Crossing the Tiber

For two years I have been on a spiritual journey to find the truth, just who has it and who protects it's treasury. I was 12 years old when I accepted Jesus Christ as my saviour and received baptism through the Methodist Church. Shortly after my baptism the pastor told me I would never sin again. I soon came to see that those remarks were not true. That one statement caused me to leave the Methodist Church and Christianity altogether. At that young age of 12 a lie from an authority figure was very influencial on my way of thinking and I no longer wanted anything to do with Christianity.

However, the Holy Spirit never abandoned me and in 1987 I began asking why my life was the way it was and why I did what I did and how I could be saved from the misery I have brought upon myself. I was in college at the time and was heavily into the party scene. I was wasting time in classes and had no direction. I finally realized I needed help. And so, as the Holy Spirit prepared my mind to accept truth, I came upon a television program called "The World Tomorrow." It looked like a news program, and I was a news junky then so I stopped and watched. It soon became apparent that this was a Christian program steeped in prophectic language. What struck me most was they offered free material and a subscription to their magazine "The Plain Truth" all for free. This was during the time televangelists were asking for money and getting in trouble, so this program was a welcome difference.

I soon became hooked and ordered every free thing they offered and I went out and bought my first Bible. This began my Christian journey for the search for the truth...more to follow.

I soon became convinced I needed the Holy Spirit in my life to turn it around, but according to this new "World Tomorrow" program I had been baptized incorrectly (which of course was not true, but at the time I thought so). So in 1989 a minister from the church that put on the "World Tomorrow" program (the Worldwide Church of God) baptized me, fully immersed and then hands laid on me to receive the Holy Spirit. It was one of the happiest days of my life. But alas over time I lost my first love and got caught up in the legalism of the WCG. After 12 years of empty religion I left the WCG and began my search for what I lost... more to come.