I was so convinced that Jesus was the answer to every need that I regularly visited the counseling office. However, I wasn’t shy about asking for help at church. It was like a bad habit I couldn’t break. Every morning when I awoke I was plagued with thoughts of suicide. Oddly enough, my depression seemed to be growing in intensity. Still, through all the growth, I continued to struggle with depression. I didn’t feel any different afterward, except that I had the joy and confidence that comes from knowing I had obeyed God. After discussing it with Michael one afternoon, we were baptized together that same night. All steps of obedience, and this one especially, carried with it the opportunity for deliverance, freedom, and wholeness, and I desired everything that God had for me. The power is not in the water, but in being obedient to the Word of God whether you understand it fully or not. There was nothing magical about the water itself. The past is washed away in the water and you come up cleansed while it remains buried. I found out that baptism in water was an act of obedience by which the lordship of Jesus in your life is declared. Still cautious about doing something that was merely a religious ritual as opposed to taking a step of obedience with understanding, I studied further. Jesus Himself was baptized in order to do what was right, and He commanded us all to do the same. We were married about a year later and soon realized that we had neglected to take one very important step of obedience – that of being baptized in water. This also opened up possibilities for making more new friends, and I found associating with them a significant source of strength and encouragement.īefore I received the Lord, I met my husband on a record session, but we didn’t start seriously seeing each other until we met again in church after I had become a believer. Attending church once a week was not enough, so I added Wednesday and Sunday evenings to my schedule. As my hunger for God’s Truth grew, so did my desire for more teaching. People who saw me lugging that huge Bible to church must have thought I was exceedingly spiritual. I read the Bible from beginning to end in one translation, then began all over in another. So I bought a large, heavy Bible that had four different translations in it. If I wanted to live in peace, enjoying God’s full measure of blessing, I had to obey God’s Word - not in the strict, legalistic sense, but with an attitude that says, “Show me what to do, Lord, and help me to do it.” In order to live in obedience to God’s Word, I needed to find out what His Word said. I surrendered more and more of my life to Him as I went along, but each time I thought I had given Him my all, I discovered I had only given all I could. I gradually discovered that while receiving Jesus as my personal Savior and being born into the kingdom of God was instant, allowing Him to truly become Lord over my life was a process. He would certainly do a better job than I had done. I wanted God to take my life and do with it what He wanted. As I viewed the failure and rubble of my past, I knew I couldn’t navigate on my own anymore. Until this moment I had only received His life. Don’t let me ever be in the wrong place again,” I prayed. I wondered how could God ever accomplish all that, even though I sincerely believed that all things were possible with Him, because His Word said so. Not only can I heal them, but I can make them count for something.” I can take all the hurt, the pain, and the scars. It doesn’t matter what’s happened to you. I redeem all things I make all things new. In the midst of my utter distress I heard God speak to my heart words of comfort: “I am a Redeemer. Oh, Lord, I’m grateful that You’ve given me hope and peace and eternal life, but as far as my life ever amounting to anything, how can it happen? My life is shattered in a million pieces that can never be put back together again. I cried to the Lord saying, “Oh God, I’ve ruined everything. When I first started walking with God I felt like my life had been a waste.
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