Ryan Bassett

Christian Life
Kevin Greer

My Journey with God

My current walk with God is something that has been evolving radically as of lately. There have

been a few concepts that, by the grace of God, I have understood and implimented into my life, that

have radically changed my worldview, my idea of the Christian lifestyle, and especially what it means

to be a disciple of Jesus Christ.

One concept that has made an earth-shattering impact on my life was from a book called

Dissident Discipleship by David Ausburger that I read it in a small group at my former church in

California. The concept is called 'tripolar spirituality'. Basically, theres three categories of spiritualities

that people live within. They are called monopolar spirituality, bipolar spirituality, and tripolar

spirituality. The first category, monopolar spirituality, defines an individualistic walk with the self.

Ausburger writes, “Monopolar spirituality, by definition, is the inner, subjective encounter with one's

own inner universal self, with essential humanness that is reverent towards the uniqueness of the

spiritual core that is universally present in all human beings.' (P. 11.) Monopolar spirituality defines a

few years of my adolescent life. A practical example of someone following a life defined by monopolar

spirituality (and this is a good picture of my life) would be someone who read an Anthony Robbins

book, wrote down some goals and some ideas about how to change their belief systems, and walked

through their life with their own single-minded goal of reaching those goals, possibly journalism about

their progress nightly in a spiral notebook. This is similarly the idea behind Ayn Raynd's popular

philosophy in her popular books Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead of objectivism, or possibly

Nietchetz' idea of the superhuman from Thus Spoke Zarathustra: The self is God, one finds God

through a self-driven walk into their own being. One may still have a concept of God, but not that of a
loving Father who made His children in His own image to live out their lives in worship and

community furthering His mission..

The second category is bipolar spirituality. Auschberger defines bipolar spirituality as “[uniting]

self and God and provides a referrent outside the self. By defining spirituality as the tension between

individual solitude and union with the divine, it stimulates critique, reveals our finitude and brokenness

as persons, and offers a divine vision to challenge human blindness. Crucial as these two poles are, the

bi-polar quest fails to situate the self in community and in vital, necessary relationships. When push

comes to shove, it is ultimately about the individual and the singular relationship to God.' (P. 14)

Bipolar spirituality defines the last year of my walk with God. I had found the Bible, understood that

God wanted to do great things in my life, but I viewed my walk with God as a personal relationship

with Him. I thought all that mattered was a personal relationship with Him, that relationship with

people were uncessary or not as important. (Tripolar spirituality smashes this idea by saying that the

love of God is only as proportionate as the love you have of your Friend or Enemy).

Tripolar spirituality, the third category of spiritualities, is the category I found myself living in

recently, and defines my current walk with God, which I am extremely joyful and happy about. Tripolar

spirituality is about knowing the self by loving the God that is in other people. It recognizes all as

perfectly valuable images of God and strives to love others more than our selves. Ausburger says “I

come to know myself not alone, but in the company of fellow travelers; I come to know others not

merely in collusion, but in shared commitment to the One who brings us together justly and safely in

the triumphant surrender of ultimate trust. Inseparable, indivisible, the three poles of tri-polar

spirituality each define and determine the authenticity of the other parts.” (P. 13) Tripolar spirituality is

about community, about selfless service and sacrifice, about true discipleship.
 Another radical concept that has shaped my life in my current walk with God is something that I

am learning more about in Old Testament History as of now as we're studying Genesis. The idea that

God created the world and said it was good has enabled me to live a joyous life of enjoying Gods

creation rather than limiting myself strictly to only activities and things of a strict Christian life. It was

a radical idea to me that drinking a single beer with a Christian friend could be considered okay by God

and was not a terrible sin. Genesis Chapter 2 says God created woman and said it was good. For a

while I was so hung up on the idea of lust that I would hide my gaze from woman at all cost to save my

eyes from sin. The fact that God created women so beautiful and in sculpted her with His own hands

gives me a new understanding of God and this world. I still find it extremely important to understand

that sin is rampant in this world and that everything that God created good has the potential of being

altered for the worse in sin. Pornography and promiscuity, for example, are sinful and a destruction of

Gods intentions and His perfect creation. Something that a Christian rapper “DA TRUTH” taught me in

one of his preachings was that (and this is speaking about the culture of rap specifically, but is evident

and applicable to all culture), that it isn't the RAP culture that is sinful and evil. Rap is essentially beat,

rhythm, and flow, and a culture that embraces that (even if they wear baggy pants and du rags), is

totally fine and in the image of God. As soon as you put girls in music videos with no clothes on, swear

words in every line of lyrics, and idolatry of money, sex, clothes, and fame, then you destroy that

culture. This idea is radical and mind blowing to me, because it means that I don't have to ditch my

love of music, movies, books, the internet, women, and all these things that the world is filled with. It

means I have to have discernment, wisdom, and especially discipline by the grace of God to rid myself

and my life of the sinful parts of these things. This concept has allowed me to view relationships in a

whole new way especially. I'm able to look at my friends with less criticism and judgement on

everything they do. I'm able to discern more deeply the meaning behind “Do not love the world for

anyone who loves the world does not have the love of God”. I'm more immersed with my friends in

doing things together as a community and not a holier-than-thou spectator and righteous judge.
 To come to my present position in my walk with God, there have been a few invaluable

resources that have shaped me into who I am. One author is CJ Mahaney, lead pastor of Soverign grace

community church. His sermons and lectures on Idolatry have shaped my thoughts and my walk with

God in tremendous ways. He taught me what it means to have a healthy fear of God and to, by the

grace of God, diminish the idolatry of fear of man. Fear of man was something that invaded my life and

shaped my every waking moment—one of my promeinant sins. His idea that wanting approval from

others (an unhealthy amount) and having overwhelming thoughts about what others think about you is

not something that comes from a lack of self-esteem but is rather a idolatrous problem in the heart and

something that can be renewed and healed by Applicable truths of the work of Jesus Christ on the

cross. He also greatly inspired my striving for the ideal of humility from his book entitled Humility and

his supplemental sermons. For a long time I dealt with pride—I thought that other people respect other

people when people have a healthy (and even unshakable or naïve) sense of pride. I strived for this in

myself (which was an idolatry upon an idolatry). Thanks to the grace of God and works of Jesus Christ

I am slowly diminishing this aspect of my personality and growing more in the image of God. Another

author an pastor that greatly influenced me was Francis Chan. He had a sermon series called

“Lukewarmness”. His idea that at the judgment seat of God, God will 'spit out the lukewarm' from the

body, radically changed my life. It gave me the push to fully dedicate my life to God and his Will. I was

all in because of Francis Chan. I prayed that night that I would do anything and go anywhere for Him.

John Piper was also influential in this aspect. His popular sermon “Don't Waste Your Life” had a

similar message that affected me deeply. He challenged youth to get off face book and do something

with their life. Go to Africa on a missions trip, just do something. God wants radical followers,

especially young followers. Another pastor that influenced me was Paul Washer in this aspect. He has a

popular sermon called “Shocking youth message” where he talks about the implementation of what the

short and narrow walk is. He also helped develop my beliefs about dating more seriously. He helped

me develop positive beliefs about what biblical masculinity was and what it meant to be a man. He
helped me shed my beliefs that “because everyone else is dating, so should I, and helped me focus

more on developing myself into the image of Christ, becoming financially secure, and developing

myself into a man before I look for a potential mate. He helped me solidify my dedication to God of

purity and abstinence.

For a while, I dedicated my life and my actions completely to God in a very hardcore fashion. I

was interested in pleasing God as much as possible and found every way I could actively repent, then

did it. I went back to my high school and confessed to my teachers and principal that I cheated on some

tests in my classes in tears, leading to a conversation with my french teacher about God and Christ. I

also told my mom and my dad in tears that I had lied to them and deceived them often into believing I

was sick to skip school. I found two places to serve, a horse ranch and a food shelter, and served over 4

times a week in order to please God. I deleted all the music from my Ipod and computer that I didn't

buy, practically starting over with my music collection, in order to repent of stealing music online. I

also deleted thousands and thousands of digital products that I had downloaded through private

communities. For example, I had many products from entrepreneur and business guru Jay Abraham

worth thousands of dollars, which I deleted. I deleted all promiscuous and pornographic images and

videos from my computer and confessed my previous struggle with lust (I have not seen a pornographic

image or video since that day over a year and a half ago). My walk with Jesus Christ was strong during

this time was very strong, but I was doing it in a way that made it hard to relate to others.

I hope that the future of my walk with Jesus includes a more specific understanding and

spirituality of what my specific spiritual gifts are for Jesus Christ. I hope to have a clear understanding

of my 'niche' in furthering the kingdom of God. Mark Moore, my Acts teacher, has helped me with a

strategy where you walk into a room, look around, and ask yourself, “What can I do to make this

better”. Whatever the specific response you have to that room, that could be your spiritual gift. I think I
have a future with computers and electronics. Another thing I hope that my future walk with God

includes is a deeper understanding and recalling of the Scriptures. Through studying and having

multiple classes with memory verses I hope to be able to recall scriptures by memory and be able to

edify people with those scriptures. Along with learning more about God, I want to do God's work

practically. If God called me to do a missions trip, for example, and take a semester off school, I would

gladly do it. Ozark is a means to an end, not an end in itself. The end is changing the world of Jesus

Christ's name. Ozark is my training grounds. If I can get some real world experience in replace of some

training, I'm sure I'll come out with more knowledge and growth than if I had studied for that time.

Another thing I'd like to do is grow in my growth in relationships in Jesus Christ. I'd like to cultivate

the gifts of the Holy Spirit in every interaction with my friends and with others, including peace,

humility, patience, love, and kindness, and gentleness.