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Today's Featured Biography
Steven Plitt
Biographies are important....they are a look back through a rear view mirror of life and the decisions made whether good or bad on our path toward eternity. Many of us have a form of theology or world view and it is based upon our search for truth.
What is contained in this segment of my biography is what I learned my senior year which has provided a path which has brought great satisfaction in my relationship with God. More will be added regarding other aspects of my bio later.
In high school, I made the most important decision in my life March, of 1967. It wasn’t where I would go to school, what my major was or who I would marry. Nor was it what my occupation would be or where I would live. The decision was who was going to be the Influence to control my life which at that time had very little direction. I made a decision to trust Christ as my personal Savior who wants all of mankind to know His love and forgiveness. Jesus said, “Just as the Son of man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
If anyone would have asked me, if I was a Christian, I would have said ‘sure’. (However, no one ever did). ‘Yes’, because I was born in America, I did attend catechism classes, attended SS two consecutive years and was baptized in a small local denominational church within walking distance of my home because my mother had on her heart a desire to see her children have a moral upbringing. So, I guess, that made me a Christian. I didn’t really think much about these concepts through my formative years. My dad didn’t think it was important to go to church and in his day-by-day behavior he did not provide an example of having a personal relationship with God, so why should I need to? He was my idol until about 10. Most unfortunately, and consequently his co-dependency for alcohol prevented him from having a close and lasting relationship with his three children. His preoccupation with alcohol consumption put a separation between us, never to be healed (except for me). These issues could not be understood by me at that time. I don’t ever remember anyone ever giving me an explanation on the subject as a child.
Now, I don’t remember sensing a need to have a relationship with God, nor did I think it was possible. I didn’t know I should or I could. If I were to die, I believed, I would go to heaven because most people will go to heaven by following the 10 commandments. That was bad theology. By seventh grade the persuasion of my neighborhood friends had such a strong influence on me morally; I graduated from high school amoral. My neighborhood friends influenced me carelessly and ignorantly to explore a sensual side of living for pleasure, self-satisfaction and self-centered amusement and I unknowingly was empty. If asked, (and no one ever did), I could not have explained anything I was taught in my formative years to help answer these issues. Now I cannot blame the church…. more than likely, I myself wasn’t interested. If I heard the gospel, I didn’t see a need to respond……however church did introduce me to the notion that there is a God.
Now in high school, sports seemed to be my main focus, not a solid effort though for my future education. I had to learn to compete against others to play a position on a high school team of my choosing.
During the four years I competed in sports, I learned from my best friend passion in the years we played football, baseball and track together. His senior year he was singled out by the conference coaches as the only guard in the Southwest Conference to be honored for his offensive toughness and explosive hard-hitting reputation on defense which earned him the only player chosen by the coaches in the conference to be honored all-conference, on both sides of the ball.
As I look back completing my senior year of 1967, I was unfulfilled and frustrated with my progress. I was a competitive athlete they just seemed unimportant.However and unknowingly, at that time, my mother called the senior class counselor and arranged to schedule an appointment to draw me out of class to talk about college. She provided some suggestions, phoned my mother to suggest a visit to these small unknown colleges but I showed little interest and don’t remember going to the campuses. In April of 1967, my best friend invited me to ride with him to South Dakota State University (SDSU) in Brookings to bring films to the varsity football coach to view in return for some financial assistance to play football! He had a good reason to go and I well…. I went for the ride and had three days away from school.
My algebra teacher and my best friends track coach was an outstanding track athlete in the years he attended SDSU, (an engineering and agricultural school). Knowing the football coach at SDSU, our teacher initiated talking with my best friend during his track seasons to consider SDSU as a school to study and play football.
We traveled in style to Brookings, South Dakota in a 65 Ford Mustang… ragtop. 289 4 speed. We stayed in the senior dorm with two of the varsity starters on the football team and had a memorable time. After three days, shortly, before we were to leave to return home, I was strongly exhorted by my best friend to apply for admissions. He wouldn’t capitulate. The subject was brought up as we drove west to South Dakota, but I didn’t have this discussion with my parents before I left. As it would unfold, a phone call home and admonishment from a friend, I applied. I really wanted to move as far away as possible from home for all the wrong reasons………… to escape and seek for fulfillment in life.
During the hour Larry was waiting for me to fill out the admission form in the Admissions Office, He kept the car running because it was still freezing in SD. I vividly remembered him asking me, “What took you so long?” Having to answer questions like; what books have you read? What would you like to do with your life? I filled in ‘not many’ and ‘I don’t know’. (not) Also, these provocative questions require time thinking about them….filling the form out at home would have been a much better place. The application was completed in the admissions office. My attention was turned away from the application as we motored east. I remember the first time traveling 100 mph as we made our way back to Illinois that memorable spring. As God would have this, I was given the privilege to attend SDSU.
Meanwhile and thereafter, during those last days of high school, there was no reason for me to think having a relationship with this God was necessary. I didn’t call on God for help. I had an obstinate spirit, was self-centered, pursued my own imaginations and provoked God to His very face with my language. Life was as it was. Although, belief in God existed, I didn’t think there were any consequences for the guilt I was carrying nor the path I walked. Shortly before Easter of ‘67, I was told by my mother some disappointing and disturbing news about my favorite cousin. (As mothers do, they share with one another and my mother told me my cousin) Bud was going to study to be a minister. Oh my, I thought to myself…’what a waste’.
When our families met Easter of that year, as we always did during holidays, there was a high expectation to enjoy seeing each other. Lastly, when we greeted each other that spring, I noticed something about my cousin though…it was unusual, different in a good way and puzzling. He wasn’t the same Bud of old. He had become a Christian, but I didn’t know that. I was about to learn how.
In the form of transgression of a civil law, the violation of that law has a consequence. There are spiritual laws that govern a truth about Him and a spiritual realization God is alive for reasons the world does not know, either because of ignorance or apathy or a lack of understanding. Bud was to explain to me some laws that God used to enlighten me and expose a problem I didn’t know existed. He shared with me the following:
First God loves me, second God is holy, third, I am not and there is the problem. Jesus was God’s solution to the problem I had, which is sin. Romans 3 23 states, “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” And 6 23 “For the wages of sin is death and the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”God did for me what I could not do for myself…which would save me from eternally being separated from Him because I am a sinner. Christ was born into this broken world to give new life to those who seek it and give us the ability to have a personal relationship with this holy and loving God. Fourth Jesus made this broken relationship eternally repairable. He died on the cross, paying the penalty for my sin I commit against Him and offered me Eternal Life by forgiving me and giving me a new purpose for life. “He who knew no sin became sin so that in HIM I would have the righteousness of God.” II Corinthians 521 …..I am not holy nor do the good deeds of man obtain God’s righteousness. Anyone, who has not been given a pardon for their sin through asking for forgiveness and trusting Christ as their personal savior will never enter into the kingdom of God (heaven), because they don’t have the righteousness of God in them. How did my cousin get his mind filled with these ridiculous ideas? I remember asking, “Do you really believe this stuff?’
Never before did I have this explained to me. I was a sinner and sin is falling short of God's righteousness. I was convicted that afternoon that I needed to ask God for forgiveness. I prayed and asked God to forgive me and to come into my heart while sitting on a hope chest in the butler’s quarters on the 4th floor of my aunt and uncle’s home. Not being sure God heard me, I prayed it 6 times hoping He would. The Bible states, “And what is it that God has said? That he has given us eternal life and that this life is in his Son. So whoever has God's Son has life; whoever does not have his Son, does not have life. I have written this to you who believe in the Son of God so that you may know you have eternal life.”
Upon leaving the fourth-floor room I believed God came into my heart and granted the only source to live life more abundantly with a new purpose. Revelations 3 20 states, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him and he with Me.” That day I trusted Christ as my personal Savior, asked Him to come into my heart to give to me what I could not obtain on my own…His righteousness. Theologically, I was justified righteous "declared not guilty" through faith in Christs sacrificial death for my sin.
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