… Discovered God Was Looking For Him!
Back in the early 1990’s I was beginning to tire of life’s offerings. I had been involved in the usual: The girls – the drugs – the parties, etc., but something was telling me there was much more out there…I just didn’t know what it was. If someone had offered me Jesus at that time, I would have turned it down flat. It wasn’t my scene. Besides, I didn’t even know if GOD existed.
I traveled for several months to various countries in my search for truth and then I tried to join the British Army to get some discipline back in my life. Unfortunately, I turned up on the wrong day for the army interview, so I had to wait another month for the next one. In the meantime, I joined a company as a stationery salesman and it was here that the boss told me about Jesus. He eventually asked if he could send me a book on the subject, which I agreed to, but I was not that interested.
When I left the company the book arrived at my home, and I started to read it. It was called: The Cross And The Switchblade. It was about some American gangsters who had “seen the light” and turned to God. At the back of the book there was a name written in ink – it said: Danny. This fellow was going to call me about the book and see what I thought about it. He was my age and a friend of the boss.
When Danny tried to contact me by telephone I told my mother to block the calls. I did not want a religious ‘nut’ bothering me. For three weeks he tried and failed to get through to me. My mum was doing a good job! Then the calls stopped…thank God…I thought to myself.
I went out one night to buy drugs from a two story house. The road was in Tottenham, London, the area I came from. I had never been down this road before in my life. The drug dealer who lived on the top floor was not in. The guy who lived below him answered the door. He turned out to be a Christian and he also tried to tell me about Jesus. I politely declined his conversation, but I did take a leaflet off him out of courtesy. It was obviously all about God and Jesus.
I left the house and went back to my friend’s car to depart the area. It was then something strange happened. I felt something inside me suggest that I should return to the house I had just came from. I couldn’t make out what was really happening except I knew I had to go back. I duly went back and said to the Christian at the door, “Do I know you from somewhere?”
To cut a long story short, it turned out to be Danny — the same one who had been ringing me unsuccessfully for the past few weeks. A divine meeting had managed to take me to the very house that Danny had been calling me from!
Soon after talking to Danny, I started reading the Bible for the first time and I made a move towards God. I asked Jesus to reveal Himself to me, and He did in a hotel room in Orlando, Florida whilst on holiday there. GOD SHOWED UP! It was June 8, 1991. I had a serious visitation of God’s Spirit and His glory filled the whole room!
I know one thing: If you are sincere, He is faithful to come, and He may come in a way you least expect. Jesus is real folks. He’s calling all of us into a relationship with Him.
“You will seek me and you will find me when you search for me with ALL your heart.” (Jeremiah 29:13)
God rewards genuine intent. [Click on the following underlined promises from God’s Word]: (Acts 17:27) (Hebrews 11:6) (Proverbs 8:17) & (Proverbs 25:2).
If you want the real thing – it’s available. Multitudes have found it since Christ went back to heaven. I’m not talking about religion either! Religion will kill your relationship with God to one degree or another. It’s the devil’s counterfeit for the real thing the Father has for serious followers of Jesus Christ. Religion has many slimy, satanic, deceptive tentacles. Briefly, it is about DO’s and DON’Ts to try to please God that is not balanced with the wisely interpreted – wisely applied New Covenant (New Testament) Bible. It’s about obeying rules that may sound like they are Biblical, but they are meant to confuse – to drain the spiritual life out of your relationship with God. What is the REAL THING? A truly meaningful, intimate relationship with none other than God Himself – the Creator – YOUR Creator, and ultimately the Judge Himself! The only way to experience that is through coming to understand His unconditional LOVE for you – promised in His WORD when feelings and emotions try to convince you differently – and by careful, wise instruction from the HOLY SPIRIT.
There is no real love; no true peace nor joy in religion. Just boring religious duty – religious expectations – perversions of God’s Word being written or spoken to something it was never intended by the Holy Spirit to mean (twisting of scripture, in other words, and wrong application of it), and various forms of condemnation and fear when a person doesn’t measure up to those expectations — whether self-imposed and/or imposed by others in leadership of a “Christian” organization of some sort.
Here’s something you can tuck away to keep you in proper, meaningful relationship with Jesus Christ. The letter ALONE of God’s Word can spiritually KILL your intimacy, peace, joy and confidence in your prayers with Jesus Christ if it is misunderstood and then misapplied. The Holy Spirit is what brings spiritual LIFE to God’s Word (which is WHY we as Christians are to learn how to DAILY discipline ourselves to stay filled with the Holy Spirit). People who lean too heavily on the Holy Spirit for revelation (dreams, visions, words of prophecy, preaching, teaching, etc.) and do not mix it with the wisely interpreted, wisely applied New Covenant Word tend to get off into doctrinal error (and even be fooled to believe weird manifestations are from the Holy Spirit when in fact they are counterfeit demonic manifestations) and often don’t even realize it in this life. Balance the Word with the Holy Spirit. Balance the Holy Spirit with the Word. They are meant to work intimately – wisely hand and hand. The Word won’t contradict the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit NEVER contradicts the wisely interpreted, wisely applied Word.
I’ll say it again to reinforce the importance of the matter: If you get trapped into religion of various sorts, you’ll never experience the true, meaningful PEACE and JOY that can only come from having a LOVE relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ NEVER condemns one of His own who desire His salvation (forgiveness for their sins in other words so that they will spend eternity with Him in glory). His Spirit motivates us to obey only those things that are good for us by LOVE…by loving, gentle CONVICTION. Feeling “condemned” of God is always from Satan. Satan will bombard your mind to try to get you to believe his lies the rest of your time on earth if you don’t learn as quickly as possible that Satan is constantly after your thought life. (Satan’s greatest strategy is to try to get people on this planet to believe his lies. The whole world is blinded to Satan’s lies to different degrees…until a person becomes spiritually born again as is spoken of in John 3 and learns to trust the Holy Spirit to reveal Satan’s lies to them. Walking in relationship with the Holy Spirit is a process, so please be patient with God in this matter.)
Here’s another warning for young Christians. Many local church fellowship leaders can have a good grasp on foundational Christian doctrines from God’s Word, but the leadership in that local church fellowship can be influenced by demonic controlling spirits. BEWARE of “religious leaders” who want to control your life! Avail yourself to their loving, gentle correction – which is the way the Holy Spirit operates – but don’t let them control you. (Of course, if you are operating in one or more gross sins in accordance with God’s clearly revealed Word and you refuse to change, then that becomes a whole different matter). Many a Christian has stopped fellowshipping completely in ANY local church fellowship anymore because controlling spirits through leadership hurt them. And/or they gave themselves to various forms of legalism. Satan has many ways to try to shipwreck your relationship with Jesus Christ, so be diligent to learn everything you can about your spiritual enemy: Satan.
Jesus can set you free from the selfishness of sin, false ideologies, dead religion, and worldly entanglements (lust, greed & pride, etc.) Get Born Again (Saved) and then allow the Holy Spirit to teach you and lead you (Romans 8:9-14). Jesus sent the Holy Spirit when He went back to heaven as our Godly helper. Walk as intimately with the Holy Spirit as possible in this life: It will pay both earthly and especially eternal dividends!
So what is this life REALLY all about? You were created to glorify God…but not like so many false religions think they are doing, but aren’t really, yet have no clue until they become born again. God gave TRUE followers of Jesus a MANDATE to follow that will not lead them astray in their efforts to glorify Him in this life. That mandate is do so in TRUTH. Jesus Himself is Truth personified. Every Word that has ever come or ever will come out of His mouth is Truth. The Holy Spirit is also Truth, and it was He who inspired men and women to write His Words as is recorded in the Old and New Testament Bible: Thus God’s Word is Truth in printed form.
Nothing has been made nor exists or is sustained without Jesus Christ. You may stumble and fall, but He will pick you up and teach you His ways, because He loves you, but also realize He’ll allow your heart to grow cold toward Him if you remain angry at Him for very long. (Don’t allow the devil to put a seed of anger in you regarding your relationship with Jesus Christ. It can be lethal!) Jesus already knows your struggles, your weaknesses, and He won’t judge you like people do. He won’t center on your faults. You have too much potential in light of eternity in your relationship with Him – for Him to do that.
So if you open the door of your heart… ou can have an encounter with the living God. Right now. All you have to do is sincerely ask Him to. In your own simple words, tell Him you are ready to let Him be both your Savior, and your ONLY Lord from this moment forward. Tell Him you are sorry you have been disobedient to Him: Ask Him to forgive you: and He WILL!
Thinking about postponing your decision? I hate to have to remind you, but you have no assurance you have tomorrow to make the decision. None of us know when our heart will stop beating. God controls each heartbeat.
Think about this a moment. How valuable are you to God? No way of truly knowing, is there, if you’ll be honest? Think of it this way. How much potential do you have throughout eternity? In other words, what can God do in you and through you and for you in light of eternity? How much can God do in you to be both a blessing to Him and others throughout eternity?
God created you to be one of His SPECIAL blessings for ALL eternity. ALLLLL of eternity. Why in the world would you let Satan steal the eternal inheritance God created you to have, and it’s completely FREE?
God is waiting for you to make the connection with Him. He gave you free will to make the choice. He won’t force you to make the decision. But if you refuse His offer…can you imagine how much that might crush His heart…knowing that you will spend eternity being a wasted creation of His?
Hell will be filled with wasted creations: Rebels against the Creator who didn’t want to answer to anyone but themselves. Fallen angels – demons – humans – who had unlimited potential throughout eternity in and through our Lord Christ Jesus…yet completely squandered it because they wanted to be their OWN Lord — their OWN self-willed — self-serving judge and jury and self-appointed authority regarding what is “truth”, and what isn’t. Sobering to think about, isn’t it?
