A student studying to be a pastor shares how the Lord delivered him from a path filled with false teachings.

Deliverance is a funny thing. Some people tell me that they do not have a testimony like I do because they grew up in the church. I usually tell them that the Lord delivered me from the path that I was on, while at the same time he delivered them from having to go down that path.

I grew up in California and was baptized as an infant. My mother did not attend church nor did she talk to me about Christ. I grew up hearing about a god but not knowing who that god was. He was something or someone who only watched me from the sidelines.

Like most children who grow up outside the church, my teenage and young adult years were not godly. I had no direction in my life and no sense of purpose. At age 19, I joined the Navy. After I enlisted, my grandfather passed away from lung cancer. This loss took me down a path of self-destruction, and I developed a hatred for the god I had learned about in my youth. With no faith and surrounded by temptation, I headed down the wrong path at full speed.

A few years later, when I was a cook on a ship, the Lord used a chaplain to be the male role model that I was missing. He and I became good friends, and he began asking me questions about my past. Eventually he began to share the gospel with me, and the Holy Spirit brought me to faith.

As a new Christian I had a passion to know God. I wanted to be a man after God's own heart. I spent my remaining time in the Navy going to Pentecostal, Baptist, and nondenominational churches. I wanted answers to my questions. I wanted to know the truth. However, all I had was confusion. Every church I went to had different teachings, and many contradicted the Bible. Most of these churches taught that when I hit rock bottom and I had nowhere to turn except to the Lord, I chose to believe in him. At that point in my spiritual life, I did not doubt this teaching because I didn't know any better.

In addition, they told me that Baptism was something we do to show that we are part of God's family and that it is a public confession of our faith. They taught that the Lord's Supper was a symbol of the body and blood of Christ and that when I took it I was being obedient to Christ by remembering his sacrifice. They told me not to worry about sinning but to trust in the forgiveness of Christ and wait for his return and for the Rapture to take place.