How Can I Know The LORD?

I was asking this question in 1989 and a Christian, just a little younger than myself began to instruct me in finding the answer. Because of David Keeton wanting nothing more than to serve God as His bond servant and his willingness to be subjected to ridicule inside the shop, I drew closer and closer to my LORD, until I also burned with that same desire to serve the Master. From watching David that year I learned a great deal about being God's servant.

I walked away from an audience that thought I was cooler than ice-cream and became the man everyone loved to make fun of. Needless to say, but I lost everyone of the people that had befriended me and immediately began a brand new life. You see, like David, I figured that there was nothing that I should not be willing to do to help others to open that door into the Throne Room. Just as was the case, pre-1990, today, there are far to few “Christians” that are willing to share their faith.

It is my experience that there are far to few “Trained Christians” to share their faith in the world today. Now, stop condemning the Pastorate for it's failure, Pastors have a responsibility that is so far beyond the scope and understanding of the average person, that I am struck with awe that some men are called to that ministry at all. I tell you the truth when I say that I would rather be back in my helicopter, manning my machine-gun and killing men to make them stop blowing holes in my aircraft tan t show up at the church, seven days a week and to try to teach all those stricken that in spite of the circumstances they and others have woven into their lives, that God loves them anyway. You see, I knew that all those people down there wanted to kill me but the pastor of the local church has no idea at all the direction that the next attack on his ministry will come from and each and every person that is seated in the church are the subjects of his ministry.

So, who's to train us then? Each and everyone of us, at least those of us in the US, holds the course material in our hands. The course material is the Bible. (2 Timothy 3:16, 17) Each and every one of us is called out of the world, we have been separated from the world by our LORD to be the members of the Believer's Priesthood. (I Peter 2:9) "Each believer is a priest, both before God for oneself and by caring for fellow believers and for persons in the world for whom Christ died." (From We Baptists, James Leo Garrett Jr.) As the members of the Believer's Priesthood it is our duty to teach and to teach we must know the course backwards and forwards. To accomplish that we must read the Bible.

What do we, that work, do during the time we are at work? How can we study then? When I first committed my life to the LORD I discovered a radio station, KHCB, in Houston and they broadcast Jesus twenty-four hours a day. Anytime I could not study, I could by turning my radio on and listening. Many of us do not have a teaching station like that but with today's computer generation anyone, anywhere in the world, can go to www.khcb.org and listen any time of the day.

Did I mentioned that I was on fire for God? Well that wasn't the half of it. God took note of my desire to know Him and to know His heart and before I was two years in the faith, still a babe in Christ, He put the call on my heart to teach. Just as I had before I rebelled and told God no. Any man that knew no more than I did had no business teaching anyone. But my pastor, Richard Clark of Mississippi told me that he was hearing from God about me and wanted to know if I had heard anything from God. As we discussed it a huge grin covered his face ad he told me that God had told him where to put me before the Primaries Teacher had announced that she was needing to quit. God wanted me to teach the very subject that I was so busy studying the past two years, Basic Christianity. Between listening to Brother Richard, listening to the Fundamental Christian Teachers on the radio and having to know the answer to a life threatening question by next Sunday, for the peace of mind of a seven year old, I was teaching the Sunday Night Men's Class by the time I was four years in the faith, God had rewarded my hungering for Him and made of me, a useful tool.

In summary, every man and woman in the church that believes and is trusting Jesus, the Christ for their salvation has the right and the obligation to teach the lost world of the love of God and the payment of their debt by our LORD. You see, from where I'm standing it all comes down to just one thing, “How much do you think you aught to love God?” Romans 12 says this;

1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service. 2 And be not fashioned according to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God.