My Personal Testimony

Fifty years ago, I gave my life to Christ. Initially, my road was rocky and I often went off the path that He had set for me. Yet, He brought me through the death of my parents…through the  heartbreak and the separation.  He gave me courage to raise a beautiful child who has suffered from severe mental disabilities and an immune disorder.  He cured me of fourth stage heart failure.  He comforted and supported me through the end of a twenty-seven year marriage to an unbeliever. 

The miracle of all this is not in being healed or that life has always being great.  The miracle is that through it all I have come to realize that I am never alone and that I can find peace in the worst of trials.  God saves us from sin, but once he does that…He also saves us from fear. Even death can’t overcome the Christian because to be out of the body is to be at home with the Lord.  So fear not, God wants to give you a Kingdom.

All day long our God is saving us in one way or another.  Our problem is that we want it to be “our” way.  He sent His Son Jesus, to save us from our sins.  “What does that mean?,” you might be saying. “I’m no sinner!  I’m a good person!”  When addressed as “Good teacher”, Jesus told everyone that only God was good.  We are not to be comparing our goodness to our neighbor’s but with God’s goodness.   This was one more way that Jesus identified with us and humbled himself.  He showed us the way to true humility, and that is to realize that next to God, we are totally wretched.  God does not grade on the “curve”.  His standard is perfection, but His Grace is also perfect.  The Word Grace means unmerited favor.  You don’t deserve mercy but you are given it anyway.

 Most people believe that sin means that you have broken some arbitrary ancient “rule”.  That is not what sin is.  God made us in HIs Image in order to make us his children.  The first man and woman marred that image by wanting to be their own “god”, make their own decisions, follow their own logic and opinion and sadly all it did was kill them spiritually.  How arrogant!  Do we know everything?  Do we know the future?  Most of us don’t even know the past well enough to stop repeating our own mistakes.  So, how is it that we even think that we can decide what’s best for ourselves?  But back to Adam and Eve…

No longer in God’s image, they had cut themselves off from intimate fellowship with God and without His sustaining power, they “died” spiritually.  Barred from the Tree of Life as well, man became subject to physical death.  Subsequently, we are all born spiritually dead and genetically pre-disposed to die physically.  One might wonder why God didn’t let them eat again from the Tree of Life.  It was a protection, for if they had, man would now be eternally rebellious and evil.  Look around, has the last two hundred years of “enlightenment” produced peace and harmony?  NO!  Look at the fruit of what you are doing before it’s too late.  Yet, in Christ, there is hope.  If you think the “Garden” account a fairy tale…think again.  What is it that men fear most since the “Garden”?  Death and being alone.

Get this into your head…God doesn’t condemn and he doesn’t “send” anyone to hell…we send ourselves and we do it long before we ever die physically!  If I told you that all you had to do was walk through a door to receive a million dollars…would you do it?  My belief is that you would; provided you believed that the million was there.  The thing that pushes you to go through the door is faith.  It is your trust in the one who told you about the million.  Now, suppose further that when you got the million, there was a condition.  Someone besides yourself will be telling you how to live and how use the money, and in order to receive it,  you must agree to this.  In order to walk in and take the million, you would then have to believe that the motive of the person was good towards you, for you would be depending on him for the rest of your life.  After all,  He might be a villain!

This was how Satan caught Eve in his web of lies.  He painted God as the villain.  He made her believe that God was withholding something from her…that he didn’t want her to have the best.  This is the trap that caught her. How long will you remain in the same trap? 

So, to recap, we are now dead to God and no longer in fellowship (friendship) with Him or his sustaining power.  We are already heading for hell when we die. Jesus told us…this;

John 3:3
Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth, unless one is born again, he cannot be in God’s kingdom.“

If you have heard the term a “born again” Christian, it means that when you accept Christ’s sacrifice on your behalf; repenting (turn away) of marring God’s image in you (sin) and agree to let Him lead you. You “crucify” your flesh with Christ.  You count yourself dead to sin and alive to God.  When you make that decision, you are given a new nature…”born again” in God’s image.  You receive the Holy Spirit as a token of that binding promise and He will lead you into all truth.  Yes, Virginia… there is an absolute truth you can live by and it brings life and peace.  It dispels all fear.  By the way…don’t judge Christianity by the majority of Christians, for God said the way is narrow and few find it.  Judge by Jesus and His works.  He is the one that will save you not other Christians or even the Church as a whole

John 3:16-19
“God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son so that whoever believes in him may not be lost, but have eternal life.
God did not send his Son into the world to judge the world guilty, but to save the world through him. People who believe in God’s Son are not judged guilty. Those who do not believe have already been judged guilty, because they have not believed in God’s one and only Son.

Christ’s Death and Resurrection is God’s way out of the consequences of sin and  enslavement that we are already in.  A consequence that we brought on ourselves and live out to this day.   We are already condemned, and already dead in our sins.  Jesus frees us from having to sin and from its consequences. 

Understand, He didn’t have to offer us anything! You now have true choice whereas before you were caught in Satan’s web of deceit; his lie that you can actually figure life out on your own.  Good luck with that!   We were all there once.  We all have sinned and fallen short of God’s Glory.

So, here is what God did about it.   He made an new agreement with us.

God agrees to exchange His glory for a human form and then dons the clothes of a sinner.  While so clothed, He lives a perfect life but does not play the “God card”.  This means that He did not use the power or privilege of being God to make his life easier.  He suffers untrue accusations and He dies with every sin ever committed on his soul.  God rejects Him instead of us.  Then He rises from the dead…imperishable.  Those of us who accept His Sacrifice on our behalf and are born again “in Christ”  get to wear His robes of righteousness and be in fellowship with God, with Him as our Beloved Father.  We pass from “death” to “life”.  For those of you who did not get a perfect father, here is your chance to have one. Your past is gone and you are totally forgiven.  We have become children of God and heirs with Christ.   One day we will be perfected and have a “new’ body of our own and we will live eternally with Him.

What is our part of the agreement?  We accept Christ’s perfect sacrifice (cross) as payment for our sins and then trust in; rely on and adhere to Him; crucifying our flesh with Him.  We do what He tells us through His Word and through His Holy Spirit instead of our own brain…our own inner “god”.   We rely on Him and obey so that he can change us from the inside out to be God’s children and heirs with Him when he establishes his kingdom.  He is our Brother, our Lord and our Master.  Simple?   Yes…but difficult.

It takes faith to live it, because it is difficult to choose His desires over our own…to kill the flesh and count it as dead.  It isn’t easy to present our lives in sacrifice to Him…but it’s worth it!  Do you believe enough to walk through the narrow gate and receive salvation?  If you do, then pray with me.

Lord I know that I have sinned, rebelled against you and the way that you made me. I have marred your image and I am truly sorry. From this day forward, I turn from my sin (doing things my way) and will rely on Christ’s sacrifice to cleanse me and on His power to change me. I will do your will instead of mine. Please save me and give me your Forgiveness and your Grace. Make me your child. In Jesus Name

The Cross Road Amiee’s Adventure