My Faith and My Church

Introduction

Every so often, I will be writing an article relating to faith. Since, my faith is a big part of my life it would not be right if I left it out of the blog. I plan to dedicate 10% of the blog posts to my faith and how it shapes my beliefs.

Why 10%?

In Genesis 14, it is the first time in the Bible where the principle of tithing is introduced. As the story goes, Abraham was robbed, but he and his men were able to take all back that was stolen from them. On his way back home, he paid a visit to Melchizedek the priest (who is a mysterious figure but is supposed to be a picture of Christ) and he gave him a tithe or 10% of all the spoils.

There is a principle here, the tithe which was established by Abraham. The point of the tithe is to honor God with your substance. Another point of the of the tithe is to show God that money is not in a higher place than God in your life. In other words, what is God worth to you? The 10% tithe, or even more which is called an offering. This means that 10% is what God requires from you, it is not optional while the offering is something that is optional.

The there also another related principle that ancient Israel needed to follow which was to give the first fruits of your increase. So, if they had 1000 sheep, they would have to give God the best of the flock. Israel did not do this at periods in their history, and disaster followed. It’s all about God’s worth to you. Jesus said love God, with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength. To do this, I believe that a portion of the blog posts need to be on something about of faith.

And it is not as if following God’s word has no benefits. In Psalms 103 verses 2-5 it says “Bless the Lord, O my soul, And forget not all His benefits:

Who forgives all your iniquities,

Who redeems your life from destruction.

Who crowns you with lovingkindness and tender mercies,

Who satisfies your mouth with good things, So that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.

With that, I wanted to make this article about my faith life and how it has changed over the years.

Early Life

My family is a Christian family, and I grew up in a Christian home. My Dad accepted Christ when he was 18, and my mom accepted Christ when she was child. I grew up in a home were there were people who honored God.

But the like some of you know, there are as many denominations of the Christian church as branches on a tree. My dad attends a church in Columbus that is Apostolic, which basically means that they believe God is active today (some don’t denominations do not actually believe this but trust me he is) and that he still does signs and wonders. My Mom grew up in a denomination which is called Church of God, you can go read about them if you want, but she is non-denominational now. They are both non-denominational Christians.

The key thing about my early life in faith is that my parents instilled an appreciation for following God at an early age. A problem though, in my early life was that my parents stopped going to the same church. At some point my mom got tired of people in my father church speaking in tongues so frequently among other things, which is supposed to a spiritual gift that results from being filled with the Holy Spirit.

I fully understand that this must be explained.

In the Christian faith the Holy Spirit is the advocate Jesus sent after he ascended to Heaven after all his business was done on earth. God is triune like man who was created in the image of God (Genesis 1:27), who has a soul, a body, and a sprit. God is Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. On the day of Pentecost, Jesus’s disciples were all in one room and then the Holy Spirit came upon them like a mighty rushing wind (Acts 2:2) and then they started speaking in divided tongues. People of various backgrounds outside the room heard these tongues and heard their own tongue.

To me speaking in tongues is very legitimate but is a mystery because you unless you can interpret the tongues, you can’t tell when people are really speaking in tongues.

If I am honest, I was not a fan of my dad’s church even as a child. What even more strange is that it is mystery to me how my dad even ended up at this small church in Columbus. My Dad is not from the area and has never talked about it.

My Mom took me and my brother to a larger church that is non-denominational and it at the time was the best she could do. The Church was far from perfect, but I liked the new church more. My brother and I went to this church for several years, until I was 23. This was the age I went to law school.

When I went to law school, I arrived three weeks early because I was getting acclimated to life in California. My aunt and uncle at the time lived in the Bay Area and asked me to go to church with them. I agreed, and on Sundays they would take me to their Church called Redemption. Afterward we would go to Black Bear Diner or some other breakfast place. Going to this new church was unlike any Church I have ever been to. This church was truly alive.

Life at Redemption

My aunt and uncle are originally from Los Angeles, but my uncle took a job in the Bay Area for work. He was working while I started law school, but literally by the second semester of law school, they moved back to Los Angeles. My uncle, like me, if you read Living in Redwood City, thinks Bay Area rent is too high. They have home in Los Angeles, so it was rather easy for them to move back.

Consequently, I had to make my way to church on my own since they were no longer coming. This became is a consistent thing that I did on Sundays was go to church. Many churches have problems with people attending consistently, at my last church it was talked about. At Redemption it is never talked about because it is not a problem at Redemption, as I understand it. People are truly passionate about God in the church. In other words, the culture of the church is such that it is standard for congregation to attend church each week.

In fact, this church is much more concerned about other things. Things like, are you consistently reading the bible, or how do you worship God. These are the two things that will go the longest way toward you experiencing God in your life. I mean, how much do you have to love God to read a passage of scripture and study it, to pray, and consider how you worship God. This goes back to the same problem in tithing, how much is God worth to you.

Ultimately, I grew to love the church I went to. I probably attended close to all Sunday services, even online services during the pandemic for the duration of time I started law school until now. I have noticed that a lot of people in the Bay Area, may know about Jesus, they know who he is, but they have never encountered the living God before. Remember, when I said Jesus ascended into heaven, this means he is still alive. He is the same then as he is now. He said he stands at the door knocking, but many have no interest in him. Some point to contradictions in the Bible when they simply just do not understand it. Like all things, when you do not understand something, you must find someone who does.

Honoring God in My Own Life

It was not until I got to redemption where I started to tithe consistently, although I never had any problem with tithing. The importance became more apparent when I got to Redemption. As I started to go to church on my own, I noticed that the culture of the church was getting in me. It was not long before, I was inviting people to church, although it was not a frequent thing.

I could also tell that I was becoming more mature. I was trusting God better and was living a more Godly lifestyle than I was before. What do I mean, I was exhibiting more Godly characteristics like longsuffering (needed to longsuffering to get through law school for sure). The most important thing is that I have seen God move in my life in powerful ways since I have made redemption my church home. For example, when the second semester of law school started, I had nowhere to stay because I was on a sublease with an undergraduate student the semester before, and that ended. I could not find anything, I had a plan to stay in this detached room behind this house in San Jose, but it ultimately did not work out and I had scramble during the semester to find housing. Eventually, these empty nesters were renting a room in San Jose for 1000 dollars. After over a week of sleeping on peoples couches. They reached out on my school’s engagement platform where people can inquire about jobs or roommates or that sort of thing. I had stated that I needed a place to stay, and that’s where I learned about the room for 1000 dollars.

This room was way better than any room I had in the Bay Area, before or after. It was a great place and was not too far from the school. That whole time I was thinking about just buying a plane ticket and heading back to Ohio. Finding housing as a student with little money besides student loans can be more complicated than you think, I thank God because the right place at the right time found me.

Another example was when I was living on my own in Redwood City, I had to move out early for reasons I will not get into today, but I left in August. I was on the hook for over 6,000 thousand in rent that had to be paid between August and November. By the grace of God because I did not break the lease, the leasing office re-rented the room by September. It turned out I only had to pay a couple hundred dollars as opposed to several thousand which I could not afford.

Another example was after I interned at Intel for half of one summer (another story), I started receiving payments from Intel.  They were still paying me. I did not know that I was supposed to tell them that they were overpaying me. This had never happened to me before. I did not spend the money, but I tithed 10% of what I earn like I always do. When they asked for all the money back, which I learned they had a legal right to do so. I also realized that because I tithed some of the money, I could not pay them back in totality. I was very concerned that I would not be able to pay them back and felt stupid as well. Then one day I got a letter that I was a part of a class action lawsuit against Lifetime Fitness. I went to Lifetime Fitness maybe 2 months before I attended the University of Dayton my freshman year of college. That was over 5 years ago. I got over 1,000 dollars from that class action lawsuit, which is crazy when you think about it. That needed money finished satisfying paying back Intel.

These are just the financial stories, which I believe are direct result of my consistent tithing, but there are even more powerful stories of God working in my life.