My Testimony

 How can I share what the Lord has shown me over our intimate time together over the last 7 years? People all over the world take bits and pieces of scripture, reading it with the natural mind logically and think they are sharing what it says accurately. There is no doubt that the Word of God is multifaceted. I believe that most people who share the Word of God do so with their genuine understanding of who God is and what He says. I believe that people who spend time daily in the Word of God and in communion with the Holy Spirit have a deep desire to know and please the Lord. When I began to get in the Word of God daily years ago, I did not open my Bible to learn knowledge. I did not began to study scriptures in hopes to win souls or be educated in knowing how to minister to others. When I sat down at my kitchen table after living in debauchery for 10 years, I prayed, "Jesus, I want to know you. Will you show me who you are, that I may know you? Sure, I prayed the prayer as a child inviting Jesus in my heart, I knew what the Scriptures said as I grew up in church and honestly heard the Word more at home than they preached at church. I had the knowledge, but I did not have the understanding of the message that is heard through the Word about Christ. If I learned some Spanish words and could say them with perfection to a Spanish speaking person, they might think that I know Spanish. But if I had no understanding of what those words meant, it's kind of the same for those who know and believe what the Word says is true, but they do not understand what it means. They know enough to say the words, but they have no revelation of what they are talking about. Anyone saved or unsaved, of the faith or not of the faith can read scriptures in the Bible and take them as how the church or christians are supposed to live their life. The problem is that they do not have the ability apart from Christ. This is pretty much how I lived my life until I was 36. I knew I was a christian because I accepted the Word of God as true and my desire was to live for Him. There was one problem. I couldn't! Deep inside I was full of frustration as every other christian seemed to be doing exactly what the Bible said to do. So I did what most people actually do and keep the cup clean on the outside, and hide the dirty inside of the cup. I did this for a long time believing that this struggle would go on for the rest of my life until I went to heaven. Although, in my heart I knew that there had to be more than just trying to live this christian life biting my lip trying so hard to do things that God said to do. Every time I would make a mistake I had this fear that I somehow was going to lose my salvation. This was definitely not the freedom found in Christ.

As I began my new life in the Word of God it did not take long before the Word became like a mirror. I could see all my shortcomings and self-centeredness. I was shocked when I learned how arrogant and prideful I actually was. The Lord so generously delivered me from addiction to alcohol and cigarettes, fear, unbelief, self-centeredness and self-sabotage as Gods goodness led me to repentance. My desire increased to please the Lord as the pruning began. Everything that pleased my flesh I cut out of my life that I may live in full devotion and full surrender to God. Not watching tv or movies for two years, giving up all pop, haven’t had any medicine (not even Tylenol for headache) since 2020, cut off all worldly friendships. This was just the beginning. I even moved out of mine and my husbands room as he enjoyed foul movies, pot and late night video games. I slept on the couch for 4 years alone. I let go of every familiar thing in my life for early mornings renewing my mind daily in Gods Word.

I started seeing things in scripture that I had never noticed before. I was reading how salvation is for today and the Kingdom of God is now in our midst. It hit me that I did not have to wait for heaven to experience this life that Jesus paid for me to have. The Lord began to show me what faith actually is and how I am truly saved by grace through faith. Romans 14:10 says that everything that does not come FROM faith is sin. Sin is to fall short of the glory of God. I encourage you to read all of 1 Corinthians 11. The head of the man is Christ, the head of the woman is man and the head of Christ is God. If the man covers his head, who is Christ, dishonors his head. Every woman who prays or prophesies without covering her head, the man, dishonors her head. The man is the image and the glory of God because he came from God. Woman is the glory of man because she came from man. Woman was created for man, the same way that man was created for God. It is for this reason that a woman ought to have authority over her own head (the man), because of the angels. In the Lord the man is not independent of woman and the woman not independent of man. Not independent of means dependent on, contingent upon and united. The man and woman do not work independent from one another. They have to come together in Christ to form one body. This is the Holy State of the Union between man and God. In the beginning when man was formed, man had no physical covering. The woman was taken out of the man. They were both naked and felt no shame. They were uncovered. They began to work independently from one another. Mankind fell because when the woman leads, her head is uncovered/unprotected. When what came from the man leads the man it is disorder. The man came from God and turned from God to follow that which came from Him. The body was disfigured by deception so to speak. The body was out of order and separated from God and was no longer the glory and image of God. The man and woman experienced shame for the first time and saw their nakedness. They were exposed, separated, uncovered and they felt shame. God then made garments for them to wear and clothed them with skin. Skin is a protective barrier for the body. The man became like the one knowing good and evil and was not able to reach out his hand to eat from the tree of life and live forever. Meaning, man became a mortal being. One who is separated from eternal life. God knew this would happen in a state of disorder. He had already accounted for the fall of man and predestined us in His Son before the world began. Anyone who operates outside of the headship of Christ will die. Jesus Christ, the man, is the go between, the mediator between God and man. If  He is not our head, if He is not the head of the church then what comes out of us will kill us. Matthew 15:11, What goes into us does not defile us. It is what comes out of us that defiles us. 

Christ is our head and we do not work independently of Him. He is our head and we are His body. 1 Corinthians 12, For just as the body is one and has many members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ . For in Spirit we are all baptized into ONE BODY. We all drink of ONE SPIRIT.  If the foot should say, because I am not a hand I do not belong to the body, that would not make it any less part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? We are all many parts but ONE BODY.  We who are baptized into one Spirit and one body belong to God. If we are not under the covering of Christ we are outside of covenant and we will die. To do the things of God outside of covenant in Christ we commit adultery and become guilty of fornication. No fornicator will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Why? because what they do does not come from faith. It is sin and sin gives birth to death. Faith without deeds is dead just like a man without the Spirit. 

When I was younger, and read James 2 ( Faith without works is dead) I felt the urge to prove my faith by having good deeds. Little did I understand that I could not produce my own righteousness and that my works were as filthy rags. If we have to prove our faith we are not living from faith. Faith produces results. Faith produces fruit. This is not of our own doing. It is the Spirit of God working in us. Faith is the evidence of the unseen. It is impossible for us to muster up our own faith. Faith is a Seed called the Word of God. Faith comes to us by hearing the message about Christ through the Word. Romans 1:17 says, For in the Gospel the Righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, "The righteous will live by faith." Did you catch that? The RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD IS REVEALED IN THE GOSPEL. It doesn't say the judgement of God is revealed in the gospel, it doesn't say sin is revealed in the gospel. It says the righteousness of God is revealed in the gospel. It seems to me that many people preach everything but the actual gospel that has the power to save. People preach sin and condemnation all day long, but you mention the righteousness of God and people want to shout you down and call you a heretic. Noah was a preacher of righteousness and look how he was treated. The Bible says that in the return of the Son of Man it will be just as it was in Noahs day. The people were living their lives paying no mind to Noah because he looked crazy and boom! The flood came. The flood didn't effect those who went in the ark. Just like the flood came, now in the day of the Son of Man is going to come fire. Those who are not under the new covenant of Jesus Christ will be burned alive just like the people who drowned in the flood. The ark of the covenant is now under the mercy seat covered by the blood of Jesus. The covenant that God made with man could not be upheld by man. So God became a man Himself and upheld mans end of the covenant so He could again be their God. Every law written in scripture is not intended for us to fulfill. God fulfilled them ALL through HIS OWN SON. It is through His Son that we are adopted into the family of God again. We are grafted in because of Jesus. This is Gods rest. We have been called into fellowship with Jesus that the image of God be restored back to mankind. We are His and we belong to Him. We are not our own. If we are in Christ we are a new creation and all things become new. When God looks at us He doesn't see us as our sins deserve. He sees His Sons life in us. The death we died from sin then becomes swallowed up by life. It's in Him we live and move and have our being. We are saved from the new life (child bearing) that comes from the Seed of Gods Word planted in us who are in Christ. There is a season for everything under the sun. Isaiah 55:10, "As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater so is my Word that goes from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and it will achieve the purpose for which I sent it." Gods desire is His will. His will is revealed to us in His Son. His Son came to give us life and destroy the works of the devil. Did Jesus die on the cross for you to stay bound to sin? Did Jesus die on the cross for you to die of cancer? Did Jesus die on the cross so you would have depression and anxiety? Did Jesus die on the cross so that you could suffer until you make heaven? Close your eyes and think about how Jesus was mocked, spit on, laughed at, whipped, beat, flogged. Think about the nine inch thorns that were driven into His skull as His crown to make fun of His suffering for doing what His Father told Him to do. God told Him to pay the penalty for the sin of mankind which is death. He did that. He did that for you. He did that for me. He did this in order that we never again would be separated from God. No one can separate that which God has joined together. He has joined us together with His Son, in ONE BODY to reveal His Glory. It is through Christ that we have become the righteousness of God. 

How dare we who claim to be in Christ have the arrogance to say God doesn't want to heal us, that it is His will for us to die. How dare we make our life about us and our service to God. If that is our opinion of God then He is not our Father and we do not know His Son. You know why Moses never entered the promise land? Because He misrepresented Gods character to the people. He didn't speak to the rock like God said. Instead he struck the rock for the water to come out. Meditate on that for a moment and see if The Holy Spirit shows you anything. In the Book of Revelation, satan is called the accuser. In John 5, Jesus calls Moses the accuser. John 10 says, satan is the one who kills, steals and destroys. Remember Jesus is the exact representation of Gods being and He sustains all things by His powerful Word. Jesus came to reveal the Fathers love to you and I. He came to reveal the truth to us who were following deception. He came and brought order to disorder. He came and brought life out of death. Remember in the beginning when God separated light from darkness and saw the light was good? Everything He separated He only saw that it was good, until He separated the man. When He separated the man, the man fell out of position, he fell short of the glory and image of God. He then restored the man through Jesus, that His glory shall cover the earth. In Christ all the fullness of Deity lives in bodily form, and in Christ you have been brought to fullness. He is the HEAD over every power and authority. In Him our whole self that was ruled by flesh is put off because we have been circumcised by Christ, having been buried with Him in baptism, in which we were also raised with Him through our faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.

This is the gospel. IT IS FINISHED BECAUSE JESUS FINISHED IT. If we truly believe that it is finished we will never leave the faith because outside of Christ we know we will die.