Am I, or am I not a Christian?

In the course of having lived nearly one hundred years it took me a long time to understand that human functions are made up of physical as well as spiritual essentials. One's physical needs are easily satisfied with money to buy food, clothing and mediation. To satisfy our spiritual or emotional needs is more difficult to achieve. We all want to be happy, be loved, to be popular and respected.  

Achieving spiritual happiness requires discipline.  Example what is happiness?  Where does one look for happiness?  Temptation for drying to achieve happiness are lurking everywhere.  Add to it well-meaning suggestions from friends and relatives do see it their way adds to the confusion.

I can only give you my life’s experience.   WWII had ended.  In some bombed out building a group of people gathered for a religious service.  I was seven years old going on 8.  The preacher was wearing a ceremonial outfit such as one finds in a Catholic church. He had a piece of printed paper depicting palm trees and a donkey.  Somehow, I made a connection between the prayer our mother taught us and that prayer stayed with me until today.   

So, it was that over time I paid lip service, and went along with the flow.  Go to church on Christmas and Easter.   I never forget the facial expression of a Lutheran Pastor in Spencer, Iowa, when I told him that I come to church but I don’t want to get too religious. 

Many years later while I was hooked to an artificial lung in intensive care when the Lord Jesus appeared and said in a commanding voice Heusuk get up and teach.  Which I did and created Morton Buildings training curriculum that is being followed to this day.  

During that time period a television preacher named Robert Schuler caught my eye. I was awed by his message of becoming a possibility thinker. I even flew out to California to worship in the Chrystal Cathedral that he had built.  Only to become bitterly disappointed of the later reported corruption of the church leaders.  

I read all Og Modena’s books on self-improvement. At work my job responsibilities increased and it was rumored that I be the chosen successors for the presidency held by my boss a self-proclaimed atheist.  About that time, I come across 

Matt 6: 24,    No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one, and love the other; or you will be devoted to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve both God and money 

I treasured my job, the income and the prestige, and most of all the needed MBI’s medical insurance to pay for the ever-increasing medical needs for my wife who contracted the crippling disease of rheumatoid arthritis. 

But subconsciously my childhood instilled consciences had me in its clutches. As a little child our mother had a way of punishing our misdeeds of me and my younger sister by looking at us sternly and said “is your conscience bothering you?”  Our ensuing red faces was proof that it did.  The scene in the Andy Griffith show, in which Opie got a new sling shot and shot at a bird, hit him and killed the bird.  Speaks volumes on the subject of having a conscience.

Much later in life during the course of writing my biography and my life’s dwelling in the farm building business I write the story Evolution of and Industry forced me to reflect on my life’s encounters at various points that only the holy spirit must have guided me all along and opened my eyes in a way for eventually Jesus to take over and lead me to accept God and the holy trinity.  I also discovered that my former boss the self - proclaimed atheist was in fact a Christian who used this façade of atheism to hide to unbelievable amounts of money he funneled to people in need.  I know because I was a recipient.  His interest shown in the baptism of a contemporary and that man’s acceptance of Jesus shortly before his passing, let me the believe that he too accepted Jesus before he passed.

 If anyone reading this story is inclined to accept Christ as his or her savior open your heart too what Jesus himself said in 

Matthew 22 :37-39:  ... and Jesus said to him “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all your heart and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like unto it, thou shalt love thy neighbor as yourself.

Each individual is responsible for achieving their own spiritual happiness. No one can do it for them. There are no shortcuts.  Except one:

Ask Jesus to come into your heart and let him guide you.

Start by giving thanks. Thank the lord for your very existence, your good looks, in short many people call it counting their blessings.  Take time and study the scripture, the wisdom revealed through historic events cannot be obtained through modern instant gratifying communication devices.  Acquiring and applying true knowledge takes time.  

In the 15th century when the monck Martin Luther drew his inkwell at the devil as he was translating the holy bible from Latin into German, and upon recovering his composure identified the five stages of achieving spiritual happiness.  That became the foundation of the Protestant Reformation.

• SOLA SCRIPTURA – The Bible is the sole written divine revelation with instruction how to bind the soul of the believer to the Almighty.
• SOLA GRATIA   Only God’s grace can provide our individual salvation
• SOLA FIDE    Justification for Gods acceptance of our souls is by mere faith alone.
• SOLUS CHRISTUS   Gods only son died for our sins to become the mediator for our salvation.
• SOLI DEO GLORIA To, God alone belongs all the glory.

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