Inspired to Pursue Truth & Sound Doctrine

Inspired to Pursue Truth & Sound Doctrine

My Journey from Amish Tradition to Pursuing Truth In Christ

In 1986, after Jesus Christ flooded my heart with a peace, joy, and love I had never known, the Amish community around me became persuaded that I was being deceived. My own family was deeply concerned that I would disregard the Amish traditions. They tried hard to persuade me to remain content with what I had been taught and not to question any of the Amish traditional teachings. At that moment I was not actually questioning the Amish teachings. I was only pursuing peace for a troubled heart—and I had found the amazing peace that only God can give when His Holy Spirit fills a life. Yet as the pressure from family increased, confusion set in, and my desperate search for truth began.

To clarify; The Amish believe in Jesus Christ. Yet for generations the stronger emphasis has often been on everyone following the religious rules and Amish traditions rather than pursuing a personal, living experience with God. This focus has created deep confusion when someone encounters the living Christ in a real and transforming way, as I did.

Soon after that personal encounter, a deep hunger was established in my heart—an earnest desire to pursue truth and sound doctrine.

The Voice That Changed Everything

I spent hours searching the Scriptures. Then my mother heard an audible voice that simply said, “Second Thessalonians chapter 2.” I understood that it was God who spoke to her and that the message was for me. When I read the chapter, what stood out most vividly were the words that because they received not the love of the truth, God would send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie. That went very deep into my heart and has marked my life to this day. From that moment, loving the truth became the intense focus of my life.

Looking back, I can see how that one clear word completely reordered everything. Have you ever received a word from God that reordered your life?

The Love of the Truth

The Greek phrase in 2 Thessalonians 2:10 is tēn agapēn tēs alētheias—“the love of the truth.” Agapē is not mere emotional affection; it is a deliberate love that recognizes the supreme worth of its object, prizes it, and embraces it. Alētheia means that which is unconcealed, open, real, and corresponding to reality—the revealed truth of God in the gospel. Together they describe far more than intellectual agreement. They describe a heart that welcomes and treasures God’s truth so that one may be saved. Those who refuse this love open themselves to “all wicked deception.”

In our search for truth we must also walk in simplicity and childlike faith before God, praising Him at all times. A genuine love for the truth is not optional—it is the difference between standing firm and falling away.

Leaving and the First Steps of Obedience

The desire for truth only grew stronger. On March 8, 1987, my wife Lydia, together with our three young children, stepped out of the Amish and visited Charity Christian Fellowship for the first time. God had spoken, “Thou shalt leave.” We obeyed, knowing that light has no fellowship with darkness, and that we must come out and be separate (2 Corinthians 6:14, 17).

Less than eight months later, on November 15, 1987, I preached my first sermon at Charity Christian Fellowship. The title God laid on my heart was the same burden that had gripped me from the beginning: “Love of the Truth.” On January 3, 1988, I preached a message titled “Praise.” Then on July 31, 1988, I preached another message titled “False Prophets.”

Dennis Kenaston was the pastor at Charity Christian Fellowship. He carried a great passion for revival among the Amish in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, and was very inspiring in his preaching about the importance of truth. His preaching greatly inspired me to walk in righteousness and avoid yielding to compromise. His earnest pursuit of God and his clear call to stand for sound doctrine further deepened the love for the truth that God had already planted in my heart.

Warning Signs in an Age of Deception

In my earnest search of the Scriptures I was also strongly impressed that a time would come when people would not endure sound doctrine. After their own lusts they would heap to themselves teachers having itching ears (2 Timothy 4:3). People would take the freedom they had in Christ and use it as an opportunity to satisfy the flesh, exactly as Paul warned the believers in Galatia. There would be what the Bible calls the mystery of iniquity—a hidden lawlessness already at work.

I came to the sobering conclusion that we are living in those days—days when a hidden lawlessness is operating even within churches throughout the world. That realization only intensified my pursuit of loving the truth.

During the COVID season, a great deception seemed to sweep across the earth. Yet in the midst of it I also saw a remarkable shift. Many people—some of them very well known and not marked by strong faith in Jesus Christ, including figures such as Elon Musk—began to make a clear turn toward valuing and seeking truth. I recognized in their hunger something familiar—the deep stirring God had placed in my heart years earlier. It reminded me that the desire for truth is not limited to those already inside the church. God can awaken it anywhere.

While many who profess to be followers of Christ are drifting into more and more compromise and deception, I find myself pondering: Is it possible that some outside the church are currently showing a greater hunger for truth than many inside it?

What Is Truth?

I am reminded of the question Pilate asked Jesus: “What is truth?” (John 18:38). What an important question for our day. And what an important pursuit. The words of Jesus remain among the most life-giving ever spoken: “If you continue in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free… Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed” (John 8:31–32, 36).

The Truth is in Jesus.

He is the Truth.

The Truth still sets free.

The question is whether we will continue in His Word long enough to know it—with simplicity, childlike faith, and a heart that keeps praising Him along the way.

A Cry for Awakening

Looking back across the years, I see that the deep desire God planted in my heart in the fall of 1986—to pursue truth and sound doctrine—has never left me. This continues to be the longing of my heart—that people will know the truth, and that there will be an awakening and a glorious reformation. In recent years a very large stirring has begun among the Amish. Many positive changes have taken place as the Spirit of God has moved in a special way within the community. What appears to be the beginning of a genuine revival is now unfolding. I rejoice in this stirring and keep praying for Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, that it will deepen into a widespread revival and that many will come into a deeper understanding of the ways of God.

I am reminded of the apostle Paul’s words concerning the Jewish people: they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge (Romans 10:2). Many in our day fall under the same description—zeal for religion without the corresponding knowledge of the truth. It is my earnest desire that there would be an increase in the knowledge of God, and that a people would rise who earnestly search for truth and set their hearts on loving it—whether they are already walking with Christ or are still outside looking for what is real.

If you are reading this and you are not yet a follower of Jesus, I want to speak directly to you: do not stop searching. The same God who awakened a hunger for truth in a young Amish man years ago can awaken it in you. Keep asking. Keep seeking. The Truth is not afraid of honest questions, and the One who is the Truth still welcomes those who come with childlike hearts.

Do you love the truth, or have you settled for tradition, comfort, or the approval of others? Will you join me in asking God for a fresh love for the truth—cost whatever it may cost?

May the Lord grant us all a deeper love for the truth. May we continue in His Word until we know the truth that alone can make us free. And may an awakening come—to Lancaster County, to the Amish, to the wider church, and to many who are still outside—so that in a day of great deception a generation will be found who prize, embrace, and walk in the revealed truth of God.

Lord, give us a love for the truth.
Let it begin with us.

The truth still sets free. The only question left is whether we will love it enough to walk in it.