In the past two years I've been shown and revealed things about God that I had never known in my years growing up. I accepted Christ as my saviour when I was 10 years old, but I didn’t experience a personal relationship Jesus directly afterwards. I was baptized a couple of years after that, but still my life didn’t seem to change. It wasn’t until I truly repented, and hated the sin in my life that the Lord began to change me. I was recently asked by a friend if I had experienced the Living God. The following was my response and serves as my testimony.
I think growing up I had a limited view of God and what role He was suppose to have in our lives. I didn't understand what the Holy Spirit was and how He (the Spirit) is a gift to us...the Spirit of God inside us...I'm sure I don't have a full understanding of it today or will I ever fully understand it. I don't think we're even meant to fully understand it...some things are for God's knowledge only.
I've learned that we has humans are innately corrupted and that no matter how hard we try....WE will never be able to fix ourselves. Through study of scripture and the grace of God I truly believe that...I don't mean that I intellectually understand it...no I BELIEVE it! I see that as I let more of God into the dark parts of my life it is released from me. God takes care of it...
Every time I sit down and read the Bible...I come away with a deeper sense of Truth...I can't read it and not believe that those words aren't the divine word of a God who actively pursues me and seeks to love me. I know that he has my best interest in mind. I used to think that God was some distant, disconnected being from long ago....and that he was good to instill morals and to keep us from completely destroying our lives...but I didn't understand that He is actually here with me...to speak to me. He is inside me, he seeks to make my life filled with love from Him, and experience a bit of Heaven on Earth, in this life as I pursue Him.
As I continually submit to the Lord I find that He blesses me with things that no human set of ideas or principals can provide.
My father passed away a little over two years ago. He was an unbelievable man. I'm sure a lot of people say that about someone after they are gone....but as I give my life over to the Lord, I understand more and more of who my father was. He pursued God intensely. He loved Jesus. As I grieved my fathers passing I drew close to the Lord...in an immature believer type of way....I prayed and seeked after Him. But, He found me...and He has helped me understand my fathers death. I've found complete peace with his leaving this Earth. It's the paradox found throughout scripture. God takes what earthly, world-views see as awful and provides comfort to those who follow Him.
I've come to love Jesus and what he did for me on that cross. It breaks my heart to think that he died for me and my sins...it's crazy to really meditate on that.
A living God is one that works inside me. As I respond to the Spirit's presence in my life, He lives. As I extend the love that overflows out of my personal relationship with Jesus, to others....He lives. As I, by faith, let him penetrate further into my flesh, He lives by forever changing me. Turning me away from my flesh to things which are eternal....love, selflessness, and a servants heart, a life that pleases an eternal God.
As people submit to the Lord,I benefit, as they teach me His word, and pray for me, He lives through them. I have been the beneficiary of so many Godly acts....most of which I'll never know or understand how greatly they've impacted my life. For that I am thankful. For those people who handed their lives over to Jesus and in doing that, gave me the opportunity to approach the Father and ask for his forgiveness, I am thankful.
2 Corinthians 5:21
God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
