Carlos From Partying to Preaching, Part 2

In his search for truth, Carlos read about the lives of Buddha, Socrates, and Mohammed. Then he decided to read a book about Jesus. “I knew Him as a cool hippie who healed the poor, but not much more.” The book said that the Sermon on the Mount was the greatest speech ever given in history. “Since I loved history and politics,” Carlos recalls, “I decided, for the first time in my life, to open a Bible. I read Matthew, chapters five through seven. I’ve never been the same since.”

When Carlos finished reading these chapters, an unexplainable peace came over him. “It was something I had never before felt and had been searching to find for years.” Though he couldn’t understand what was happening, he realized it came from reading the Bible and listening to the words of Jesus.

“So I decided to give Christ a chance.” And the more Carlos read the Bible, the more attracted he became to the life of Jesus.

Now Carlos faced a new dilemma: Which church was the true church? There were so many denominations! “I had to study them all because I wanted to find the one closest to the truth,” he shares. So he began to visit all sorts of churches, often going a couple times a week. People criticized him and told him he was confused. But Carlos wondered what if they were in the wrong church and didn’t know it?—so he just kept searching.

One day, while flying from Tampa, Florida, to Puerto Rico, Carlos struck up a conversation with his seatmate. Near the end of their flight, the gentleman suggested he study the Sabbath truth in Scripture more carefully.

Memories from high school slowly came back to him. He recalled a classmate who didn’t participate in Saturday activities and a friend who wouldn’t work on Friday nights. He called this friend and asked about visiting his Sabbath-keeping church. His friend put him off, but God wouldn’t let this opportunity pass by. One day, his friend’s father stopped by Carlos’ family business and invited him to visit their church. Carlos chose to go.

Reflect: What’s the hardest decision you ever had to make in your life? Sometimes we need to be willing to give up one thing in order to have something much better.

Key Bible Texts

And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD. (Joshua 24:15 KJV)