The following is my testimony of God's loving kindness and mercy. To this day, it awes me that He saved such a crazy woman!
There was a time where I thought I was saved, but instead was a
false convert. And a Pharisee. I was very much into Word of Faith and a
big fan of Joyce Meyer. One day, I flipped through the channels and seen
Wretched tv. As I sat there listening to Todd, I was like "who IS this
guy yelling about stuff?!" and began watching it more and more, even
though I thought that he was weird. I'm sure I had a funny look on my
face to match the attitude towards him. Not long afterwards, I found Way
of The Master through Wretched and every single time I watched those
shows, for lack of a better term, I kept getting this feeling that I
needed to get out of Joyce Meyer ministries. At first, I didn't know why
and thought nothing of it. But, any time someone talked about
eschatology, I got very scared and thought to myself "well, I'm
saved...aren't I? So, I don't need to be afraid of anything." I didn't
even know the gospel or what sin was, but in my mind I was a christian
and going to heaven. What was worse was that I was so insolent towards
God and deep down believed that He was just like everybody else; I
believed that He would abandon me if I didn't do what He wanted. And
when I didn't get what I wanted, I got mad and basically shook my bratty
fist at Him. I even tested Him by threats of suicide just to see if He
cared anything at all about me.
I thought Christanity was about being financially rich and knowing
how to navigate through the bible like Paula White and all those slick
talkers did so that I could live "exceedingly and abundantly". I tried
to live my life being the best me there was and doing all kinds of good
stuff like Joyce Meyer said. But, little did I know that I was being
taught narcissistic lies. There were some creepy things that happened,
especially when I tried to sleep and my dreams were pretty terrifying. I
don't doubt for a moment that it was either just my over active
imagination or because of being demonically oppressed or a mixture of
both.
Anyway, while I watched Way of the Master, Ray and Kirk went
through each of the Ten Commandments and needless to say, I was very
offended! I wanted to put my hands over my ears and scream at the top of
my lungs "no more!" and didn't want to hear the truth about who I
really was. I was guilty of breaking all of God's commandments and saw
that I wasn't an awesome person at all, but a sinner who deserved to be
killed and sent to hell. My sin was against God. My conscience screamed
at me and it was at that point that the Lord let me know that I needed
to repent and trust Jesus Christ to be forgiven and saved.
That was back in the second week of February 2011 that God granted
me repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. It's because of His mercy and
grace alone that I'm no longer a slave to and dead in my sins, but am a
slave to Christ and have been made spiritually alive in Him, by the Holy
Spirit. He forgave me of all my sins, washed me in the blood of Christ,
and made me new in Him.
Looking back, I can see that it was all God's providence that He
choose for me to hear the truth, even though it hurt and was
frightening. I definitely didn't choose to hear it and neither did I
choose to repent and trust in Someone whom I couldn't even see, hear,
touch, or smell. Salvation was all of God's doing. It was by means of
Way of the Master and Wretched that God saved me and I now belong to
Him.
That hymn, Amazing Grace, has such profound meaning for anyone who
knows how sinful they are, the exceedingly wonderful finished work Jesus
did for us on the cross for our sins and being raised from the dead so
that we could be justified in Him, and how good and kind the Lord is to
save us, even while we were sinners. No one chooses God, but He chooses
whom He wills to come to Him and that's exactly what He did that day to
an arrogant woman who was steeped in all kinds of gross insolent
idolatry and mysticism (John 6:44 and 15:16).
I very much look toward to eternity with the Lord. To Him belongs
all of the glory, all of the praise and all of the credit, now and
forever. What a joy it is to be a child of God and seeing all of His
children as beautiful displays of His saving grace! He's more than able
to save and change the hearts of even the foulest of sinners!
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