessed One, gives to all,
Wonderful Words of Life.
Sinner! List to the loving call -
Wonderful Words of Life;
All so freely given,
Wooing us to Heaven.

Sweetly echo the Gospel call -
Wonderful Words of Life.
Offer pardon and peace to all -
Wonderful Words of Life!
Jesus, only Savior,
Sanctify forever.

Words that come from the
Heart of God -
Wonderful Words of Life;
Words that speak of the Cleansing Blood
Wonderful Words of Life.
Words of Life and Glory,
Tell the wondrous Story.