As a brand new Christian believer at the age of 17, I obviously had little experience in following the Lord Jesus.  In fact, I had none at all.

Amazingly, the Lord placed me immediately (as in the very day I got saved) into the midst of devout Bible college students.  I was essentially homeless the day I met the lord Jesus, having just left a friend’s house where I had been staying.  And I had already been told by my step dad that I was no longer welcomed at home.  In fact, I was hitchhiking on the freeway, heading west out of town.

So I had no place to go, really.  I was invited to stay at a Bible college in Houston.  The guys who had prayed for me and shared Christ with me were all students there.  And they were on fire for the Lord.

There, I learned to read my Bible every day.  There, I learned to pray fervently and to trust the Lord for everything.  And I enjoyed the fellowship of young men and women who really wanted God’s best in their lives.

The Bible college was the Gulf Coast Bible College of the Church of God based in Anderson, Indiana.  It was a little corner of heaven for a guy like me.  I don’t know what might have happened to me and my new faith in Jesus had I not been kept there by the Lord for those first two or three weeks.

The young people who had shared Christ with me, and who invited me to surrender my life to Jesus, were not typical Church of God kids.  They were experiencing revival at the little church they worked at, and they were nearly fanatical in their young faith.  I want you to know that this kind of person, this kind of Christian faith is the best there is.  Everything for Jesus.  All for God.  No holds barred.

Such spiritual fire and devoted soul and Christian faith (you know, the truly radical, “I believe the whole Bible” kind of faith) is exactly what is lacking in far too many Christian groups and activities and efforts today.  These young men and women were true “holiness” believers, and they were my first genuine introduction to the Christian family. I soon knew exactly what it was like to be a true disciple of Jesus Christ.

I did not remain in the Church of God for very long.  I later became a Pentecostal believer.  It was, in some ways, an almost natural progression of faith and experience from the holiness beginnings I had with Christ.

Later, I met my wife-to-be at a tiny Pentecostal church in the country.  And we continued in the holiness and Pentecostal traditions and faith for several years.  We traveled down into old Mexico and all over the United States, sharing Jesus Christ with people everywhere.  We evangelized on city streets and in shopping centers, tiny villages, among youth groups — all over.

We met many Christian believers in our travels.  We worked and prayed and ate with Christians of many doctrinal backgrounds.  And the Lord Jesus used this wider experience to teach me things about Himself and about the Christian faith.  I began to see the church Paul the apostle wrote about.  I began to see that we are not all alike.  We have varying ministries and varying callings.  But every human soul who trusts in Jesus and walks with Him is a part of the One Body of Christ.

When I finally stopped roaming around long enough to attend a Bible school for real, it was a Conservative Baptist Bible Institute in upper state New York: Word of Life Bible Institute.  And it was as close to heaven on earth as I think I have ever been.

I have experienced many things in the Christian walk and I have learned many things about being a Christian.  Thankfully, I have been taught as much by the Scriptures and by the Spirit of God in Jesus Christ as by other men and women of faith.  Had it not been for the Lord Jesus Himself, I would not even be a Christian today.  I would have been overwhelmed by the many differences among fellow believers.

How can I, for example, reconcile the vast differences in faith and doctrine between those first young holiness believers who led me to a face-to-face encounter with Jesus Christ with the faith of men and women of Baptist Christians, Pentecostal Christians I came to know later on?  How can I reconcile my own Christian experiences as I lived and worked among some of these various groups?

Well, I don’t need to worry about it.  I know that much.  Paul says that God’s Spirit works in different ways among the different members of the local church, just as human body parts all have differing functions — for the good of the body as a whole.  And it is obvious to me that the same principle applies to the entire church, the Body of Christ that is scattered around the world.

As I see it, Pentecostals have their place in the Body, as do Baptists, Catholics, Presbyterians, and so on.  As a man, I cannot embrace all these different ideas and doctrinal views.  I must read and study the Bible, pray earnestly for godly wisdom, examine the history of the Christian faith, and reach the doctrinal/theological conclusions that God enables me to grasp.  I must walk the path of faith given to me by the Lord.

In short, I must follow Jesus.  And when I see other genuine Christian believers who seem to be going along a little different path, I must not waste too much time arguing with them or worrying about how they can be different.  I must follow Jesus.

As for the never-ending debates between men and women of true Christian faith, I have little to say.  I know where I stand.  I am where God put me.  And I have no doubt that others who differ with me on some issues are also exactly where the Lord has called them to be.  The Lord Jesus has His own good reasons for placing each of us where He wants us to stand for Him.

I thank God for those of a holiness (Arminian) bent because they fight for holiness above all else.  They take a stand that is becoming all too rare in today’s church.  They hate any doctrine or lifestyle that permits sin to be excused in any way.

I thank God for the Calvinists (so-called) who anchor themselves in the fact of God’s Sovereign power over all creation, all events, and all things past or present or future.  They refuse any teaching that might lessen the truth about the only true and living God.  Jesus is Lord over all.

And there is also the matter of grace and law.  All true believers know without a doubt that we are saved by grace alone.  That is never really the issue, no matter how a debate rages on.  We are all of us familiar with the common and personal sins that would drag us down into the pits, except for the grace of God.

Likewise, all true believers embrace holiness — without which no man shall see God.  We know that while we are saved by grace, and grace alone, we cannot tolerate sin in our daily lives.  Sin destroys human life, spiritual life, flesh and blood, soul and spirit.  We are called to holiness, and the Lord Jesus will never lead anyone to sin or to excuse sin.  The lesson of the Law of Moses (which tutors us in the righteousness of God) is that God honors holiness with blessings that sin will never bring.

My point is this: the differences in faith and doctrine among all true children of God will not go away while any of us remain on this planet.  These differences are part of God’s own work in saving the world, and in bringing all of us to spiritual maturity in Christ.  We all need each other, just as a human hand needs a foot, and an ear needs an eye.
There is such a thing as truly false doctrine, and there are, unfortunately, those who think they are Christians but are not.  In fact, in every group of believers there are some who do not know the Lord, and there are also whole religious cults that do not embrace the truth about Jesus Christ, about salvation, or about eternal life.

We can be a much more effective witness to all people by first embracing our true brothers and sisters in Christ.  Why muddy the waters by needless bickering and by rejecting as false those who are true?  Paul wrote that we need to recognize and acknowledge the Body of the Lord.  In the context of his comments, it is clear that he referred to the physical body which had been broken for us all on the cross.  But in a wider context it is also true that we must recognize and acknowledge the Body of Christ which is His Church.

The world is in gross darkness.  The people of this generation need the light that we have: the light of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  Let every brother and sister in Christ, then, be one in Him, and may we all work together as much as possible to fill the earth with the knowledge of the lord.

Amen and amen.

Jim