God woke me up

There was once a perfect man that throughout His whole life, from His first breath, knew and understood that He was going to go through betrayal, ridicule, torture and great suffering ending in an horrendous and agonising death at 33 years old. The same man had also always known that He was going to go through such suffering to rescue you and I. That beautiful man lived every day of His short life knowing all the terrible things that were going to happen to Him and living it to offer us an eternal salvation. Of course that man is Jesus Christ. Now I give thanks for Him daily and have such gratitude that He suffered for me, (for all who believe in Him) yet up until recently I mostly didn’t give Him a thought.

Strangely/Not strangely my whole career had lead me to be working with the sort of people that Jesus Himself had cared for; people with mental health issues, complex needs, those living with fear and pain and those on the outskirts of society.

So after decades of witnessing real suffering I started searching for an answer, a deeper understanding and meaning to life. What I needed, of course, was Jesus but my experiences lead me to become involved in the New Age doctrine; where the belief is that we are all our own god and we create our own destiny. I was learning from Mediums and communicating with spirits never really knowingwhat those spirits were. I was using crystals to supposedly heal myself; Tarot cards to blindly guide my daily decisions; Reiki and manifestation practices. Did I think God was in those things? I certainly didn’t think the enemy was. I didn’t even know that there was an enemy.

A few years later not long ago, as I lay sound asleep, I was awoken by a loud male voice clearly saying the single word: ‘Deuteronomy’. You may not be familiar with this word, I know I wasn’t, so I looked it up; a book in The Bible. I found it on my phone and read it all as quickly as I could. The more I read the more I felt deep down scared.“When you come into the land that the LORD your God is giving you, you shall notlearn to follow the abominable practices of those nations. There shall not be foundamong you ...anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens,or a sorcerer or a charmer or a medium or a necromancer or one who inquires ofthe dead, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the LORD. And becauseof these abominations the LORD your God is driving them out before you. You shallbe blameless before the LORD your God.” Deuteronomy 18:9-14 ESV

I knew that only God could have spoken to me. Only He knew where my life was at. Only He knew the enormity of the sin attached to my New Age connections. Only He knew how much I needed to read and understand Deuteronomy. I realised He wanted me to be saved and so I started to read The Bible. I researched God and Jesus and The Holy Spirit like it was the most important thing in my life to know about them, and it was. I stopped my New Age study and practices. I stopped a course before the end. I threw out or burnt all my New Age notes, objects, books, cards, crystals and computer files that had any connection to that way of being and believing. I actually realised that all they ‘promised’ had never materialised, there was ‘no fruit’ as The Bible says. I repented and prayed, I watched sermons from different church denominations and YouTube videos on every aspect of The Bible, both for and against, and I talked to good people that felt the same as I did. I needed to make a considered opinion on God, Jesus, The Holy Spirit and my life’s direction going forward. I was blessed with a new and true belief that God really does love me. I could see that what I had been involved in was against God yet He didn’t give up on me. He had spoken to me and given me what I needed to change and get to know Him as my true Father. He literally saved my soul.

I have learnt that God doesn’t waste any of our experiences and whatever we think of ourselves He knows we are perfect in His image. So please believe me when I say that I know that you are not too broken, too evil, too selfish, too sinful, too old or too lost for Him to love you and save you too.

‘The Lord your God turned the curse into a blessing for you because The Lord your God loved you.’Deuteronomy 23:5

By K.D. 19.03.2020

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His promise may have a condition?

I have heard so many people, teachers and preachers speaking out the wonderful promise from Jeremiah 29:11 'For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.'

Isn't this the most amazing promise, we all want everything to go well, not to be tough, to be comfortable, not painful. But when I heard this quoted so often without the changes expected, I felt the Holy Spirit say 'look further'💬 'then you will come and pray..... then you will seek Me, inquire for, and require Me (as a vital necessity) and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart'. Jeremiah 29:12-13

So here is the 'condition' for this wonderful promise. So WE have something to do as the Holy Spirit leads us. Then He is free to show us His wonderful plans. We need to pray. to SEARCH FOR HIM WITH OUR WHOLE HEART!

To see what this looks like, when Abraham gave his whole heart, listen to Bob Fitts singing 'Sacrifice'

Now I have been challenged about looking at the whole picture when I love a promise, it helps me to be so joyful knowing Father will keep His side when I do mine.

For example, let us check this out! So Psalm 37:4,5 TPT says 'Make God the utmost delight and pleasure of your life, and He will provide for you what you desire the most. Give God the right to direct your life, and as you trust Him along the way, you'll find HE pulled it off perfectly!' So to receive the Life of Jesus we would like, the condition is to put Him as number one, give Him total control and TRUST Him.

So let us check out any promises we have for our life and see if there is anything we could be doing to cooperate with Father God