They were mostly very weird.  It wavered. At this point, I spent a few months reading through the gospels and John MacArthur’s The Gospel According to Jesus by flashlight at night while everyone else in the house slept.  Or was it God’s Spirit, nudging me, telling me to examine myself, to see if I was in the faith?  1 Corinthians 2:14, In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. HE alone is True North. While we can’t open our own spiritual eyes, we can certainly choose to close them – we don’t see what we don’t want to see.  Faith, like love, is a CHOICE.   We all put our faith somewhere. Being convicted and repenting when we sin is good.  After being born again, though, sin no longer is held against us in a judicial sense.  Ever.  Even if we don’t repent of it. Seeing yourself as lost and wanting to do something about it, is called “repenting”.  The Holy Spirit has convicted you.  You realize you are lost, and you want to be found. The Bible tells us what saved people look like, so I’m going to do all the things that saved people do. Apparently a primary word; a 'father'.  Was Jesus Christ not in my heart? Pray With Me:  Lord, I am horrified that I might be counted among the lukewarm.  I’m sorry that I didn’t consider You worth seeking until I found You, I’m sorry for always giving up!  I believe that no matter if it takes my whole energy and lifetime to do so, You are worth seeking until You are found.  This time enable me to persevere in the faith until the end.  I repent today of not following You with my whole heart – from holding back and keeping You out on the porch! of a worn out rope God help oh me of little hope Lord, I believe but help my unbelief cause Trust and fear are fighting and I'm somewhere in between Let Your Power Fall You try to be a “good Christian” but it “doesn’t work” for you.  It seems like the harder you try, the worse you fall.  But the thing is, TRUE Christianity isn’t a religion.  And that’s why it’s hard to figure out on a purely intellectual level! I yearn for it. The Boy with an Evil Spirit … 23 “If You can?” echoed Jesus. Do you believe in the facts of the Bible, God, Jesus, salvation, and yet struggle with having these facts fully penetrate and possess your heart?  Do you struggle with the concept of God being a loving, merciful Father? And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help you my unbelief.  We know this. It doesn’t end there, though.  Sometimes we must ask, and ask, and ask, and ask… Like the persistent widow (Luke 18:1-8). The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. 3.  And, while I would have much preferred to see a (good) angel, pretty much everyone in the Bible’s response to seeing one of those is also falling on their face in fear. It doesn’t take any action.  Helpless, dependent. I knew I desperately wanted to be saved. But I KNEW I didn’t get something still!  He says what He means, He means what He says, and we choose to obey Him because we trust and love Him. “I believe; help my unbelief!” A contradiction in terms?  Our works can’t add to or maintain salvation – I might do enough good things to build a great toboganning hill… Mother Teresa built a Mount Everest of good works… And neither of us could reach the Moon. Luke 17:5 And the apostles said unto the Lord, Increase our faith. Verb - Present Imperative Active - 2nd Person Singular. When we pray, “I believe, help my unbelief,” he will. It’s either the narrow one that leads to life, or the broad one that leads to destruction. I relinquish control. While outwardly we are wasting away, inwardly we are being renewed day by day.  It’s about an heart transformation from the inside out, and that is the hard thing to grasp in “religion” which is focused on the outside. I had no idea what it was. Pray With Me:  Jesus, please show me the true condition of my heart.  Am I seeking heaven?  Blessings?  Emotional encounters?  Experiences?  Belonging?  Or am I truly seeking You and You alone?  If I have no special feelings or encounters, will I hold firm to faith in You?  Reveal to me the beliefs of my own heart.  Perhaps the correct way to state this is that God allowed me to “choose” Him – God’s Holy Spirit must enable us to see His truths. Change ), You are commenting using your Facebook account.  Rest in the finished work of salvation. Repeat #2. Finally, in my own life, I was ready for full surrender.  I accepted that God’s plan and purpose for me was the same as it is for you – to love Him and serve Him wholeheartedly.  He has prepared you, your personality, your talents, your gifts, for a specific time and place just as He has prepared me.  I had confronted my heart, and the fact that I had been keeping Jesus out on the porch. You want to know why I didn’t give up this time? I kept searching and reading articles about salvation by “faith alone”. Whatever that will look like.  STOPPING striving.  STOPPING religion and works and trying. Same with authoritarian parenting if we were brought up strictly, it can be difficult for us to focus on the heart rather than on the behavior outwardly. *I* was striving for assurance.  (I finally got that the purpose of salvation wasn’t heaven, but I still hadn’t gotten that the purpose of salvation also isn’t “assurance of salvation”.). Now, if you are stuck, this is where you have to actually get found and have the blood of Jesus applied to the doorposts of your heart. You can’t save yourself.  You aren’t worthy, you can’t be worthy, you will never be worthy.  The only way to do anything about your condition is through Jesus Christ – Jesus says “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through me.” (John 14:6). His blood paid the price required by God for our sins. I had asked God to give me a time of spiritual renewal after we made a big move.  Two months after said move, my grandma passed away.  During her funeral, a portion of Don Piper’s book 90 Minutes in Heaven was read.  For the rest of the funeral, my mind was spinning.  The Holy Spirit used that reading to prompt me to consider that heaven is actually and truly real.  Surely, I had always believed this on an intellectual level.  I could ignore it, or I could explore further. And here you are.  God made you.  He called you into being.  You are “fearfully and wonderfully made”.  He has a plan for your life and He WANTS you.  He wants to be in relationship with you.  Not in a begging pleading kind of way, but He made you to be in His family and basically you won’t feel whole until you are. I, the first-person pronoun. It was as clear as day, like a light turning on.  Not just a bit of my heart.  If I ignored Him, He went away. When Jesus gently pointed that out, the father of the boy with the unclean spirit quickly stated, “I believe, help Thou my unbelief.” Help me remember, Lord, that You are capable of ALL things, and NOTHING is too great for You to heal.  Never did I step aside to let him come in past ME.  Was I seeking *God*, or warm and fuzzy feelings?  Did I do good things because I wanted to show Jesus my love for Him, or because I wanted to prove to myself I was saved – because “good things” are what “saved people do”? nothing?  I dunno… I just have a regular life…”, “I checked off reading all the books of the Bible…”, “Well, the NEW testament was fairly interesting… To be honest, the OLD testament was a chore…”. Jesus died on the cross to take our punishment for us. 2 Kings 20:5 Turn again, and tell Hezekiah the captain of my people, Thus saith the LORD, the God of David thy father, I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears: behold, I will heal thee: on the third day thou shalt go up unto the house of the LORD. People assured me over and over again that I was saved, quoting scripture to prove it.  These suggested that if you believe you need to have good works to demonstrate salvation, then you are trying to earn the free gift of God.  Trying to earn saving faith (through works, penance, donations, sacraments) is in essence stating that Jesus’ finished work on the cross wasn’t sufficient. This thrives on going from experience to experience. Pray With Me:  Jesus, if there is any doubt to my salvation, please reveal it to me right now.  And if I am secure, please confirm it by Your Spirit! It means stopping striving.  Both sides want to be “found”.  Matthew 12:30, Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.  (Revelation 3:20).  Why couldn’t I just lah-di-dah in faith, carefree, as many seem to be able to do? We love to obey His rules because they are good and right and holy and lead us into good and moral living, they pay off even for unbelievers. A primary pronoun of the first person I. Unbelief, unfaithfulness, distrust. It believes true salvation can be lost, if we sin or aren’t good enough. When I cried out, Here Am I, send me!  He has sent me, He is using me.  All glory to Jesus.  When you cry out – “Here am I, send me!” – He will!  Keep asking.  Why did I doubt? Of control, of dreams, of self – just a complete and total letting go and falling straight into the arms of God.  Do I really believe there is a spiritual realm?  Not just, yeah, of course.  But really?  Deep down?  I had committed to seeking God until I found Him. I decided I better start reading the Bible again. And as for what fell among the thorns, they are those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit does not mature.  As for that in the good soil, they are those who, hearing the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patience.  (Luke 8:11-15).  It is not-quite-there-yet. Jesus doesn’t work that way. Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord’, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’  Matthew 7:21-23. 24 Immediately the boy’s father exclaimed, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!” 25 When Jesus saw that a crowd was running to the scene, he rebuked the impure spirit.  It happens in our hearts – it doesn’t even have to be a prayer. It’s not something you follow – a list of to dos, to not dos, and traditions.  It’s someOne you follow. “All things are possible to him who believes!” 24 Immediately the boy’s father cried out, “I do believe; help my unbelief! album: "Beautiful Offerings" (2015) Beautiful Offering.  In the end it came down to another conviction.  From watching all the signs going on in the world around us, I believe that our time is short.  Many signs indicate that Jesus will come back – SOON. There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death. You guys, Our eyes will all get pulled off of Jesus for one reason or another. Ephesians 2:8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Philippians 1:29 For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake; Immediately, soon, at once. Was raised to life, or the broad one that leads to death but I have shake! 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