Strong Finish, New Beginning, Part 5

Spirituality Column #164
December 29, 2009
Current in Carmel - Current in Westfield - Current in Noblesville
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Strong Finish, New Beginning, Part 5
By Bob Walters

The only New Year’s resolutions I’ve ever kept – maybe the only two I ever made – were to quit smoking (1994) and to read the entire Bible (2002).

I started early on both of them. I bought what I planned and hoped would be my last carton of cigarettes just before Christmas 1993, and started reading the Bible in December 2001.

I mentioned the resolution to quit smoking a couple of years ago (Jan. 1, 2008, Column #60, www.believerbob.blogspot.com) in the context of finding strength I didn’t know I had from a God I didn’t think I knew. It was one of several examples I trace in my previous non-church life of what minister Russ Blowers called “prevenient grace.”

That’s when God’s grace is mystically, actively bestowed upon us and we are sure we have a) done nothing to deserve it and b) not confessed faith in Christ.

“Prevenient” means antecedent and doesn’t appear in most dictionaries. “Prevenient Grace” is an actual theological construct within the Calvinist vs. Arminian, predestination vs. grace debate.

(As an aside: Calvinism vs. Arminianism typically is a heated conversation between believers. I don’t think it is of much value to seekers, skeptics and non-believers; only confusing and beside the main point. For an article that explains without preaching, go to www.bible-researcher.com and search “arminianism.” The “main point,” by the way, is Jesus Christ.)

Anyway, I quit smoking. Cold turkey. Prevenient grace. I’m still alive.

The resolution to read the entire Bible in 2002 followed my being baptized in November 2001. Many things fell in place that led me to Christ, and held me there, in the latter part of 2001.

One of the pieces was that my then-pastor Dave Faust announced a weekly walking-through-the-Bible class starting early 2002. As I contemplated Baptism, I wanted to know the Bible, and by taking my heart and mind through that door, I could “learn from Christ, not just about Him.” (Hat tip for that line goes to preacher Dave Mullins’ sermon at E91 a couple weeks ago.)

As I was in the final throes of the decision to be baptized, the Bible class was the last nudge I needed.

I could read, I could learn, I could walk in my new-found faith.

Smoking remains gone, and the Bible remains on board. These were not resolutions, they were gifts. They were the real Christ in Christmas, continued.

Walters (www.believerbob.blogspot.com or email rlwcom@aol.com) tends toward being a grace guy, with no specific prejudices against the predestination crowd.