Greetings in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
My name is Cal...
I'm looking for true Spiritual fellowship with other like minded Disciples of Jesus Christ.
I first took note of this "creationliberty" website due to your article on "Christmas: Rejecting Jesus" which I found to be true in every measure, because the Holy Spirit started revealing to me the pagan origins many years ago. Jer 10:3-5 was the begining of me understanding about the "Tree", with silver & gold. When the Holy Spirit gave me understanding I was stunned, and knew it was true.
In February 2024, will mark the 46 years ago when the Lord came and saved me through the Convicting Power of the Holy Spirit of my sin.
I have been out of the "traditional church system" for over 23 years.
I am retired, I do not work at the present, I've never been married as the Lord called me to be single. I also write a Blog which I started nearly 4 years ago, writing on many of the same "Topics" as "Chris" has written.
Here is a bit of my testimony, if you desire to read more in-depth details of how my walk with the Lord has been, I'd be glad to give a link to my Blog, "if" that is acceptable/allowed on this Forum.
I was living in the homosexual lifestyle for many years, and 46 years ago, the Lord revealed His truth to me, and brought conviction of my sinful life, and that it was a lie.
He granted me the Grace to see the truth, and the gift of Repentance…I was raised within a Baptist background as a youth, baptized in water, yet….I was NOT born again. I through the pressure of an Aunt “accepted Jesus” as my Savior and became “religious” for a little while. Yet lived a secret life in the gay lifestyle. I was sexually, emotionally, and physically abused by my mother, who was also a victim of abuse by her father, I lived a life of depression, desiring to be a “girl” at a very young age, because my mother desired girls. I was rejected by her, and my father was not there for me also. She hated him and me because I was first born, and named after my father. My father was an adulterer, and was not faithful during their marriage.
I was also sexually abused through friends of theirs when staying overnight, due to being childhood friends with their two boys. I grew up in so much confusion, pain, and suffered endless depressions, never had real friends in school, so I fantasized my whole life in being and desiring to be someone else, due to the abuses, I also tired to commit suicide at the age of 14.
However, when the Lord came and saved me at the age of 26, in 1978, alone in my rented room in a boarding house owned by two gay men, without a Bible, but a simple tract which I found on the subway, He came and revealed to me, He was alive and very real, I was stunned because I always thought I was a “Christian”, but once He saved me I immediately knew I was NEVER born again as a Youth, because HE was never real to me, but that night I knew He was truly real, I wept as I have never wept before, seeing and knowing that I lived a lie, and that HE truly Loved me enough as I was but knew how HE could change my life. If I may, it was almost like a Saul moment, before he became Paul. I could not believe that this God truly Loved me, and was REAL and ALIVE! I was forgiven, and a cleansing took place so powerful, I kept weeping and at the same time so filled with a rapturous Joy unspeakable! It lasted hours……..but it was too be a very long journey indeed.
However due to my rebirth, I was a babe in Christ, and I looked for a church to go to, so I ended up at a “Pentecostal” church for a couple of months, then due to start sensing things were not so right at that church, I was introduced into a “Home Fellowship”, where several families were all living together in an old country farmhouse in a rural area of the city. This fellowship was being lead by a woman, pastor, teacher, “prophetess”. Due to the “Love” I felt there I was sucked right into it, but alas, it is also where I learned Doctrine of Demons, and abuses and more confusions…..she was of the Hyper-faith movement, also with influences of “Manifested Sons of God” and “Kingdom Now” belief’s. Any time I had confusion concerning some of the actions taking place I would question her, and she would immediately start accusing me of having a “spirit” of rebellion, which frightened me to my core! To make a long story short, eventually after a few years with this group, while at work, the fellowship was raided by the police, it was printed in all the area newspapers, with photo’s of some of the members. Her sons which had left the “fellowship” had reported there were abuses being done, and it was truly correct…….I was so confused, yet I could not stay with this group, and I deserted them, so I thought myself as a Judas, and that I was not truly born-again, I was a traitor…..but I learned that this woman pastor was arrested and charged with various abuses, which I knew was true, she ended up being found guilty, and sent to prison for 6 months. So many families and individuals were deeply wounded by this Cult.
It has been a very painful, and at times a nightmarish mental walk, to undue all the false teaching and belief-isms, the deep scares of sexual abuses by a parent, more depressions to the point I no longer desired to live, but the Lord above kept me through it all, and yet used me for other’s during this whole ordeal. I have learned not to trust in any man, not to be swayed by other’s belief’s, but to lean upon the Lord, and His Word, to trust Him in His power to save, to sanctify the soul from every fleshly, and wicked way, especially my emotions!
This is just part of my testimony, what I've come to understand and realize is that the Lord is the Author & Finisher of our Faith Walk, and that He is the Lover of our souls, and to know Him is too understand His ways, and what is acceptable unto Him, not our fleshly human reasoning. Eph 5:9 (For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth;)
Eph 5:10 Proving what is acceptable unto the Lord.
Eph 5:11 And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.
I do think this enough, I do hope I have covered as much as you have requested. I look forward to future fellowship with you all.
The Lord bless you....In His Love...