YOUR Story....YOUR Testimony!

[WISDOM]

Not quite ready for my testimony yet, but I have to ask this for the sake of the young ladies.........do you FEEL saved all the time? Ladies, salvation does'nt depend on feelings. I sure don't FEEL saved, or christians all the time, but I do know that I am.

And bruh, those words in themselves from you are encouraging for me and others....a nice reminder! :thumb:

[WISDOM]

I'm reopening this thread with the hope that other testimonies are out here, which can be told and possibly help some within the Body as well as lead some who are "lurking" the board into the Body by heeding the "calling" of the HOLY SPIRIT to YOU!

[Guest C.D. Light]

Question:

I haven't been brought to my knees like ANY of you.

[Guest C.D. Light]

Oops, I didnt notice the past date of Fire's post. But it'd be something if she'd come back on, huh?

My testimony is just so long to tell. Maybe when Im not so tired I'll tell it. Or maybe this isnt the right time yet. ??

Some great testimonies.  Love reading them.  :thumb:

cd

[WISDOM]

Sis, I'd like to hear yours. :lightbulb:

[wordsower]

My Testimony:

If you love the Lord you already know that all things work together for good for those who love God, for those who are called according to His purpose. Rom 8:28.  A year or so  ago I wouldn't have told you this because I was in such a dark place in my life that I doubted there even was a God, and if there was I was sure I wasn't worthy of any blessing from Him.  I praise the Lord Almighty for saving me from my despair and freeing me in His Grace.

My parents divorced when I was two.  When I was five years old, my mother joined the Seventh-day Adventist church.   I was at the end of my kindergarten year and about to graduate into first grade.  I remember going to a big auditorium and seeing my mother being baptized.  I didn't know how dramatically this would impact my entire life.

I attended SDA schools 1st-12th and was baptized at the age of ten.  I was obedient for the most part, I believed in the church as I grew older, but so many questions were always in my mind.  At around age 11, I had a terrible stomach ache and prayed to God that if He would take my stomach ache away I would read the Bible everyday for the rest of my life.  It immediately went away and I had a promise to keep, praise the Lord for that stomach ache!  For the next 9 or 10years I kept my promise and at times the scriptures troubled me.  I remember around the 9th grade reading Romans 14 and feeling very confused.  Paul says "One person esteems one day above another; another esteems everyday alike.  Let each be fully convinced in his own mind.  He who observes the day observes it to the Lord"  I thought, well that seems pretty clear but surely it doesn't mean what I think it means.   Then he went on to say he considers nothing unclean in itself..... These verses troubled me, lots of things troubled me.    I thought about Billy Graham and what a great man of God he seemed to be and thought, "Why doesn't he know about the sabbath?"  I'd pass a church of some other denomination and see it being built on to and think, "Why are they being blessed with more members?"  As I got older I started noticing the attitudes and lives of other christians and could see and feel their joy and when I went to my own church I saw a group of people with solemn faces, little emotion, they all seemed so sad to me.  I knew I was sad but it must be because I wasn't trying hard enough to be close to God.  I tried to read the Bible but it became a chore and I tried to read Ellen White but even as a child I didn't like her and could never seem to find any common ground with her.  She seemed like an extremist to me and I avoided her.  As I became an adult, I drifted away from God and my faith, went through two failed marriages and at age 32, with 3 kids, a decent job, a relatively comfortable life, I decided maybe there wasn't a God and I had spent my whole life not having any fun for nothing.  I never became a junky or an alcoholic.  I don't have any great street-to-God testimony to share with you.  I was just like a lot of people in this world, living an empty,society-productive, mundane life that brought little joy.

I reconciled with my 2nd husband and we were "living in sin" but what difference did that make since we pretty much both knew we weren't going to heaven anyway.  We bought a house in a new neighborhood and some neighbors moved in beside us.  We became friends quickly and after a few months they started going to church.  Oh no!  They wouldn't be any fun anymore!  After a couple of weeks they asked us to go, I said no, my ex said yes and I figured it might help him out so I'd go, but God forbid, it was on a Sunday!  When we drove up I thought, "What am I doing here?" (You know the song- "Mama Told Me Not To Go")  I'd been warned!  It was held in a barn and that didn't bother me but these Sunday keepers were the enemy right?  When I walked in, the people stood up one by one and hugged me and my kids and ex and greeted us like they'd known us for years!  When I met the preacher I could see a peace in him that I knew without a doubt to be God in his life.  I didn't want to go back because I was not in my comfort-zone, even though I liked it, I got a strong blessing from the sermon, I just didn't want to go back.  My ex did and I thought I better support him since he never wanted to go to church before.  We started going every time the doors opened.  I felt closer to God than ever before, but I was confused.  I knew I better get busy studying my Bible so that I could show these people the truth!  My ex gave his life to the Lord at the alter, in the barn, and scheduled the next week to be baptized in the river.  We remarried and I started studying!  I got my Bible out and looked up every scripture I could find under sabbath, then commandment, then law.  As I read the words before me I couldn't believe my eyes!  I was reading about faith and grace and old covenent and new covenent and laws of Moses and Commandments left after the cross and I prayed, "God, show me the sabbath so that I can enlighten these people.  Lord, they're good people and they need the truth, help me out here!"  I still read what I thought to be saying I am under grace and not works or the law.  

I was at work on a Tuesday before lunch and got the dreaded call from daycare that my son was sick and I had to pick him up.  I seldom miss work and I never like to be out, but I had to go home.  I picked my son up and he was sick!  I prayed for the Lord to make him well so I could go to work the next morning, I had faith and I got up Wednesday at the regular time to get ready and he was still sick.  I took the opportunity to study my Bible some more.  This went on for the rest of the week.  At some point in the week I changed my prayer to:  "God, I want to do your will, these scriptures seem to be pointing me to something I've never been taught and I need to know this is your will.  Whatever your will is, I want to do it."  He led me to scripture after scripture explaining to me so plainly that Jesus died on the cross to save me from my sin and the ordinances of the law and that was the only thing that could save me!  I felt like a million pounds had been lifted off of me and I was so happy and excited, I just had to call everyone and tell them!  I called my cousin who recently started going back to the SDA church about my revelation and she assured me that I still had to keep the 4th commandment despite the grace.  I knew it didn't say in there anywhere that I had to go to church on Sunday, so was she right?  I searched some more and prayed and found Hebrews 4:4-9:  For He has spoken in a certain place of the seventh day in this way:  And God rested on the seventh day from all His works"; and again in this place:  They shall not enter My Rest."  Since therefore it remains that some must enter it, and to those whom it was first preached did not enter because of disobedience, again He designates a certain day, saying in David, "Today," after such a long time, as it has been said:  Today, if you will hear His voice, Do not harden your hearts."  For if Joshua had given them rest, he He would not afterward have spoken of another day.  There remains therefore a rest for the people of God.

WOW!!!!  It wasn't a day, it was a permanent peace, a rest like you can never know until you've been saved by grace!  I noticed it was capitalized too.  I prayed, "Lord, let me know without a shadow of a doubt that it is true!"

Next, he sent me to Hebrews 10:32&35: ( But recall the former days in which after you were illuminated, you endured a great struggle with sufferings:  and joyfully accepted the plundering of your goods, knowing that you have a better and enduring possesion for yourselves in heaven.  Therefore, do not cast away your confidence which has great reward.)  I can not describe to you what I felt when I read those verses, every hair on me stood up, every chill bump came up and the presence of God was so strong I can not find words to describe it.   Of course I had years and years of "truth" drilled into me and I still doubted that I was understanding everything.  Maybe I should still go to church on the Sabbath.  Satan always works hard at stealing our joy and he hates truth, but God is so faithful in revealing His truth to those who honestly seek His face.

A couple of days later my neighbor's sister- in-law, who I had met only once briefly, came to her house to visit.  My husband and I were sitting on the front porch, it was a Sunday night and we always went to the Sunday night service but for some reason we didn't go this time.    She asked if I knew where they were and I told her they were at church still but should be getting out soon and she and her husband were welcomed to wait at our house until they returned.  Almost immediatlely we began talking and sharing about God and she gave me an awesome testimony of how she had come to know Christ, so I shared mine and she got this excited look on her face and said, oh, let me tell you about my experience with the Seventh-day Adventists.  She said she had gone to a Revelation Seminar and had really been captivated by the teachings and was nearing the end of the week and thought she should join the church.  She said she was so troubled by the fact that she had never heard these teachings and really prayed for direction in her decision.  She said she had really prayed about it and just didn't feel quite sure, so almost at the end of the seminar she was driving along in her car praying for God to just speak to her and let her know for sure this was what He wanted her to do.  Then she heard 2 Peter 3:14.  She didn't recognize the verse and kept praying, then she heard it again so strongly she said she had to pull over and get her Bible out and see what the verse said.  It reads:  Therefore beloved, looking forward to these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, without spot and blameless;  and account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation-as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, has written to you, as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things in which are some things hard to understand, which those who are untaught and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures.  You therefore, beloved, since you know these things beforehand, beware lest you also fall from your own steadfastness, being led away with the error of the wicked; but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  To Him be the glory, both now and forever, Amen.

She never went back and I never doubted again!

If you have any doubt in your life about anything, claim this promise with faith:  James 1:5-7  If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him.  But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind.  For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord;

Shortly after this I had a dream.  It was simply a large hand (definately God's hand) drawing a picture of two parralel lines with dirt in the middle of them and drawing specks in the dirt and small circles on either side of the lines.  It was very vivid and kept coming back to me so I prayed for meaning.  A couple of days later I was getting into my car and noticed the Bible in the back seat was opened.  I had not remembered it being opened.  In a hurry, I took my son to daycare and when I was getting back into the car I noticed it again so I picked it up, curious to see what it was opened to.  It was Mark 4-The Parable of the Soils!  After reading it over and over for a few days I still did not understand the meaning.  Then the last time I looked I noticed verses 13 and 14 which I hadn't read to yet.  It says: ..."Do you not understand this parable?  How then will you understand all the parables?  The sower sows the Word."  Wow!  Written in red and spoken by Jesus!  I said OK, so show me how to sow the Word!  That night SDA Outreach e-mailed me in response to an e-mail I had written thanking them for their site and content and asked me to consider posting  my testimony anonymously.  Needless to say, I posted but definately not anonymously.  I praise God for using me to share with so many and thank Him for entrusting me to sow His Word.

I welcome any questions or comments from any of you.  However, my only request is that if you seek to disprove anything I've said, first go to the Lord and ask His wisdom in your response.  Don't ever take a person's word for anything!  There is one word, the Word of God.  Within that Word is everything you need to know and God is so willing to show it to you, all you have to do is ask, without doubting!

God Bless you all and may the Spirit of Truth guide you and keep you from all deception.

In His Amazing Grace,

Wordsower

[WISDOM]

:thumb:  :thumb:  :thumb: ....What a tremendous testimony , Wordsower (and what an appropriate handle based on it)!!

Your words here ae an outreach from the Body of CHRIST and WorthyBoards is the instrument our FATHER is using.  I did a thread less than a year ago on here whereby I was exposing much of the false teachings of Ellen White, including those of the SDA national spokesman/teacher Don Batchelor.  I am deeply grateful for your testimony because I know the things you spoke of within the cult to be true.  Thank GOD for you sis, you are a magnificient blessing!

More importantly I'm so very glad you heard the call of the HOLY SPIRIT and "challenged" the truths of our FATHER's Word versus the teachings of men you'd previously been under.  HIS Word never lies!  HE cannot......it's impossible.  But it can make clear the murky waters of falsity which the Enemy hideously hides behind to lure in lost souls towards their destruction.  You, I and others like us have been given the honorable task of bringing the LIGHT of CHRIST into full view for ALL the world to see.  This is a glorious time in history to be alive and of use as ambassadors of the government of Heaven.  

I'm proud to be called your brother/fellow servant in CHRIST, and again, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for unveiling yourself before all the world in order for them to see the power of CHRIST displayed through you.  It is CHRIST, not us, who has won the battle for our souls.  You and I are fighting from the position of VICTORY!

Tremendous testimony!!!!

[wordsower]

Thanks Wisdom,

I am so extremely grateful to be free in Christ!

Blessings to you!