A testimony is a simple thing, a few mere words spoken or written, but it lies on your heart with the weight of a thousand books, a thousand nights of prayer, and finally, in the end, with the weight of faith alone. I have placed this here knowing full well that many may call me names, like fundamentalist, or heretic. But I put this here in the hopes that you may come to see the truth through these simple words-though my words will never encompass the whole truth while I tarry here, a stranger in a strange land.

God created the heavens and the Earth, and all of the creatures within them. This is an essential beginning to all other things-without this, the rest is nothing. I do not purport to know how God created these things, yet I do not believe evolution is able to explain how we came to be.

Men were granted exercise of free will by God, and chose to turn away from God. This is called the Fall, or the Original Sin.

God sent His Son Jesus Christ, as a perfect sacrifice, to provide a penal substitution for our sins.

There is only one way to God, through faith in God's Son, Jesus. Jesus was crucified, buried, and raised again on the third day, and now acts as our perfect High Priest in Heaven. There is no church which is the true way to God. No saint, organization, tradition, or person, no matter how blessed or perfect, can bring you to God. No experience, no matter how perfect or emotional, can truly show you God. Faith in Christ is the only way to God.

God is Reality. This is a more metaphysical belief, perhaps, but it is, at root, the reason I am a Christian. God created us, He gave us life, and He redeemed us. Turning away from God is turning away from reality itself, a turning away from life.

Hell is seperation from God. If God grants you life, and you despise that life, the only thing left is death-but you cannot die, because God has granted life. Eternal life without God is eternal death, always wishing you were dead, always waiting for that moment when you pass away, but it never comes. Eternal death is, in a sense, the culmination of what Paul describes in Romans 1. It is somehow losing your humanity, becoming a shadow of a human, a grumble, or a whine, or a simple exhausted hating thought.

Christians should stand against the world in it's shifts and changes. Christians should stand against the intellectual who says: "I know about God, but I'm not interested in knowing God." Christians should also stand against the spirit of this age, which says: "I want to know God, but I don't want to know about God." Each age has a spirit, and the spirit of ours is division, the division of faith and reason, the division of intellect and emotion. Intellect and emotions are, in our world, parodies of themselves, because they are separated by a wide gulf of misunderstanding.

In all things, we should be Bereans (Acts 17:10-11), being careful followers, and using God's Word to illuminate, temper, and judge our experiences, rather than trusting in our experiences to shape our understanding of God's Word. God will not only hold us responsible for the teaching we give to others, but also for the teachers we choose to follow.

God's Word is divinely inspired and without error in it's original autographs. While our translations might not be perfect, God has written His Word in a way that defies unintentional destruction, so we can trust His Word even through the doubts and naysaying of the world.

We strive to gain an inhertence with God by changing our patterns of thought to match God's. While we are saved through our faith in Christ alone, we are perfected through a change in the way we think turned into action by standing on the promises of God. The process of learning, understanding, and trusting in the promises of God brings spiritual maturity and a flowering of the spiritual gifts of patience, peace, and love.

Because I believe these things does not mean I believe I am perfect. To believe in the speed of light isn't the same thing as believing you can run at the speed of light. Setting high standards makes you a hypocrite, but better to be a hypocrite reaching for the truth than to turn away from the truth altogether!

R White
last edited January 2010