Over the years I have been very blessed to have learned from a multitude of great bible teachers; through their sermons or their writings. The problem for me was translating a head-knowledge of scripture to my daily walk with Christ. There was always this ever-widening gap between what I thought a Christian was supposed to be and who I knew myself to be. I was caught in that never ending cycle of dedicating my life to Christ, failing to live up to that commitment, straying away from Church-related activities out of a sense of unworthiness, and eventually rededicating my life once again to God. This pattern would repeat over and over in my life to the point that life itself seemed almost unbearable. I was tired of failing time and time again to live “the Christian life”.
When I first began to understand the basics of right division and dispensationalism, I was so excited. Scripture began to come alive. I found answers to the tough questions that had once discouraged me in my faith. The bible, as a whole, began to make sense to me for the first time. Everything tied together from a logical, historical, and dispensational perspective. I thought that this must be the answer to the horrible cycle of failure that had plagued me throughout my Christian experience. Wrong.
I saw God not as a loving, forgiving God, but as an angry, disappointed father, sick of seeing his ungrateful son mess up time and time again.
When the newness of my scriptural awakening wore off, I found myself caught up in the same endless cycle as before. Sure, my studies improved as a result of my new-found understanding of right-division, but something still felt missing. I knew the bible said that God loved me, but during my low points this isn’t how I saw God. I saw God not as a loving, forgiving God, but as an angry, disappointed father, sick of seeing his ungrateful son mess up time and time again. I began to see every bad thing that happened in my life as a Divinely appointed judgment for failing to live up to the “Christian” standard.
You know it’s bad when you start to doubt your own salvation. I can’t tell you how many times I prayed that “rededication” prayer. Fearing that perhaps I wasn’t truly sincere or committed enough to have received salvation at previous times, I cried out the same salvation prayer. Not that I was ever completely convinced that hadn’t already been received salvation, I simply wanted to be sure. All I knew was that I didn’t “feel” saved and these “feelings” fed my growing doubts. I often thought to myself that maybe if I sounded more religious or less religious, or even more zealous then God would hear my prayer.
Sadly, all of this behavior contradicted what I openly stated that I believed to be true from Scripture. I had always firmly held to a belief in the eternal security of the believer and that faith in Christ alone was enough to save one’s soul for eternity, but when my walk didn’t match my doctrinal beliefs, well, my mind began to waver. Truthfully, I wasn’t sure of anything anymore. But externally I tried to appear dogmatic. I wanted to appear sure of myself, though I really wasn’t. I’d tell myself, “Maybe if I say the same thing over and over I’ll begin to believe it.” That, however, just doesn’t work. No matter how hard you try, you can’t will your way to peace and security.
Yet I still yearned to know the truth. I knew something was missing in my life. But what was it? If I was saved why didn’t feel as though I was? Where was the peace? Where was the joy? What was I doing wrong? I was tired of being lost and confused, so I did the only thing I knew for sure I could do. I prayed. I asked God to open my mind and reveal His Truth to me. I knew I couldn’t continue on the way I had been. I needed answers.
Those answers didn’t come instantaneously but I could feel God’s hand moving in my life. Slowly over time nuggets of truth began to come to me in my studies and my attitude and understanding toward God began to change. But my eyes really began to open when I read the book “Classic Christianity” by Bob George. Up to that time no book other than the Bible itself had a bigger impact on my understanding of the grace of God. My mind began to open up to the possibility that the God I thought I knew wasn’t really who God was at all. Not only was my perception of God wrong but how I thought he saw me was wrong. It was at this point I began to learn of the positional blessings I received in Christ at the moment of my salvation, that can NEVER be taken away from me. Knowing and accepting these truths fundamentally transformed my life.
More books followed. “It’s Not About Me” by Max Lucado helped me recognize how self-centered I was. I realized that up until then my walk in Christ was more about me than it was about Him. From here I began to see the importance of Christ-centered living. Serving others as if I were serving Christ. Seeking Him rather than my own self-gratification. Don’t get me wrong. I didn’t start acting totally selfless, denying myself, and giving everything to the poor. I am a work in progress. Just ask my wife. This point in my life merely represented a shift that had begun to take place in my understanding of both God and His Word and ultimately how I saw myself and my role in the body of Christ. For the first time, I stopped seeing God as this prison warden, constantly condemning me for my sins. I began to have a deeper understanding the meaning of the word GRACE and that one word led me to internet search that helped me find two more books that would continue to open my the eyes of my understanding concerning God and His infinite love.
I am extremely thankful for the work God has done in the life of Steve McVey. Steve is the author the books “Grace Walk” and “Grace Rules” and many others. Many refer to him as Dr. Grace. The name couldn’t bee more fitting. No one, in my opinion, articulates the message of the grace of God better than him. After reading these two books I would never see the Bible in the same way ever again. The guilt, the condemnation was gone. For the first time in my Christian life, I felt at peace, real genuine peace. At long last, grace “ruled” my heart and from that moment on there has been no turning back.
Today, my life is far from perfect. I still stumble from time to time (ok, often!) but I am no longer burdened by chains I once carried. I have found grace, or better yet, Grace has found me. And in the glorious grace of God I have finally found the peace I had so desperately desired.
If you have ever found yourself like me, lost in a sea of confusion, desperately in search of that Truth that will finally bring you safely ashore into place in the arms grace, then I ask you to join me on a journey to explore the riches of God’s unending grace. His storehouses overflow with an abundance that will never run out, and he offers it freely to you.
If you have placed your faith in the work of God’s Son on the cross for your sins, you have been given eternal life. You have an heavenly inheritance. You have been given all spiritual blessings in Christ Jesus. You have been adopted. You are the sons and daughters of God. God offers His unconditional love. Accept it and never look back. Come and explore the riches of God’s grace with me today. I promise you will never be the same.
The purpose of the website is to provide useful, practical, and most importantly, biblical truths to help you in your own spiritual walk. My goal is encourage and build-up believers in the truth of God’s grace without watering down His Word. I hope you will join me today on the journey of a lifetime. Remember as you read this website that I am just walking along this road with you. I may show you some new things, but I hope to learn things from you too!
May God richly bless you!
–Jerry Gigowski, child of God
P.S.
Though I learned much from the authors mentioned above, there is no substitution for the Living Word of God. The truths I learned from them were already in my Bible. It just took me while to see it. Remember to never take anyone’s word for anything. Test everything against the Word to make sure it is so. There are a good many things I disagree on with the authors listed above but there is so much truth as well. As good Bereans it is important to study our Bibles daily so that we will not be tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine.
