Category Archives: testimony

Who Are We “In Christ?”- 6/17/21

Posted on by
Reply

Gonna put this up, then hopefully will go to bed afterwards!

Do you believe you have an identity? What could that mean…?

I have an identity. It’s called an I. D. Identification. It has everything on it including my name. If I had someone ask who I was and I wasn’t sure, I’d check that and say “This should tell you everything you are concerned about me. All the info on there is enough!”

Is it though? Is it really all there is “about” me? Could I rename myself? Better yet could someone in my life give me a new “identity”…..?

The news is so matter of fact about how people according to their facts “are.” It seems that many may feel that it is impossible to change. Hey whatever experiences people have is what people from there will expect.

I “can’t” change.

Well if one can’t change, I hope they realize the wonderful love of Jesus. If you follow His path and even want to live for Him wholeheartedly it will be amazing what He can do!

Now I have another thing to ponder. If we can, if we might gain a “new” identity… what will be involved with that?

The answer to that is simple. It will be like a beautiful dream only you HAVE woken up.

You realize that with Christ you have a new way of life, a way you didn’t think could matter! You see in yourself a change to the point you feel He has turned you completely around.

How can that happen? By trusting in Jesus in what He did on the cross!

Life without Him is horrid but life in Him is wonderful…

I’ve felt like I was without the Lord. Many times.

If you ever feel tempted, stay away from this stuff. It’s no different than alcohol in my opinion:

One of my biggest regrets was jumping into looking at pornography.

It was sick and I know people that go to my church might be quick to judge me but I knew it was wrong. I knew it and know it now!

I was too dern young. I just went through puberty! I was at a new school that year; I was up on the computer one night, I hesitated and then made that choice…

Now some people might think “porn” is no big deal. It is a big deal. It’s a spiritual warfare deal. Demonic things happen when people look at porn!

I entertained lusts in my heart that I should have talked to people about but instead stayed by myself and yearned endlessly to live to keep that evil flame burning.

I found all kinds of ways to get it again and again. It was not even fun. It sure seemed like I was getting some kind of enjoyment but it was never satisfactory!

I gave in constantly. It became a “drug.” It would have felt good if it didn’t feel like some kind of hell, dragging me around, making me feel like I was nothing after I learned slowly more and more that I was addicted to it.

These “freedom” moments in my life felt more like I was given shackles and then dragged through the mud and rocks while strung from the back of a vehicle. It felt like I was a slave to sin, and seemingly without God, but somehow I wasn’t.

It would drag me through nonstop personal mental “pain” and misery until I died if it was possible.

This was no “burden” to bear alone…

But yet it was a burden I didn’t even have to bear at all. Because of Jesus I was able to give it up (yes I fought with it again and again time and time again, but I still struggled against it versus not caring about doing it!). The feelings of being alone. The toiling and anguish in feeling like I was alone it seemed in my struggle.

Jesus took my burden as well as many things on the cross. He had every sin laid on Him so that He would be like a lamb and be “slaughtered”

How could that be?

They describe Jesus as a lamb. He was like a sacrifice but the ultimate sacrifice. He was the only one that worked!

In the Old Testament so-called “perfect” lambs were slaughtered just as a visual image. It brought people to glorify and worship God.

Because they did great at letting people know that God was good and one to worship but it was not spiritually cleansing.

People needed a real sacrifice. One which took on the sins not just of the world but then also for both you and me!

Without the shedding of blood there was no forgiveness.

He was the Lamb of God. He was the one who paid a debt because He was perfect (the real perfect!).

And so all sins were laid on Him so that He would be broken for the cause of Christ. That ones would come to know Him through His Son so that we were no longer separated if we ever felt lost and without God in our lives.

Now if you follow this way there is also a thing called soul liberty. Once you follow Him you don’t have to keep going this direction. Almost like Adam having a decision you can select whether to follow always or not…

you can choose to follow or not follow Christ. You can choose to stay in His body of believers or not.

But to make the choice to follow Jesus is being Christ bound!

It means you want to be bound to the ways of Christ Jesus. You want to follow all of His ways.

You can now know what it is in store to know Him more. Your master is God your father because now You know that thee is a will. It is like a new you!

Check this out. Some Scripture:

I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. ~John 15:15

And your old self was on the cross where Jesus died. It no longer is a “part” of you but you have been completely turned around if you trust in His ways.

Scripture:

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” ~Galations 2:20

Isn’t that awesome. How marvelous it is to know this Jesus.

Do you want to pray to follow Him? Let’s see what your identity is in Him today!

Father:

I pray for the people who may be following a certain path. I know all about paths. Mine led to endless destruction. God I don’t want anything like that to happen to whoever might be reading this today (or tonight later) and I pray You reveal Your will for this person after they pray this.

Father God… I realize no matter how hard I try I cannot be good like You. I realize that any and all bad was paid for at the cross. IT was so much stuff and I know now You paid for it by the giving of your Son Jesus Christ. May I follow You with my whole heart and seek a place that speaks the truth that will help guide me Your way. I know that He died for my old self. Let me know more and more my new identity which is in You. I hope that in life I will be able to experience that here. . . Thank you for the wonderful privilege of prayer.

My hope now is that you see every day who you are in Christ. Did you know He sees You as forgiven? He sees one without sin! Wow. Now what a new identity. Praise God if you prayed but be encouraged and know how awesome living for God can really be. That is part of my prayer for you!

Devotions Isaiah Verse- 6/16/21

Posted on by
Reply

Getting a doc appmt is kind of stressful! I just want to make one but keep finding out I’m still a step or two behind so have to backtrack, haha…..

Bible verse from New King James Version:

Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness. Isaiah 41:10

—–

What is fear in relation to God and what it says in the bible? Is this fear a “good” thing? Is God always going to “strike us down” like lightning if we don’t follow his ways?

Fear is merely being afraid or scared of something, right?

That’s my own definition anyway. But the bible is clear that being “afraid of God” means something we might not expect.

(Sorry people for being up a little later than usual. Apparently this site gets views mostly by 11. It’s 12 now and going past at this typing but I hope that people will check it out a little later this time, hahaha…)

To be fearful of God means to be in mind of His commandments. I don’t mean people who know they have to love their already loving friends that if they get upset at them one day they should now fear God.

I mean taking His commandments seriously.

A person who fears God shouldn’t be looking online for images and videos that don’t honor God and then say to a friend “God will forgive me. I did feel bad about it afterwards. But it was ‘okay’ though…”

A person who fears God shouldn’t be checking out gossip mag after gossip mag and then say “Well I can say this about Joan, she’s just like that ‘slutty chick’ in this magazine!” But knows that gossip is wrong!

A person who fears God shouldn’t have hate or some kind of awfully strong feeling towards others they know they love. Why hate when the body was made for a better purpose…?

Years ago I had a few emotions I didn’t know what to do about. I was jealous about other people’s lives. They had family who were in the church, many who they were sure knew the Lord and served Him… and yet people in my immediate family didn’t show any form of growth. My mother, I was afraid, may have been headed towards hell.

I saw so many at church who were great examples of both a woman and mother in Christ. They celebrated others’ lives, people who might start off in new futures, something that was great and they showed joy and happiness!

I grew up avoiding telling my mother if there was a “new baby” coming for not just with church family, but with literally any family, because like clockwork my mom would (and still does get at times) jealous about others’ new beginnings.

My mom had a number of very fine boys (okay, maybe a few good ones and one “Stooge.” Me as Curley: I’m “defended.” How dare me….?!)

Yet to this day wished she had a daughter…

Boys who are healthy, who are well, that doesn’t matter at all to her. She still wished she had a daughter.

My mom thinks if things don’t turn out in ways exactly like “everyone” else then God might not be real.

Well she never denied God but in my heart I felt she was so awful about things, it was like she had the heart of someone who didn’t believe that God was real!

There’s a seeming protection to her expectations. Her probably personal rule: If things don’t go ‘her way,’ then life is completely awful.

She’s sick of being like “Job.” But she first has to realize there are many blessings that she needs to see that are here and now!

I’ve said again and again count your blessings.

Her reaction every time: “WHAT BLESSINGS…??”

She might be changing now but … my mom changes silently so I can never know how she is growing or if she is about thinking of what God has given us versus what He in a sinner’s toil, “refuses” us to have in physical riches.

We must think of many things we learned or have learned in life if we know certain bible verses. To love others, to love the Lord our God with all our heart.

We must do His commandments and follow Him.

Mine is to honor God. There were times I was tempted to give in to being with a man but I thought “No. That is wrong…!”

Not just because it is sin, not just because it would not be right…

but because it does not prove that God is in my life. Also I have had amazing, “impossible” things happen in my life that I am humbled by.

Lord, You changed me in a way I thought I could do myself (nope) but instead you turned me around long ago in a way I didn’t expect!

You made the impossible possible!

And that was because of Christ and I am in effect a NEW creation… something that was not before!

What a testimony but you can have it too if you strive on and live for Him. Don’t “fear” Him in the worldly way, just keep in mind His commandments.

If you fail ask for forgiveness. He’ll be in front of you to guide you forward every step of the way. Let Him take you by His right hand, and lead You day to day towards righteousness!

Amen.

Psalm 139- 6/9/21 Part 2

Posted on by
Reply

Continuing on, I hope you checked out Part 1, dear reader. Otherwise this post will make little sense…

After being moved by God’s definite love for me and for the people who He dearly loved, I was eventually sent home. I had an after-care program and went back home and went to church again.

I wish I could say I was quick to proclaim the amazing things that just happened! Sadly I was very emotion-based and didn’t want to say much of anything because I was depending on feelings after I got home and it “felt” like the Lord had left me entirely.

I was however not forgetting what He did for me though. I was baptized the month I got back!

So what did this all mean? Was that just a happy ending and I should just dust myself off and be done with living my life? One might see that as just an experience and look back on it like a pleasant memory but not move on or have new ones.

Is that all to my story? That would have been nice but God does things through all good and bad. He is there for us, He makes ways for us, and we might not see those blessings or the pure endless love of Him but it is there whether we might want to believe it or not!

We could dive high into the clouds and He is there. But what about if we went say… “underground?”

As long as we walk this earth could be be with us even if we think we were in “hell?”

The year after experiencing a happy joyous time, as if in time, there was the opposite. I was really feeling excited about living for the Lord.

But the prince of lies (a.k.a. satan) loves to deceive, bring painful memories from far back into fruition, and keep us feeling that we can’t and shouldn’t do what God wants us to do.

He loves telling partial truths but will have His servants on their knees feeling they should give up feeling deep guilt which leads to depression.

He also uses your experience for “his” gain! Now you can’t be at church. Now you can’t be this so-called “blessing.” He will remind you of so much from before you will wonder if this god is true in your life at all.

“It’s true you’re a so-called “believer” right? Or were you just deceiving people….?”

I was uncomfortable not understanding what the people were talking about as I was learning about how to serve in ministry in the summer that year. I pondered about things deep in my past because there was an awful situation, I didn’t know the details then as people were going over that which made me end up feeling discouraged.

I lost sleep it bothered me so much. Then I was daily burdened by it so much when I was driven to church, I was like a stick in mud as people drove me there. I just could not move!

As if my fellow brethren were trying to remind me of His love or at least the beauty of His creation they told me with tears in their eyes how the flowers that sprung up looked. There was new flora and it seemed as if God had been showing me His love yet… I still felt paralyzed. What in the world was this???

My personal demons continued on with their game and after a while I didn’t know how to feel. I thought maybe I just didn’t deserve God’s love. Maybe I should “go to hell” instead.

Hell is not a good place by the way, just sayin’! I felt like in the event I will share that it seemed to happen to me, just know you should never feel you should be there. That there is no path but that place. It’s endless and it will be your only place after the first death if you choose to live without God!

I didn’t like that ultimately in sin I was the way I mentioned earlier. I thought I deserved to “burn” because I couldn’t do things that apparently, I found out later could only be done through Christ.

Then I stopped eating. When my mom gave me a tv dinner she heated up in the oven it somehow tasted like ashes (I swear at least a little bit like my taste buds were shot). Then after more days and awful situations (I was going to lose my insurance soon and there was no way to stop it, it seemed) I lost grip on reality.

I thought I was still doing my movie project (but somehow only while I was sleeping) since I tried to get back to it before all of this happened. I was over a friend’s house and after hoping the worst on myself I felt like I was attacked and “sent” to hell.

Screams and fire and brimstone I heard all around me. It smelled like sulfur was kept just below my nostrils every time I took a breath!

My friend’s mother (who was alive at the time) grabbed me and tried to bring me upstairs.

I heard a strange voice then I thought I “heard” her tell the voice to “shut up” and I also realized I couldn’t move well at all.

My legs felt like they were stripped of their skin and every step I took in the midst of the burning sounds and scream noises felt like the stairs I was moving up I was sinking into lava.

By the time I finally opened my eyes I was staring into hers and the screams the sounds of flames, everything then dissipated. She kept me in a quiet dark room and held me to herself.

As if it was a huge trauma I woke up the next day with some kind of mental “reset.” If I remember right the mom and dad were looking at me like I was their “baby” and showing love that I didn’t deserve. I responded back like a child.

(Sorry I had to take a moment to cry; the father also recently passed.)

So to keep this somewhat shorter, I probably didn’t see myself still as “redeemed.” I went my own way like a possessed person who believed now he was possibly the only person on earth to ever lose their salvation.

I was now dead on earth. I was gone. All because of self-judgement.

More hallucinations, more smelling of sulfur and this time I ended up at a few hospitals, not just at two (including the psyche building) like the year prior.

Eventually I ended up at the hospital. I probably would have perished if not for this special “dwelling.” But you know what was neat? It was the same hospital as last time. I was in the adult ward this time!

Then of course Satan did his things. More challenges and scary stuff. One night I saw two people outside my window by I’d say twenty feet away or so…? I knocked and they turned around. Two demonic looking men looked me in the eyes.

They had strange smiles as they immediately sprinted towards the hospital and headed straight for me. I was not hallucinating this time: This was now real!

Somehow they got into the hospital and went towards my location.

I stood turned away from them as they headed for me. There were some firm but gentle shouts as the staff immediately kicked them out.

And like that they were gone…!

But as I speak of hell, remember when I said that Jesus is like a “firefighter…?” Well that’s coming up.

On Sunday I was so blessed to find out that in a smallish room a bunch of people were waiting as one man was not just a staff member on the medical team but also a pastor.

He shared about the bible. And He told of God’s love.

Here I was on the pit of seeming hell and then I heard a bunch of words that changed me after that moment. A spiritual refresher that could only come from a reverend filled by the Holy Spirit. A chance to know that there was renewal in the midst of hardship. Life in the midst of personal sadness and regret.

Out of all the terrible stuff I had done God’s love was there. He was there no matter what I thought I deserved genuinely.

God still loved me.

My eyes overflowed with tears.

I had no idea. I did not know that it was possible.

So much of this touches on Psalm 139. Where can we go from Him? Is it possible while in this life to “get away” entirely from Him?

How great does He think of us too. It says in a following verse that if we were to count of His thoughts for us they would be greater than the grains that exist of sand!

What love. What compassion that He loved us so much that He also sent His son Jesus to die for us!

We should not take that punishment if there is a way out! In God there is a way and that is in Christ Jesus.

Grace is like being given a gift we did not deserve. It was given selflessly with love for men and women, that we should not die before we find that answer.

You have just been given a gift. It was paid for by Christ Jesus who died for your, mine, our sin.

Do you know how much God loves you?

Anti-Suicide Hotline: 800-273-8255

Father, I thank you for the gift of the Holy Spirit. Without being given that we would have no hope that we might see within us someday. May the reader understand that to live on their own leads to endless hardship but the way to live with joy and feel a great reason is in Christ. Father God I pray that this reader comes to the knowledge and faith that is in and through your Son. No matter what we go through You are there. Let that not be too late for this reader. May they understand that there is no religion but love from God but by the way that You made happen. Thank you for the privilege of prayer.

Note: Hope you enjoyed the debut of the new category Testimony. God bless you today!

Devotion Psalm 139- 6/9/21

Posted on by
Reply

Am going to help out another friend. Hopefully he won’t get kicked out from his place he’s lived so long in, he is such kind and sweet person to everyone. I hope that he will be fine after this!

Here is a number in case you ever feel what I will share about my testimony.

Anti-Suicide Hotline: 800-273-8255

Struggle and the worst days in the midst of hardship. Is it fun? No. Is it worth it? It…. might be? But it’s too easy not to think about it needing to happen because it is too hard to believe it!

Sometimes we struggle. We have worry, pain, sadness, depression, and loneliness. Then there are even “bigger” obstacles. Losing a job, alcoholism, losing loved ones, losing the house that one lived in for so long!

That’s not all the struggles but there are many things that happen every day. If you are rich enough though that is great. I hope you are able to help spread the word and share this free blog to people.

Anyway off of that tangent, I and my family have struggled ourselves with possible homelessness. My dad was working many jobs as we lived in a single house (it was a rental though) and faced some huge problems. An unforeseen problem where a person took advantage on a house he was trying to sell and led that to a lawsuit. My dad lost that case because the judge, allegedly, just wanted to be on the other’s side. To be on “their” side just to look good? That’s discouraging.

My dad lost that then the rent piled up and he could not afford it anymore. He also lost his one of two jobs as one place laid him off.

We had nowhere to “go.” No plan for a vacation house that happened to be somewhere else on coast by the beach. Nothing rich to be able to relax and not be so deep in worry.

Then a sweet “angel” a family member willingly gave up her house so we would live in, just so we wouldn’t become homeless and be out on the streets!

The house that as of now is the shelter, the dwelling… is the house this very day.

I hope one day they will be able to live for just each other one day…. because my parents deserve to have peace and be able to be happy either in retirement or just to be active in some capacity.

But anyway I honestly wasn’t trying to say all that either, haha! I just wanted to say this. Deep in our stresses, our hardships, and even in seeming trials and tribulations, the Lord still loves us! God has love that permeates and penetrates deep. It comes to all who want simply to live for Him, serve Him

…and be led by Him.

Now I will get into personal testimony. For years I “lived” within the walls of church. I was in a church around the time I was born too! But I was torn and struggled with my own life.

Bullying, verbal/some physical abuse from my mom (I forgive you though Mom, and I love you so much!), and other things from elementary school all the way to the beginning of high school came on me making life almost impossible to keep going.

My freshman year was a day in which I contemplated suicide. Yes it was wrong to think that but if you can imagine the daily toil I had of people constantly pummeling me with jokes and tearing apart any happiness and self-worth I could have had, it was a way out. Worst off before that moment came to be I saw people who tore into me show seeing “grace” to others. I was somehow still an exception.

That’s it! Was I guess my heart’s motive. I was going to die a painful, awful self-inflicted death and all I asked was that I would be dead at the end of it.

What God’s grace did for me probably not even halfway through that day was that I forgot about that. All of it. I must have had a great day because I didn’t have that cross my mind again until I took Psychology my senior year where I found out it was a repressed memory.

Speaking of my senior year I somehow saw God’s deep love, how He was against abandonment, and to live for Christ with all my heart.

After my hardship and in effect then becoming “activated” by the Holy Spirit, I wanted to gratefully acknowledge His love to every place I would go!

I say this only because God is good. Christ saved me from so much and it was like I saw a hundred blessings all at once.

I went to school with an oomph to show God’s love and proclaim the gospel! My personality, everything in my life was turned around and like puzzle pieces fit into His glory. As I felt not just the love towards others but such a deep intimate bond with Christ (I do miss that…) there were hurdles too.

Some light hardships came. My school project being redone meant I had to not graduate with my class and repeat my senior year; though my project was just a screenplay I was determined to do a full on movie project and asked our local “News station” to recruit people for the movie and was told not to do that and my suggestion got filed away; I instantly learned in my heart as if in discernment that anything I planned to do for Jesus, Satan seemed to be right behind that action to stop it;

Then those “hardships” became bigger ones! After seeing a ghostly place with a friend sometime later an elaborate thing happened. It was like Satan sent evil and it dropped down right next to me in my bed (a demon). I screamed my head off! But at the same time it seemed like it was in reaction by the Holy Spirit.

Then one night I was lying in bed and was woken up by the Lord. “No. Not yet. Please. Don’t let ‘the end’ happen… not yet!”

What happened was I was shaken back and forth in my bed twice, then it felt almost like two fingers went under my ribcage to lift me up! The fear of the Lord then was definite and a reality!

The Lord was coming. And I had to warn people!

So I continued work on the project.

Then after some more situations other things happened and eventually I ended up hospitalized. I felt like Paul in that situation because here I was feeling scared and seemingly alone and all I wanted was to see my church’s happy faces again.

The place felt like a prison. You couldn’t even open the window to get fresh air because it was locked shut and the handle to open it had been removed!

I felt discouraged. And also (sorry Mom and Dad, forgive me) I became not homesick, but church sick. I asked my dad to get the directory and looked at the pictures.

Then after a while of being in a psychiatric hospital, I began to notice something. People in my group and even some of the staff looked familiar. Were they familiar? Yes, they really were!

God answered my hope to be with church to when I was away from church to bringing an old church to me! The people I was chatting and would fellowship with were from my old church when my dad lost the rental house!

How could this be? Does God really exist now, reader? I believe so and He is there for you whether you will believe it or not!

Part 2 coming