My spiritual walk with the God has increased exponentially over the last couple of years. I wanted to spend more time with God, with the church, and my health that I retired in January 2022 to investigate my calling. Ever since then, the calling has been more intense, clarified, and fulfilling as I keep getting closer to God and know Him more. At this time, I am a full time student at Liberty University taking 15 credits a semester. This takes up a lot of my time but I am able to make time outside of my studies to walk with God. What I mean by this is that my Liberty University is my “full time job” and I am still integrating my personal walk with God in addition to that. Liberty is not a substitute for my walk with God. This post is a combination of what I am doing and what I will be doing once my schooling is complete in six months.

Being a Disciple of Christ

A disciple is someone that believes in the gospel, has surrendered completely to follow Jesus, focuses on growing in the Body of Christ (church), and is actively working with God on making more disciples. The scriptures that helped with creating this definition include:

• “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Rom 6:23).
• “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:31-32).
• “so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.” (Eph 4:12-13).
• “‘Come, follow me,’ Jesus said, ‘and I will send you out to fish for people.’’ (Matt 4:19).
• “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matt 28:19-20).

My Purpose on Earth

Knowing why God created me is important so I know what my purpose is. “Everyone who is called by My name, Whom I have created for My glory; I have formed him, yes, I have made him.” (Isaiah 43:7). I was created by God to bring Him all of the glory. This is why I normally start all of my conversations with the congregation with, “To God be the…” and the congregation says “Glory!” Everything I do should be something that will bring Him the glory. “Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” (1 Cor 10:31). To properly give Glory to God, a person must be a believer in Christ. This means that everything starts at salvation as we are saved to share in God’s glory and to bring Him the glory. After salvation come many other aspects of being able to bring God glory. Maturing in Christ, serving Him, bearing fruit, using spiritual gifts, and enduring suffering are all to bring Him glory. Living and walking in Christ give God all of the glory. My motivation is to maximize the amount of glory I can give to God so when the time comes, I hear, “Well done, good and faithful servant;” (Matt 25:21).

Guiding Principles

There are several guiding principles which include Sacrificial, Relational, and Transformational. Sacrificial is where I have surrendered all to be in Christ and His will/plan for me and my life. I am totally committed to Him which includes my time, energy, body, money, possessions, and future plans.

Relational is where I am loving God, loving family and friends, loving my brothers and sisters in Christ, and loving my neighbors. The acronym for LOVE helps me understand what it is to LOVE someone. LOVE = Listen intently, Obey as much as possible, Value him/her, Encourage him/her. This is part of the Great Commandment, “Jesus said to him, “ ‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’” (Matt 22:37-39).

To love God is to know God, this is one of the main reasons I went to Seminary as I wanted to know as much as I could about God so I could understand my calling and be equipped properly. Most of my life I have submerged myself completely into everything. I went into the Navy as a Sonar Technician and became the Leading Petty Officer for my Division. When I got out and was involved with SCUBA diving, I became a Master Instructor and helped teach others how to teach SCUBA to students. When I became a Quality Manager, I became a Six Sigma/LEAN Black Belt and was also training others to be a Six Sigma/LEAN Black Belt and became the Head of Quality for North America and South America for Siemens. This character trait that God instilled in me had me jump into seminary even though I was already retired with no further plans of working. All of this was God’s plan. Other ways of knowing God is to study and know His Word. This is where I am in the Bible almost daily. Knowing about Him is important (e.g. Trinity, Theology Proper, His Revelations, etc.) and communicating with Him through prayer is equally important. My goal is to be in constant prayer with Him as I start my mornings getting “online”, praying throughout the day at meals, stressful situations, prayer requests, and then going “offline” with bedtime prayer.

In regards to being Relational, Fellowship is critical to me as I want to be around other Christians for spiritual nourishment and encouragement. I want to provide it and receive it. There are many levels of spiritual maturity and everyone should be helping each other within the body of Christ, which is the church. My perception of church is that it is the people, not the building that is the church. This is why I created the Fun In Fellowship ministry as I want to make sure that we always have opportunities to fellowship with others in unique, relaxing, and fun ways. I see the need for balance between Worship, Evangelism, Discipleship, Fellowship, and Leadership. Loving God and loving people are actions that need to be completed constantly and tested regularly. I do need to do better at setting boundaries to protect my personal and family time to ensure success in all of the other areas of my life.

Transformational is where I am maturing in Christ while surrendering to the Spirit so I bear fruit and become like Christ in word, thought, attitude, and action. Bible study and prayer are some of the activities that overlap from the other principles. Scripture memorization is something I am doing regularly upcoming sermons, Bible studies, counseling, and evangelism activities. I have attempted journaling but it is something I have not prioritized as I am not convinced it is necessary for me at this time. I do get solitude and silence which helps me reflect on my growth, gaps, and priorities. My next growth focus is on my body, the temple, where I need to stay fit and be healthy. Fasting is to assist with resisting temptations and it is what I plan on doing more of to assist with eating healthier. Being leads to doing, knowing should lead to action, transformation is where I am using what I know and where my being is doing the actions that Christ would want me to do. This is where I need to continue to surrender to the Holy Spirit and use my spiritual gifts to build up the body of Christ, the church.

There are two passages that I continue to focus on for my transformation to glorification in Christ. These are 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 which helps me focus on how I should “be” and “act”, and Galatians 5:22-23 reminds me to know what I should look like to others as I am walking in Christ correctly.

Using my Spiritual Gifts

I think that a lot of times, people’s spiritual gifts are present in some of their natural talents. My top spiritual gifts are administration, shepherding, teaching, and giving. Each of these my friends and family have seen in me for a long time. What I cannot say is that they were in me before I was saved as this was in High School and I know I did not have any of these as I was lost and struggling in life. See my conversion testimony for more insight on how these spiritual gifts started immediately with me in the Navy and SCUBA diving. Spiritual gifts are to help equip others in the body of Christ, I was not doing that with these at the time, but I have learned to use them in the secular world before being used properly in the body of Christ.

With these spiritual gifts, I am actively growing and getting more proficient at pastoral duties such as preaching, teaching, officiating funerals and burials, counseling, leading in ministry, and attempting to help improve existing processes and create new processes. I have not officiated any weddings yet but hopefully that is part of God’s plan as well. I am a licensed and ordained minister with National Association of Christian Ministers. I am active as the Chaplain at the American Legion Post and teaching Bible Study for Fellowship of Christian Athletes. By the grace of God, I earned my Master of Arts in Christian Ministry degree from Liberty University, and Lord willing, have my Master’s in Divinity at the end of December.