The Miracle of my New Birth!
December 3, 2006, I want to tell my testimony of what God has taught me about “Salvation”. I really wanted to understand what happened to me and what happens to others when they are “Saved”. If you ask the average church person to explain Salvation, they can’t. Unless they have experienced being Born Again they really can’t explain it.
People have been led to believe that they play a role in their Salvation. Jesus said in Mark 8:15 Take heed, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, and of the leaven of Herod. If your foundation is not laid correctly your entire structure is damaged. God has shown me that if your doctrine of the original sin of what actually happened in the Garden and what really happened to us as a result of the SIN of ADAM then you CANNOT understand the position MAN has in his new relationship with God. You cannot join a church and become a part of the Body of Christ. You cannot come to the front of the Church and say you receive Jesus and be Saved. You have to be a part of the remnant that God has chosen. Not by anything you have done, but by his GRACE and MERCY. You cannot become emotional at the hands of someone trying to explain your need for Christ and he comes to you (that is FLESH to FLESH). It is just not the truth. There is nothing in the Bible that supports that you have to invite God into your heart. God has to send his Spirit out to whom he has chosen to receive. The Spirit awakens you (remember you are spiritually dead, separated from God), you go through the conviction of your sins (a conversion) and then taken to Jesus where he washes you and gives you back to the Father. You cannot be lost again. There is no such thing. Once you are enlighten you won’t turn back.
The first contact God made with me that I recognized was when this young lady invited me to Church. Such a desire to attend came up in my heart to motivate me to go and I now realize that God was preparing the soil of my heart. When I arrived at the Church that Sunday and they were singing “Take Me To The Water To Be Baptized” and as I stood there in the Lobby something happen to me. I couldn’t explain it then and I can’t explain the it now. I do know that God filled me with his Spirit, the Holy Spirit. It was like God poured liquid LOVE into me. He opened my entire being.
You might compare what happened that day to me like what happens to a gold miner who discovers his first gold nugget. From that moment on, that miner has gold fever and he will spend the rest of his life thinking about, looking for, and dreaming about gold. Gold will always come first. And I believe the same is true for a true believer. That very day I had to go buy a Bible. I could actually read the Bible for the first time . I could suddenly understand things I was reading. Of course, the more I read, the more revelation came. I would literally take the Bible to bed. Some of my favorite scriptures that God had me stuck on was in Ezekiel 36 when he talked about giving me a “New Heart”. Now I realize that was talking about the NEW BIRTH. I could not put down his Word. I felt that Bible was speaking to me and nothing mattered in my life, but God. That WORD was living. Then he began to show me how awful I was. I laid down at the dust of repentance at the feet of Jesus crying for mercy. It seemed like the longest time I would go places and God would show me how I use to be by using other people. He was showing me my own heart. When I would hear or see others doing things against the word, God would quickly remind me that I was like that. I would leave where ever I was and began to cry like a baby, repenting and asking God for forgiveness. God showed me my terrible heart. How awful it was and now that has allowed me to understand the unregenerate hearts of men. I can identify with others and how awful their hearts are and I understand they cannot help it. They were born spiritually dead (separated from God) bound to Satan. What was happening to me was the Holy Spirit was convicting me of my sins, showing me that I was in a cesspool on my way to Hell. Afterwards, he cleansed me with the blood of Jesus and brought me back into full union with my Father. I was reconciled back to him. I had been Born Again, a “NEW” creature in Christ. I had received the “Promise” the gift of “Eternal Life.
You know I thought because God didn’t pull me out of drugs, prostitution or other things we have come to know as being bad that maybe I wasn’t “Saved”, but God showed me everyone is in that cesspool bound to Hell no matter what they are doing apart from him. Preachers would often tell me that you have to cry out to God in order for God to save you. Not True. Lazarus was dead, how could he cry out – his deadness represents the sinner separated from God. John 6:44– No man can come to me unless the Father, who sent me, draws (irresistable call) him, and I will resurrect him on the last day.
God foreknows who he will Save before the foundation of the earth. He sends out his Spirit and awakens a “Dead Man”, brings him into “Repentance for his Sins”, Washes him and brings in back into union with him.
A lot of people worry about losing their Salvation for one reason or another. I really don’t think that they should worry about losing their Eternal Salvation. I think what they should worry about is whether they are saved now, and whether they were ever saved. In order for you to be saved, God has to “Call” you first. Everyone in the Bible from Adam, Abraham, Moses, Jonah, Paul, Jeremiah and many others it didn’t say they choose God; but just the opposite, “The Word came unto Me”. God does all the work in our Salvation. Jesus said, I chose you, you didn’t chose me.
Do I believe in Miracles? YES. A miracle was performed in me because I was blind – stumbling through life, but now I see. I was a dead man walking. God through his sovereign grace saved me. Now when I sing the song “Amazing Grace” how sweet the sound that “Saved” a wretch like me. I really know what that means.
I Thank God for the people he has put in my life that I may “hear” the Word. I’m not quite sure where I’m going next. The Bible says that in these days the Word will be sacred and it is. I can hardly find anyone preaching “Truth”, the simple Word of God. At the moment God fills you with his Spirit, he fills you with truth. John 14:6 “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” You just know the truth. You can hear it.
Grace & Peace Be Multiplied Upon You.Posted by Captive Set Free Predestination Subscribe to RSS feed
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