Thank You

[Siskie]

My introduction thread was all about my difficult time after my baptism. You all gave me a lot of good advice in it. My other thread was about my insomnia.

I have good news.

I believe the few months since my baptism in April were partly due to not fully understanding all of it and partly due to my having a hard time accepting that God does truly forgive; as well as not fully understanding that if you know Jesus, you know God the Father. Not that I didn’t believe in the trinity when baptized, but it didn’t fully click on that part of the Gospel.

You see, I didn’t read hardly any of the Gospel before I was baptized. I was going off my childhood understanding, as I was raised in the church and given a sprinkle baptism at 11 and 1/2 years old. I know now why I have lived such a terrible, sinful life before my immersion baptism this past April. It is because the Gospel is pretty clear immersion is God’s word( sprinkle is not. I could not have committed the sin of apostasy, as I was never really baptized or had the Holy Spirit in me all those years.

My insomnia is mostly gone, I am getting pretty good sleep with a small lingering of getting to sleep still takes a while longer. I am confident in Jesus that it will get better.

I have read the Gospels multiple times (KJV), as well as am now reading them from the New Living Bible from my childhood false baptism. I found it stuck in a drawer long forgotten. Its wording helps me better understand things. Now I read from both bibles at the same time, verse by verse. I am done with Genesis, am currently in Exodus.

I’ve had a lot of help from a great pastor at our New Life church; this man even speaks in tongues! He has helped myself and my wife go through Corinthians, especially all the gifts of the spirit.

I have also been reading other books of the New Testament. I finished Acts and Romans. Before I came to Christ, I was developing a role playing game I wanted to compete with Dungeons & Dragons. I had spent three years on it. I won’t finish it, as those games are satanic. The Book of Acts is way better than any tabletop game I could possibly develop; that book is wild! Just reading it increased my faith! What an amazing book of the Bible!

I no longer am living in condemnation of my past. I have accepted that Jesus and God the Father are true to the word of forgiveness. I am not grieving the Holy Spirit in that way.

I fully realize Jesus’s sacrifice and being covered in his blood is the only way to be righteous before God. That his mission was to save sinners such as myself. And I fully realize that it was Jesus’s finger that wrote on the stone tablets just as he wrote in the sand; just as he was the 4th person in the furnace.

I am still a sinner, but I recognize it and ask for forgiveness as soon as I do so (though I am sure there are sins that I don’t realize I do). The curse of Adam makes our bodies sinful; which is why Jesus has to be born of a virgin, live a sinful life and die in place of our sins so that we may have eternal life if www believe in him.

I also realize that believing does not mean “i believe, one and done”. True believe means having a will to follow Jesus’s two commandments, which leads to following the 10 commandments. It means having a desire to want to do God’s will, even when I fall short. It is what is in the heart that pleases God.

I am in a better place now. My baptism changed my life. In my case, I didn’t immediately change afterwards; which was part of the problem…I was doing crazy research on people saying you are immediately changed and thinking I didn’t have the Holy Spirit. In my case, my rebirth had some birthing pains; all changing my life and turning away from sin. Took three months. I know that things will keep getting better as the sanctification process is life long.

Thank you all for your words of encouragement and your advice. God Bless you.

 

[Siskie]

Edit: Jesus led a sinless life, not a sinful life. That was an honest mistake. Jesus lived a perfect SINLESS life!

 

[Siskie]

I ask that the admins correct my mistake mentioned in my second post about the OP, so nobody reading it gets confused on what the Bible teaches. I can no longer edit my OP.

 

[B Griffin]

Edit: Jesus led a sinless life, not a sinful life. That was an honest mistake. Jesus lived a perfect SINLESS life!

You also can edit the OP directly. But most people will understand what you meant.

 

[B Griffin]

I thought it was editable for a long time.

 

[Siskie]

You also can edit the OP directly. But most people will understand what you meant.

It is not giving me that option anymore. I am asking that the admins correct so nobody who is unaware gets confused.

 

[ari.sketch]

That's awesome to hear, thank you for this encouraging report and testimony!! We have an awesome God!

I'm going through a storm in my life right now as well, and I do find reading His word, the Bible, helps a lot.
Let's keep the fire burning, let us fall more and more in love with God, with Jesus and His word, with the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

Also, if I may, this I learn from Neil Anderson from Freedom in Christ Ministry.
His ministry was about our identity in Christ, and it's "being" first, rather than "doing".
That said, he encouraged us, after being born again, not to see ourselves as "sinners", but as "saints" who, from time to time, will fall and stumble.
The problem with seeing ourselves as sinners is that, if we believe we are sinners, then guess what we would be doing ...
But we need to see ourselves as God's children, as saints, because we are a new creature in Christ (2 Cor 5:17).

Thank you for your encouraging testimony, I know it has blessed me and I'm sure it will bless others.

Blessings!