Earlier this year I decided to leave my legalistic Independent Baptist
church. God brought me to finally make the profound conclusion that this
church was not leading me closer to him but rather further from him!
Although salvation by grace through faith was preached on the pulpit (and on
doorsteps) the real result was a closed system of religious works lacking
real love. And our performance was judged not by God but by the Pastors and
the other members of the church. I kept feeling worse and worse because in
my mind these people were all perfect and I was the only one who was bad and
wrong. The false illusion developed a crack one night when I smelled cigar
smoke on one of the elder church members after a Sunday night service. I say
"elder church member" because this church lacked the accountability of a
board of elders. I was serving out of duty. This church had become the enemy
of my joy.

After consulting three pastors outside of this church I knew that leaving
the church was the right decision. And that I was not crazy! I told one of
the pastors that I believed God had shown me that the goal of my life was to
serve God and that this service should be driven by my love for Him. And
that should be a joyful experience. Maybe not always easy but joyful. I
subsequently did leave the church, forgave everyone involved many times, and
moved 1200 miles away at the same time in order to ditch my snow shovel and
put some needed space between us.

One of the pastors who comforted me through this process recommended the
Christian author John Piper. He told me that the perfect book for me to read
was "Desiring God - Meditations of a Christian Hedonist." I bought and read
the book and it was start of an amazing work that God has now begun in my
heart and in my life.  A few days ago I bought another book by John Piper
called "Don't Waste Your Life." I highly recommend both books.

Today I found out that John Piper has made several of his most popular books
completely available online on his web site:
http://www.desiringgod.org/library/onlinebooks_index.html
You can read both of the books I mentioned above in PDF form on this site.
What a blessing to the Body of Christ!

If you have fallen in the trap of serving the Lord out of duty not love and
not your own desire I highly encourage you to read some of these books.
"Don't Waste Your Life" is a short book and it does contain Mr. Piper's main
message which is very simple this: The chief end of man is to glorify God by
enjoying Him forever.

And I did find that not all Baptist churches are bad. I am now a member of a
wonderful Baptist church in Florida. And God brought us through each of the
hurricanes.