April 30, 1945 Adolph Hitler commits suicide. It's my birthday. I am three years old, living in St. Petersburg, Florida. As a poor white southerner, one of my main pastimes was fighting. Irrelevant to this writing to discuss why, violence was a big part of my life. In the early 1960s as a condition to be released from jail, I moved to California.As with most Americans I knew about Jesus Christ. I attended a few Methodist and Baptist Sunday school classes. I was instructed in the Christmas and Easter stories and had a vague conception that Jesus was very special to God, if the Bible was true. Like most Americans, violent or not, I was a nominal Christian, which of course I realize now means a fake – destined for hell.
I brought my mental and spiritual baggage with me to California and discovered grass (marijuana). I thought I had found heaven. It took all the violence away which alcohol had previously only intensified. I had my own set of morals and there were lines I had vowed never to cross. I worked, went to college, smoked grass almost every day. I soon crossed almost every line I had drawn for myself. That is the nature of sin. In the 60s, as there is today in 2006, many cults and eastern religious practices that offered ways to find peace were available. I finally went past meditation with a group to find total enlightenment – to find the ultimate -- God. The requirements were simply stated – hard to achieve.
1. Reject every belief you have previously held; and 2. Empty your mind.
I finally actually did it. It was called “Psychic death”. Depending on your world view, I became insane or demon possessed. Oh how I felt the weight of the world on my shoulders and oh, how I thought I was so aware and could teach others to escape this unreality into “my heaven”.
I was the right age, approaching 30, and had found “the answer.”It was time to make “my appearance.”I called a reporter and made an appointment with him at his office in Torrance, CA. As I was walking to the front door of the Torrance Breeze office, a thundering voice said, "Behold He comes with clouds and every eye shall see Him." It is irrelevant if it was a suppressed scripture I had read as a child or if God spoke audibly. This experience literally knocked me to my knees and shattered my philosophy. I immediately embarked on a torturous few months of soul searching, reading the Bible, arguing with preachers and the Jesus freaks and arguing with God. To be concise, one night I heard God call my name, one word, “Tom”. The presence was overpowering. All the LSD and mind altering techniques in the world paled compared to this. My final words were, “Lord Jesus, I give up. I believe in you.” I got saved.
That was winter 1969. I’ve been an active Christian ever since. I’ve seen many revivals, many more so called moves of God”, and many new improved methods to improve yourself and the church come and go in the last 37 years. The contemplative prayer movement is one of these fads. I’m not ignorant of the movement, nor want to “nitpick” Most people in churches are not saved anyway and that is a real danger. All honest pastors admit this. This is beyond an innocent technique, beyond a biblical stilling of the mind to focus on God—which you cannot ever do accurately until you are saved anyway.
This is dangerous territory and I strongly warn people in the churches to avoid this movement.If you want to experience God and “feel like” a Christian, you must die to yourself and at the same time "Let this man (Jesus) rule over you." To become born again. If you are a Christian and you don’t feel like one, you aren’t living like one.
I am adding my voice to many evangelical Christians who are opposed to this “movement”. Study the reasons against it as well as for it. If you empty your mind, you are the one who will suffer the consequences.
Tom Adcock
Jesus People Information Center
4338 3rd Ave
Sacramento, CA 95817
www.mission.org/jesuspeople
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