Can you share how you got saved?

[Mei Kor]

14 hours ago, Starise said:

Hello @Mei Kor

It was also a preacher the Lord used to speak to me. In my church a people would be called up front in an invitation. After I went up I was baptized by immersion. My later years were plagued by rebellion and sin.These were mostly my teen and early adult years.  The Lord never forgot about me and worked toward making me the person He intended me to be and the person I really wanted to be. I realized the vanity of attempting to live that old way. For a time I was trying to be both a Christian and also hold to pagan worldly ways. This was also misery. There is no middle ground here. Either play in the shallows or launch out into the deep.

Thank you for sharing your life experience with the Lord. Yes, God never forget us! 

Edited October 31, 2023 by Mei Kor

[Mei Kor]

10 hours ago, TheBlade said:

I was young 8-10 and my mom oh always made me go to Church. My room was down stairs and every Sunday I would think..  ooh maybe this time she will forget to .. BANG BANG BANG she hits the floor wakening me up. It was a Baptist Church I would always flip off the pastor..yes at that young age. Home life is another story. I remember the pastor talking about hell that next week I had a dream I still remember. I can't say who it was as in the devil or just a evil spirit but it had me and fire all around me he said "aha I got you". That next Sunday I went up front could not stop crying was not sacred at all just could not stop crying. They gave me this little book I still have today "The four spiritual laws". 

Thank you dear Blade for sharing! Your story speaks God's call to everyone if even we ignore to Him.

May I read your book, who is the author? 

[Mei Kor]

3 hours ago, AnOrangeCat said:

I kind of relate to this. I watched the Gospel Bill show as a kid and accepted Jesus. This was before I was even in school. At that age I didn't really understand it of course, but I kept with it. As a teenager and into my 20s I was kind of lukewarm. The relationship with God was there but I was still learning and the foundation it was built on had some issues. My grandmother's influence on my early Christian life was a net positive but it wasn't perfect. She instilled a sense in me that God was almost a bogeyman of sorts waiting to punish or humiliate people if they weren't perfect. It's possible my relationship with my earthly father colored it as well. He'd mock and belittle at the slightest thing, and as another Worthy member once said to me our relationship with our earthly parents can do a lot to shape our perception of our Heavenly Father for good and for ill.

Starting in my late 20s and going into my early 30s I had a years long trial by fire that involved a lot of personal loss and heartache and being trapped in abusive situations. Everything was dead end after dead end and when a doctor told me to get something looked at to rule out cancer (it turned out to be nothing) it actually made me feel happy because an end was in sight. A string of unlikely coincidences eventually played out, though, or at least that's what the world would call it. But I very clearly saw it as the hand of God guiding and protecting me and intervening on my behalf so I could grow from the experience. It crystallized my faith and removed the bogeyman element from my perception of God. I'm still learning. I don't think we ever stop, but life is peaceful now and with the wisdom gained from the trials I'm in a better position to guide and give hope to others.

I thank the Lord for leading you throughout your life, did a supernatural encounter, prepared for people to mold you and guide you. It is amazing testimony that yes, you must share to others and they will see Christ. God bless you! 

[Stewardofthemystery]

1 hour ago, Mei Kor said:

Dear @Stewardofthemystery, your testimony was amazing. God has called you in a specific way. I was overwhelmed of reading how God led your life. May the Lord bless you! 

May the Lord bless you as well, Peace

[farouk]

On 10/30/2023 at 11:26 AM, Sower said:

My wife and I attended a funeral of our neighbors son who died from cerebral palsy at age 13 yrs. The preacher  at the funeral told us attending that the young boy was not in his wheelchair any more, but with Jesus in heaven healed in body and spirit. And the reason he was  there was because he was saved, born again.  The seed was planted.

My wife and I went home and I looked up what he said in a bible and found those scriptures. We read more scripture, and received more light/truth. My wife began going to bible studies for women and I began working with Christian men, asking a bazillion questions. My wife, alone in the back yard cried out to God to be saved, and was. Later myself driving alone at night on a country road with this new understanding of what I must do to be saved, I cried out to God for his salvation mercy, He answered and I was saved.

Sow the seed.

Kyay Zuu Pal, Mei Kor...

@Sower Great testimony t0 how the Word of God itself worked in your and your wife's heart independently.

[Neighbor]

How was I saved? 

God did it. I simply was overwhelmed by Him and could not, this side of my own sanity, refuse eternal life with my Lord and savior Yeshua.

It was foreknown to God and predestined by God to be so. I was simply an overmatched atheist called  by the Holy Spirit's answer to prayer by those that had prayed for my eternal soul to be with God.

[Marathoner]

For our members who aren't familiar with how I came to Jesus Christ, I'll share how that happened: I didn't know the Lord, but He surely knew me. I was a young man not long out of the U.S. Army and, for the first time in my life, I found myself in possession of more money than I ever dreamed was possible for a high-school dropout. I lived in a prestigious neighborhood close to a famous golf course and country club; I worked for a well-to-do publisher as his graphic artist. How I came to be favored by this man would take some time to share. It literally happened out of the blue. 

One evening in the house the Spirit of the Lord drew near and spoke, declaring that I was the work of His hand, set aside for His own purpose. I belonged to the Son of God and the time had come for me to seek Him. If I trusted in His word, I would find the Lord and stand before God. I answered the Lord, asking Him what He would have me do.  

I immediately resigned my lucrative job working for the wealthy publisher, leaving everything behind. I only took enough to travel lightly on the road, for the Lord said there was a man He would send me to; this man would teach me what I needed to know. Seven months later, I found this man. When I arrived at his house, a large gathering of saints filled the place... over 100 people were packed inside. As I walked through the front door, it was if I was no longer on this earth. I had never witnessed anything like it, not even in my dreams; I was speechless while the vision unfolded before my eyes. 

I stood before a mansion of living stones rising to unfathomable heights into the night sky above; it was too magnificent for me to grasp. This abode surpassed the stars and filled all of creation with its glory and, as impossible as it seemed to me at the time, all of those saints gathered in his house were those living stones. That glory which filled all of creation was a Light like no other, and He is Jesus Christ. I had found the Son of God just as the Spirit promised. This mansion was His temple... a temple raised without human hands... and then the Lord spoke, saying this was where I belonged. I belonged in His house, for He had prepared a place for me.

I witnessed a vision of the Body of Christ. I was baptized in water swiftly.   

[Starise]

Maybe a similarly interesting question to ask would be, what events led up to you deciding to become a believer?

 

[itty-bitty lamb]

i grew up in an abusive environment. my father beat us all the time to the point of blood, and we didnt have a home. We lived out of two vans. We traveled and slept anywhere on the side of the road. When it was school season my father would enroll us into a school and stay in the community for the months until school was out, and we would travel again. Never in the same school for more than 2 years. my father would drop us off in town in the morning and tell us where to be at a certain time to be picked back up. We were mall rats. We stole honey and ketchup packets from places like McDonalds because we were hungry. i grew up in survival mode all the time. We never talked about religion. i didnt know what churches were for. God didnt exist according to my father. We were in Alaska when my father put a gun to my head. He was mad at me and angry because i told him to stop hitting on my brother. it devastated me, and i ended up mentioning it to a teacher because she saw i was not engaging in school. The child services took us away, split us up, and placed us into foster homes. i spent three years in foster homes with four different families, before child services found my mother. State gave custody over to my mother, and they flew me to Tennessee to live with her. i was 15 years old.

At this time she was going to church. She would ask me every weekend if i wanted to go and i would say no. i didnt understand any of it, and even why she was going. She respected me and would always leave me at home while she went.

But one night i was too overwhelmed with myself and my past. And i was heavy crying. And i was trying to find answers to my past. i didnt understand why my childhood was robbed like that. i didnt see any good in this world. i was upset people were saying there was a good God, and i spent all night trying to reason with myself over whether God was a good God or not. i fell asleep that night reasoning, that i had no proof God was good and loved me, but i decided to have faith anyways that He was good despite everything in my past.

And that night i had a dream. i was being chased by wolves through a forest. i saw a circle of light and ran to the middle of it and realized the wolves couldnt come into the light. i collapsed and cried, as the wolves circled me. i felt alone and helpless. And then a man came to the edge of the circle of light, asking if he could step in. The wolves didnt touch him. And i said yes. And he came into the light and sat next to me. i asked him his name and he said he was Jesus, but i didnt exactly know who that was. and he asked me if he was my God. i replied 'sure'. But he asked me again if he was my God, and i replied 'yeah'. And then he still asked me again a third time if he was my God, and this time i said 'yes'. And then he said 'then go, and do as I say'.

And i woke up to my mother knocking on my door. She said she was going to church and will be back soon. i jumped out of bed and hollered back to give me 5 minutes to get dressed because i wanted to come.

i had never been in a church before. i sat there listening to the preacher. i just knew that i needed to do something. i didnt know what. But the preacher came to me and said he could see in my face that i believed in God, and he led me through the sinners prayer, and then i was immediately baptised in the spirit with speaking in tongues. i didnt even know what it was. i was just so overwhelmed by a wind of love and peace and lightness that it just came out of me. And i saw it like a wind with wings. It was flowing through the church like a misty light, and it was touching people. But there was three other people it wanted to touch but their doors were not open. i dont know how to explain that, sorry. But i told the preacher and pointed the three people out, that the spirit was trying to touch them also. And the preacher prayed over those three people in turn, and these three people were baptised in the spirit for the first time also. At the end of the service they explained to me the Trinity; God, Jesus, Holy Spirit.

For the next four years i was deep into the Bible. i read it from cover to cover a dozen times, just so hungry to learn about God. The church matched me with another man and we married. i thought it was what God wanted me to do. But the marriage didnt last long. He was sleeping with another woman who was also married. There were a lot of hurts that happened in the church because of this. People mad at people. i dont know why, but i think it was because the family of my ex-husband were prominent members of the church, but they blamed me for not being a good wife. i withdrew away, not feeling welcomed anymore. And stopped going. i also ran away from everything, and moved to another state. 

i tried to make it on my own for about 3 years, but became suicidal. i was just done with people. i knew how i was going to go out, and had everything planned and laid out. And i prayed to God and told Him that i was going to go to a church just to hear His word one more time, but was going to commit suicide at home afterwards. And it was a huge mega church that i went to that day. And a woman came up to me and said that she felt compelled by the Spirit to tell me that God loves me, and that He wants me to focus on my dreams. So that is what i did. i came home and instead of focusing on all the negative stuff i started focusing on positive stuff, and taking baby steps towards my dreams.

i came home to Tennessee, and tried getting planted into another church. And i made some friends, but then we all had a falling out. And i experienced another church hurt. i have remarried and i have a son now. This was my dream, was to have a family, and God gave me my own family. i dont attend a church right now because i am not ready to deal with people again. It is hard for me to be in a church community with people, but i love God with all my heart. His love is amazing, and His love has saved me and has upheld me. i wouldnt be here today without Him. i read His word and study it on my own and listen to podcasts about God because it is like water and air to my soul. i am sorry this was so long, and i could still go on and on how God has shown up for me, and spiritual warfare i have dealt with on my own, but i dont really share or tell my stories because i have nobody to tell them to. But i came across this thread, and i am new here, so i thought this is something i can reply to and share about God. Again, i am sorry it was such a long read.

[Starise]

Welcome @itty-bitty lamb

So glad to have you here. I appreciate you telling us your story. You had quite a bumpy ride there. It troubles me to hear of people who attempted to go to a church, and for one reason or another left. I hope you can once again find a good church. Some churches are genuine. Others are not as you have seen, and even the best of them have people with imperfections. If you pray for direction to a church I feel the Lord will lead you to one.

This internet website is great, but it makes a poor substitute for a real chuch. Things work a little differently than meeting people in real life. When I think of what most people call church, I think of those friends I have made over time here and there. Some long gone and others very recent. I don't see a stuffy building. I see a group of people who while different, share my beliefs. I have made friends here and that's great.

It's nice to meet you here and I hope you find both fulfilling materials and good people to connect with. I'm not much for the chat section, but it's there for you if you like it as some others here do. There's also the PM features which are great for getting to know others here you feel some commonality with.You will find some differences on a few theological issues. These should always be secondary to our fellowship. I recently looked over a bunch of our members who were here, sometimes staying for years and then one day they are gone, which I guess is just mostly due to "life" in general. I sometimes see church the same way when members come and go. People move away, people find a fit they think works better for them, yet there are those who it seems will only leave the church in a casket, and many of those people are the finest examples of human beings I know. Same here. There are a few die hards. Some of us spend far too much time here *ahem*.