18 yo former jw

[Tyler112]

Hi Tyler,

You were once a slave to another Christ - "the annointed (Christ) class" the Governing Body. Now you are free of their grip. However, you still have not learned to place that total faith in Jesus as your Anointed Savior and your Lord. There is no elder looking over your shoulder. No more peer pressure that kept you in check.

The only way you, or any Christian, can deal with sinful thoughts and temptations is by putting on the whole armor of God.

The Helmet of Salvation - Your Hope in God's promises will help you to think twice before selling out for temporary pleasures of the sinful nature.

The Shield of Faith - Faith is your responsibility before God. A genuine faith has counted the cost of listening to and following Lord Jesus... The cost is your entire life. Only by this faith does God dwell in you by His Spirit. This is where most fail, and is the reason people keep sliding into sin. By this faith you will extinguish the fiery darts of Satan.

The Belt of Truth - Lord Jesus is your Truth, so trust and follow Him no matter what temptations tell you.

The Breastplate of Righteousness - Your are declared righteous before God if your faith leads you to sanctification before an almighty God - to be set apart and holy onto him. For no one who confesses Jesus as their Lord can go on living in Sin. You can only have one Master.

Your feet (your way of life) protected by reminding you of the Gospel by which you are saved, and the cost to God - His life for you. Let your whole self fall into the hands of a loving God. Remember to share that Love with others.

The Sword of the Spirit - which is the Word of God. Lord Jesus, when he was tempted, quoted Scripture. As a post-Jehovah's Witness, you are at an advantage, in that you are familiar with many Scriptures already. Rely on the Sword to defend yourself and others, and attack the forces of evil.

Now that your mind is free from bondage to the Watchtower you must learn to be bound to Christ as your Anointed Savior and Master. Jesus is the Lord you must now follow with your entire life. And God can see everything and discerns the intentions of your heart. Everything is laid bare before an all-knowing God. God promises all true Christians that they will suffer and be tempted - this is to test and refine your faith. If your faith is genuine you will pass the test, and you will stand before Him as one of His.

The Path (Lord Jesus) is narrow - to take up your cross daily and follow him into a New Life of Love. God is Love. Follow that Path and you will experience the peace with God you long for, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit by which God the Father and Lord Jesus come to live in you. And the Angels of God rejoice for you as you repent (die to your old life) and rise a new creature as a servant of your Lord Jesus who loves you and died for you.

1 Peter 1:3-12 (NIV)
Praise to God for a Living Hope
3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, 5 who - through faith- are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.
6 In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. 7 These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. 8 Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, 9 for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
10 Concerning this salvation, the prophets, who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with the greatest care, 11 trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of the Messiah and the glories that would follow. 12 It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves but you, when they spoke of the things that have now been told you by those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. Even angels long to look into these things.

I will end this by requesting you please to read Romans 6

Blessings to you Tyler.

Thank you for taking the time to deliver such a detailed break down. Thank you!!

And I will read Romans 6

 

[Tyler112]

The Light that has come to you is making known your heart and mind and soon your soul. Don't be discouraged. Jesus said this would happen. What you need to do is not look at your failings and condemn yourself but look to the one who has and is forgiven you for these things by His Son Jesus The Christ. Let him heal you. Let him replace all those things being made known unto you be replaced with Jesus. Read and devour the written word of God. If you haven't yet, find a Bible that isn't the Watchtower translation. I would recommend the New King James or NASB. Satan will try to keep the word of God from you so please, get into the word of God and let Father speak to you through it. Again, don't condemn yourself for these things, but use it to drive yourself into purity. Shalom.

By the way, this is very important, DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT seek out a church to attend. You need to take some time off and work on your personal relationship with Father through Jesus Christ alone. You are not in a place of being able to discern what a true local congregation of Jesus looks like right now. If you submerse yourself into a local church you will only fall right back into the same religious cycles that you were going through with the JW Church. Take some time to commune with Jesus and let him teach you all things so that you may become mature and learn what you need to so that you can be able when the time comes to be placed into the right local congregation for the right purposes. Cultivate your relationship and become like Abraham with an ever increasing Faith and Let Father reveal all things to you. Don't let yourself be sucked into more religious bondage. The freedom you are seeking is not found in those buildings.

Thank you you are totally right, I do not even feel as if the year that I have dissociated with them is enough to get some of the teachings out of my mind. And I am still very skeptical on churches where i live, It seems that they are teaching rainbows and perfection 24/7. They refuse to talk about prophecy because it is too "scary". And let me tell you i threw that NWT so far. when got my KJV bible on january 4th of this year the first thing i did is compare scripures, and i was so shocked by the drastic changes. from decptive wording to half of the book of mark being removed, i could not believe it

 

[truefiction1]

Do you know any good groups? Of encouraging music that glorifies god. Ever since becoming a acutual Christian I’ve began to realize how so many of my favorite songs had demonic lyrics and I was never able to see that

I mostly listen to Orthodox Christian music, which is mostly only sung, customarily, without the use of musical instruments, such as in the music video below:

However, there are select singers/musical groups outside of the Orthodox faith that I like. There was this one song in particular that I listened to a good deal on the Eve of the Nativity Feast last year. It brought many tears to my eyes:

I know that JW's don't commemorate the Incarnation of the Word of God (my own journey into Faith began mostly because I had been romantically involved with a JW - her name is Kim - and had to endure that relationship coming to an end). But Christians commemorate everything that God has done for us.

 

[marineimaging]

Hello Everyone I’m Tyler. About a year and a half ago I began questioning the beliefs of JWs and I now fully understand Jesus to be my savior. However ever since truly believing in the lord of the Bible and not the watchtower, I have noticed that I constantly feel like I am letting god down. Wether it be dwelling on impure thoughts too long, or looking at a girl at school longer than I should, or even saying thing I should not. I feel that now it is harder than ever to stay pure.

I have been praying about it and I feel as if god has helped to be much more conscious of when I’m doing wrong, but I still feel as if I have the issue of still doing it and feeing horrible after, sometimes I feel totally filthy before god and have a place in hell, and other times I am filled with spirit and belief. How can I reject these evil attacks from satan?

Tyler, you are going to look at women longer than you should, you are going to say things you shouldn't, you are going to have impure thoughts, you are going to tell a white lie, a little lie, a big lie. You will go places you should not you will see things you should not, you might fight a war and kill a person..., maybe many human beings. You will eat and drink more than you should, you will have dreams you should not.

It is not a case of what we do or do not do, it is what we did when we accepted Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior that set us free. Not to sin, but to be free from sin. Not because of what we did or didn't do, but because of what Jesus did for us all. We are all sinners and we all sin. It was Jesus that accepted us and that is how we will defeat the enemy. Not through our power, but through the power of Jesus Christ.

Simply keep your walk with the Lord and seek out His will in your life. Listen intently for His call but also know this; You were born a human being and will die a human being and you will sin in between. You cannot be anything else and you cannot take a breath without sinning. Do not let that guilt result in fatiguing you because that is where Satan lives. He doesn't need you to be beaten into submission. He just needs you to stop winning souls to our Lord in order to succeed in his evil ways. You were saved by Jesus, not your deeds. You cannot be condemned to hell when Jesus has redeemed you. That would mean Satan has more power than Jesus and my friend, God is not going to be beaten nor pushed around.

 

[Calvin_1985]

Thank you you are totally right, I do not even feel as if the year that I have dissociated with them is enough to get some of the teachings out of my mind. And I am still very skeptical on churches where i live, It seems that they are teaching rainbows and perfection 24/7. They refuse to talk about prophecy because it is too "scary". And let me tell you i threw that NWT so far. when got my KJV bible on january 4th of this year the first thing i did is compare scripures, and i was so shocked by the drastic changes. from decptive wording to half of the book of mark being removed, i could not believe it

Id say you picked a good translation but don't get sucked into KJV onlyism. I want to give you some advice. If you go to watch any sermons online, Avoid guys like Steven Anderson because they will just suck you back into the same stuff that you lived through with the JWs only in a different package. Secondly, don't worry about Bible prophecy because right now, you are not to the place yet of being able to recieve it. Just work on yourself. Let Father produce something in you, that being the image of Jesus Christ. Father will reveal the Truth of prophecy when you are nature enough to recieve it.