I was born in the state of Chihuahua Mexico in 1952. I lived there for the first twelve years of my life. I grew up in a religious home (Mennonite), went to a school where the text books were the Martin Luther German Bible and Martin Luther's Catechism. I memorized the Catechism but understood none of the questions or the answers.
In 1964 we moved to Alberta Canada. We did not know a word of English and going to school was frustrating to say the least. We experienced major culture shock having come from a Mennonite community in Mexico; our mode of transportation was horse and buggy. Driving or owning a motor vehicle or owning farm machinery with rubber tires was a sin.
In 1968 God Almighty entered my life. I went forward at a revival meeting and spoke to the guest preacher/evangelist and he helped me see that I needed Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior.
The Church that I became a member of taught that you could lose your salvation. So now I had gone from no assurance to having assurance as long as I confessed all my sins. Pity me If I forgot some!
Around the year 1975, my wife and I were reading and studying the Scriptures, we came across verses such as John 3:16, and we began asking questions about what it meant to have "eternal" life. We came to the conclusion that "eternal" life is forever. We studied the Bible further and discovered that there were many references that assured us that once we had been placed in Christ by the Father, our salvation was as secure as the work of Christ was on the Cross! (Romans 6:1-6)
Back to the first paragraph of this post: we used Martin Luther's German Bible and his Catechism in our Mennonite only school; but were never taught what the meaning of the Christian life was all about. Around 1980 I was introduced to C. H. Spurgeon and later to John F. MacArthur and Jay E. Adams. Since that time I have discovered many Reformed Baptist preachers and teachers (John Piper, Mark Driscoll, Albert N. Martin, Joel Beeke etc.)
Today I'm what you would call a Reformed Baptist, all of the preaching and teaching Elders in our Assembly are Reformed in their theology, and we rejoice greatly in the Doctrines of Grace and the Sovereignty of God in Creation, Providence and Salvation.
"God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him" - John Piper
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