Conversion is an interesting subject. What life is, is life. But with 2,000 years of confusions, trickery, foolish writings etc and twisting of the truth humankind has lifted themself in thought above God.
But the evidence is that we can create big ships, and helicopters and even clone the living and we think that this little effort makes us big.
We cannot create from nothing, we cannot even figure out logically the creation of the world. We cannot heal, the body must heal itself (or we call to God in prayer to be healed if we are wise, or go to someone that we know is close to God to help us.) If we human beings were smart enough to sit down and really consider what it is that we cannot do, how we lie to ourselves to make ourselves look big in the eyes of the world, and what little we really have achieved and how incredibly with all that amazing knowledge we are polluting and destroying the species on this planet, destroying our food and water and destroying the planet and all in the name of proving to ourselves that we are bigger than God, that we are the most intelligent on earth etc. Even as people we cannot destroy death, or have everlasting life. We talk big, and that is where it ends.
We may recall that Paul was heavily shocked into receiving Christ. I read that Martin Luther was off to go to a worldly life when a strike of lightening changed his thinking and he became a monk. Sometimes we can be shocked into realising that humankind is so wrong in its belief of how great it thinks that it is. For me I was shocked too. I will not go into details except to say that I came to understand that evil exists and I knew this for absolute sure. We people have been “conditioned” to accept all the tragedy around us and sometimes it is called a work of God, like earthquakes etc. We New Testament people follow Christ who spoke of God’s love.
Now I was deeply shocked. I knew that once I realised that evil existed then there has to be an opposite, why? Because if only evil travelled this planet there would be only pure destruction because evil likes to see us hurt, likes to see doctors stitching us up while we are in great pain. Evil is very evil, don’t be mistaken, evil takes great joy in seeing people choose the way of evil so that evil has a free hand of slowly tearing us and our lives and the lives of those we love apart slowly and carefully extracting the most pain and anguish – and it gets better for evil because after we die, evil can then rejoice in seeing all our family in total misery over our death of our life which we willingly gave to evil. And our relations will then (most of them) go off and let evil do the same to their lives. Evil destroys with the utmost pleasure and delights in your agonies and pains, and rejoices in your turning from God because we may blame God for our miseries, ensuring that evil has many more years of delights and anguish with our lives.
I realised that evil had an opposite and that was obviously God. Now this all shocked me greatly. I lived the miserable ways of the world to a fair degree, but I was an honest man, but obviously this wasn’t enough. But my conversion was very fast, very shocking and very thorough. I was totally convinced before I had picked up a Bible as an adult or read a tract. This was because since I had discovered that evil existed and that God existed then I had to obviously make a deep choice of which one I wanted to side with. And we do have that choice. If we sit on the fence and do nothing then we are still making a choice. We must make a choice firmly in the back yard of who we will follow, God or Satan. I chose God. All the people out there that refuse to choose have chosen Satan because they refuse to call God their Father.
Eventually in my research I learnt of the Bible, tracts, Salvation and much, much, more. But for me the full depth was finding out that evil is really there and that people do play in evils back yard and do sell their souls to evil all in the aid of pride, hat they have accepted as fun, a few hours at a party, drunkeness, drug misuse, adultery, etc. Its a big list, and a very sad list. But to willingly be an adulterer we are willingly choosing to be bad and we really cannot expect good returns from that foolish behaviour, the same is hanging out with mates who do not follow God and who do not follow God’s ways. I have personally witnessed many peoples personal destruction simply because they choose to do bad and foolishly expect a good life from their ways. It won’t happen. Bad plus bad will only bring much bad into our lives. Bad plus good will still bring much bad into our lives. God is trying to tell us to follow Him and have as much good in our lives as we can and God is good, so you are allowing God to shine in your life by being the best that you can.
Throughout my life I had come across many Christian hypocrites, all claiming to know the way and not living the way – they turned me away from the ways of God more than anything else. There are many people who claim to be Christians and know Christ, and have the Holy Spirit and follow God and yet not live the life of God. There are many false profits today, many claiming to know The Way. Over time I have learned that we should bring your faith and fellowship to the right people and live as we preach. I struggle to see how we can state that we have accepted Christ in our life when we act as the opposite to Christ. We are to be little Christs, we are to take up “our cross” and follow Christ. Jesus didn’t party, or use bad language, or plot revenges, or abuse people verbally, or follow the laws of society. Think of how much it pains Christ to have us claim to know Him and then live the ways of society.
When I discovered God I decided that I was not going to be like the false Christians that I had met all my life. I wanted to follow God and know the Truth and only the Truth. This meant turning away from the ways of society and following God. Many don’t want to hear this because they want to continue the old life as well as claim to know God – but we need to be honest. If we really don’t know Christ then what benefit will it be for us? None, because we didn’t pray to Christ in the first place because our heart wasn’t in it, our heart was still half in the world of sin, accepting that sin, wanting that sin, and just trying to “cover” Salvation for life after death. Is this real Salvation if we don’t really know God? We all need to ask ourselves that questions. To repent means that we want to remove the old life from us.
I spent many hours talking to God in full voice telling God that I clearly was not going to go halfway to following Him. It had to be all the way. So I prayed all day, in many amazing situations. I worked very hard, went through much confusions, many tears, and today I would never have had life any other way.
I refuse to accept anything other than total belief in God. I have in recent years come up against some people who have been very cruel and nasty towards me and it has taken some great remembering the Bible, that I am to live as a little Christ and much more to keep being forgiving and to turn the other cheek, but I feel so relaxed from it and feel that I have turned from the past ways and if we hold no grudge then we are free while they continue their lies. But one thing is for sure, God will show the false people to be false people if we are willing to look and wait, be patient and God will show the right way is with Him.
I have come close to death more than a few times in my life. Before God I had a fear of death, I have no fear of death or of any living human being. When Jesus talked of faith I asked God to give me true faith. I found out that faith came from many trials and events which taught me what was right and what was wrong and that what I thought as right wasn’t right and that people I used to follow were not good to follow and that they would drag me down into hell.
I also discovered that those that use hatred and revenge become what they use and will be payed for their efforts with time. It may not happen immediately, but it will happen. Television and movies are full of revengeful thinking and it is seen as justice for us to get revenge on our enemy and so people accept this and then wonder why their lives are hell and why so much badness happens to them. You poke a non-believer and they are going to poke you back and its going to hurt. And when we feed our hearts with revenge and hatred we feed darkness into our hearts and there is going to be a reaction from using evil’s tools in our heart. That is very scary.
Since I became a believer in God my life has got so much better. My thinking is better and I have more abilities than I ever had before. Life just keeps getting better. I wrote this in the hope that we need to understand that we shouldn’t be half believers, we must believe totally and be willing to cast away the old life totally and completely without fear. The past is gone, long live the glorious future in the loving caring teaching arms of Christ and not in the arms of evil. We need to understand that if we are not following God then we are following evil, we are choosing to follow evil, and if we follow evil then evil will follow us gladly. If we are not totally following God then we are half following evil – we cannot expect God to change and better our lives now if we refuse to follow God totally. We must deeply regret sins to tears. We must hate evil. We must avoid our old friends and their lost ways and life that they have given to evil, they choose to lose, you shouldn’t follow, or you will lose too. Which is worst, following the lost and being burnt for it but staying with them friends or being a better person and being a wonderful example for them to follow should they choose to – the second choice is more positive and gives your friends a chance for a better life and eternal Salvation. The first choice is simply two friends lost and willingly diving into hell.
We must realise that if we are not going to fully follow God then other people who do follow God are going to get more of God’s time and affection. You see if God puts more effort into those willing to follow Him then they will be shining examples of God and more people will go to God and Salvation. You really do choose about how much of God goes into your life, it is not God’s choice nor is God to blame if you willingly choose to follow Satan part-time or full-time. We must realise that God is not going to support us if we use Satan’s tools, but Satan will support us happily and while doing so cause death and carnage and destruction in our lives, and to those we love. If you don’t want to give your soul to evil then give it willingly to God who will like the potter at the potters wheel he will mould those who are willing to go the whole way into a new being, all things become new, and a new heart, a new way, a new life.
When I say on the weekends on my Facebook Wall, “Have a good weekend and don’t forget to take God with you.” I am suggesting that you take God with you to be with you and for you to act as Jesus would have acted with you in physical form. If you are misbehaving and doing things wrong you honestly cannot expect God to be there with you, but Satan will. What really do you want, this we must ask ourselves.
I want you to know that when you follow God with all your heart there will be great changes in you personally and in your life and in the end all the changes will be positive and good. Many will benefit as you reach out and shine for God in your life. But in the end it is still up to You To Choose!
Written by James M Sandbrook.
Sunday, 21 February 2016, 9:58:19 AM.