Robert
Ortiz Jr. was raised a Pentecostal. His mother, a faithful woman of God, tried
her best to keep Robert involved with church affairs. While he was little he
followed his mother. When Robert became
a teenager, he decided that church life was not for him, and there was really
nothing his mother could do about it; that’s what Robert thought. His mother
prayed for him, she cried out to God to keep him safe, and to bring him home
where he belongs. At age twenty-two, after having spent years involved with
drugs, drug dealing, gangs, violence, promiscuity, and most importantly – being
distant from God, he finally turned his life over to Christ.
Robert knew
all the while that God loved him. He knew that God was calling him. Robert
resisted; however, on a faithful day, at his mother’s church, and in her pastor’s
arms, Robert surrendered his life to Jesus Christ. He breathed a heavy sigh and
the pastor told him “that’s it, let it out, let it all out – you are free.” Robert
felt very much like William P. Nicholson when he states “Suddenly and
powerfully and consciously, I was saved.”[1] It
would be some twenty-two years later that Robert finally understood what God
wanted from him – to be quiet. God wanted Robert to stay his convictions, to
not respond to accusations, to injustice, to attacks coming from all sides; God wanted him to be quiet. “And
when he [Jesus] was accused of the chief priests and elders, he answered
nothing” (Matt. 27:12).[2]
Now, at age forty-four,
Robert reflects on his life from his conversion day. In his own words, Robert
states “I have spent the last twenty-two years on a veritable roller coaster
ride with the Lord God. I was in and out of his presence. When I was hot I was
hot, preaching, witnessing, worshiping. But when I was cold, I was very cold. And
when I sought a mentor, you would think I was looking for the Holy Grail. It
was impossible. I got angry. I became critical and condescending. I began to
voice my opinions and use God’s Word to express how wrong men were, how so-called
shepherds were out of the will of God and living off of fumes, not grace. I
would argue with pastors. A pastor once told me, ‘You are the only one that has
ever made me this angry.’ I just could not be quiet.’” Robert was more hurt
than angry; he just did not know it. But God did.
Robert would, like Charles
G. Trumball, become aware of his “great fluctuations in his spiritual life: On
occasion in conscious fellowship with the Savior, and then down in the depths
of defeat.”[3]
He wanted, like Andrew Murray, to be known “simply as a follower of Christ.”[4] “He
just did not know how. At this point in his life Robert felt like Walter L.
Wilson when he said “…I was in great difficulty spiritually and had not a
single soul to guide me out there, not a soul it seemed, who had either the
desire or time to talk about spiritual things with me.”[5]
In 2006, Robert decided to
go to college. He chose Liberty University Online with the idea of getting into
ministry after obtaining a BS – Religion. Those pesky fluctuations would pop up
again. Robert seemed to get angrier and more boisterous until finally he got
angry with God, deciding that being quiet did not work for him and left it all.
In 2011, God got a hold of Robert and guided him back to church. Robert quickly
moved back into ministry – Worship team member and Evangelist, to name a few. Robert
wanted to do other things in the Church he felt God was calling him back to; he
would again butt heads with Church leaders.
In September of 2013,
Robert, at long last, understood what God was doing. God pulled him from all ministries
(and the church he was attending) and led him to understand what Andrew Murray
so eloquently penned:
Take
time. Give God time to reveal Himself to you. Give yourself time to be silent
and quiet before Him, waiting to receive, through the Spirit, the assurance of
His presence with you, His power working in you. Take time to read His Word as
in His presence, that from it you may know what He asks of you and what He
promises you. Let the Word create around you, create within you a holy
atmosphere, a holy heavenly light, in which your soul will be refreshed and
strengthened for the work of daily life.[6]
Robert realized that not answering to the
wiles of the devil and being quiet in person and spirit would allow him to move
into a place with God he had never experienced. He soon recognized Jesus was so
much more than just his Savior and began to develop a true and abiding
relationship with Him, Holy Spirit, and God the Father.
Robert,
with the help of his lovely and godly wife, would go on to manage a worldwide
ministry, a vision given to Him during his quiet time with God; a vision that
sought to grow his Christian family, and to reach the unsaved throughout every
corner of the earth. Robert has lived a quiet and gentle life and has mentored
many men to live their lives according to the mandate of God. Jesus “answered
nothing” and accomplished so much. Robert too “answered nothing” and yet he
still spoke volumes in the quiet of his life.
[1] William P. Nicholson, “The Soul-Winning Life,”
in They Found the Secret: 20
Transformed Lives That Reveal a Touch of Eternity, by Raymond V. Edman (Grand Rapids: Zondervan,
1984), 129.
[2]
King James Version.
[3] Raymond V.
Edman, They Found the Secret: 20
Transformed Lives That Reveal a Touch of Eternity
(Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1984), 147.
[4]
Ibid., 113.
[5] Walter L. Wilson, “The Yielded Life,”
in They Found the Secret: 20
Transformed Lives That Reveal a Touch of Eternity, by Raymond V. Edman (Grand Rapids: Zondervan,
1984), 157.
[6] Andrew Murray, “The Abiding Life,”
in They Found the Secret: 20
Transformed Lives That Reveal a Touch of Eternity, by Raymond V. Edman (Grand Rapids: Zondervan,
1984), 118.
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