Simple Faith

     "The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash."  Matthew 7:27

     On our tenth Christmas together, my wife presented me with a book by Charles Swindoll, Simple Faith.  It was a major turning point in my life with Christ and my beliefs about church denominations.  Looking back, twenty years later, it was like putting on glasses for the first time.  I saw my spiritual life from the standpoint of simple faith in Christ and not obeying all the church rules!  It took an additional ten years before I left the "wilderness" to obtain a "rest" in my own "promised land".
     My "wilderness wanderings" was as a member of the Church of Christ in Gadsden, Alabama.  I'll not go into all the lurid details here, but suffice it to say, it never felt right!  Even as a staunch advocate for New Testament Christianity & Bible baptism, I knew something was wrong.  One step out of line, like a missed church service, and you were in trouble with the hierarchy.
     In Dr. Swindoll's introduction to the book, he asked a few questions that obviously I couldn't answer correctly.
"Do you have a childlike trust in God?
Are you comfortable with your prayer life?
In a sentence or two, could you explain what it means to be a Christian?
Does the word "satisfied" describe your feelings about your walk with Christ?"

     I believe he cracked my "Humpty Dumpty church egg" and it couldn't be put back together again. My family and I began a search for the correct church and that was wrong in itself.  There is NO perfect church!  We do however, have a perfect Saviour in Jesus, the Christ!  The relationship has to be with Him and not your church.
     Church denominations are all different, even churches within the same denomination.  We ended up with the "Southern Baptists", but I am at the point in my spiritual life that I can worship with any Christian organization.  It's like the sign on the old church, "Christians Meet Here"!  I found the Southern Baptists to be closer to my own Bible beliefs and certainly not the monsters preached about from Church of Christ pulpits!  I've never seen such organized mission efforts to reach the lost for Christ!  They are usually the first"boots on the ground" in disaster areas.  Furthermore, their help with the needy is outstanding!  Southern Baptists are Christians that don't claim to have everything right nor to be the only ones going to heaven! 
     I've also visited Presbyterian,  Methodist, and Pentecostal churches.  There are Christians in all of them!  Regardless of denomination, we should all work toward the simplicity of faith in Christ and the tearing down of denomination walls!  Jesus said, "If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand."  Church doctrine can be sandy and unstable at times...  Jesus is the rock we all need to build upon!