I am thanking God today for 28 years of victory over the devil. I have a new life, a new heart; I am a new creation in Christ Jesus. I was born into the family of God in August of 1982. I spent my first 19 years not knowing God at all. I was person that was hostile to Christ. Of late, God has brought back to my mind my old life, how bad off I used to be and it only makes me rejoice about the change in my life today. My old life is passed away—gone. The scripture talks of walking in the “newness of life”. When you go to the store and they say something is new, you expect that it has not been used by anyone else; it is fresh from the factory. If you found out you’d bought a used product that you thought was new, you would take it back. I would. New means new.
A new life is not something that can be manufactured or imitated it has to be given through Jesus Christ.
As I said, I was hostile to Christ. If someone were passing out bible tracts, I would purposely go the other way, not because I was ashamed of what I was doing, but because I thought they were silly and beneath me, I did not want to talk with anyone about God or hear any of their testimonies—waste of time to me—embarrassing fanatics. There was a young girl I went to high school with who was saved in the next block. One day I was riding my bike on a Sunday morning. She yelled out to me, “You should be in church, Renee.” She was right, but “how dare she” was my attitude, “It’s none of her business what I do with my time”. I did not want to talk about God, period. My sister gotten saved before me, and she used to try and talk to me about the bible and quoted scriptures. I hated being around her. When she started talking about God, I would get angry and go to my usual hide out—my room. One day I was so angry, about something she said, I was in tears. God said to me, “why do you hate me?, why do you hate your sister?” I couldn’t answer the question as I lay there in my bed, with tears in my eyes. Why did I hate her and not want to be around her? She had not really done anything wrong? I did not realize it at the time but the Word of God she was using was shining the light on my sins, sins I was not willing to repent of.
I told God that night that I had things I wanted to do. I was 16 and didn’t want to stop doing anything wrong and sinful because well that would be embarrassing to be a “holy roller”, as they used to call them back in the day. I turned God down that day, and rolled over in my bed crying. However, in the next three years my life went downhill, got worse and not better. I did things I said I would never do and went places in my heart and in my life, I said I would never go. The devil took away my resolve and any integrity that I thought I had. I was embarrassed about some of the people I was hanging around in college, drug dealers and users, some medical students started their pharmacy classes early if you know what I mean. I was educated but full of sin.
Sometimes, you think you will be embarrassed by being so dedicated to God, but I realized the devil was the one really embarrassing me. The more I followed my own ways and did what I wanted to do, the more stupid mistakes I was making, bad moves in my personal life and definitely not getting closer to God at all. Often people think that just because they have made some good decisions and done some good things, that everything is alright spiritually, that is not always the case. We need to look into the Bible and see how God feels about how we are living, not our own assessment.
So, I struck a deal with God, which you really can’t do on equal terms, but to make myself feel better, I played a game with God. “Ok. I’ll start going to church. I may even get baptized again”, which I promptly did. There was church down the street from my house. I walked in and told them I wanted to get baptized again, because I thought that would solve this problem between me and God. You see, I grew up in house full of lies and was taught to lie from an early age, so it was really nothing for me to lie to myself. So now that I was baptized, I’m a Christian right? Wrong! Now that I am a member of a fine upstanding church and joined a few clubs, I’m ok now. Wrong again. God was so merciful to me, because he was patient. I did not have Christ, and He did not allow the devil to take my life in this unsaved, deceived state I was in, thinking I had done a great job by joining church. God just gently started to deal with me over the next 2 years that there was more to salvation than this. I started to look around me one Sunday and the choir was rockin’ and the church was beautiful and preacher fiery but I was not saved. God began to bring to my mind one question that kept bugging me “how do you live holy?” I would ask people who were long standing members at church and they would say “I don’t know what you’re looking for, no one is perfect”. So I started to figure there was not much more, but I could not really believe that this is all there was to serving God because on the inside, I was not satisfied with my life. Oh yeah, the sin thing. I was still sinning away from church, I didn’t smoke the drugs but I was still doing a WHOLE LOT of other things. I had just become a religious sinner.
I asked God was there anyone living right and God answered by prayer and I met a girl in college who was truly saved, she led me to Christ. I was in my room at home, by myself, I told God that I was tired of being shackled by my sins. As I sat on the bed, god told me “I’ll keep you free from sin”. Then the Lord showed me two scriptures I did not know were in the bible. I John 3:8-9 and I John 1:7. I yielded to God at that moment, repented of my past life and sins and God forgave me and gave me this new life and I have been living for Christ. Not once did I ever have to go back to my old life, old sins, old friends, God cleansed me and gave me power to live right and say no to wrong. He took away from me the spirit of lying that I had so much trouble with, and He will do the same for whatever sins you are dealing with. If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature, the old things are passed away, and behold all things are become new. Praise the Lord!
So, I struck a deal with God, which you really can’t do on equal terms, but to make myself feel better, I played a game with God. “Ok. I’ll start going to church. I may even get baptized again”, which I promptly did. There was church down the street from my house. I walked in and told them I wanted to get baptized again, because I thought that would solve this problem between me and God. You see, I grew up in house full of lies and was taught to lie from an early age, so it was really nothing for me to lie to myself. So now that I was baptized, I’m a Christian right? Wrong! Now that I am a member of a fine upstanding church and joined a few clubs, I’m ok now. Wrong again. God was so merciful to me, because he was patient. I did not have Christ, and He did not allow the devil to take my life in this unsaved, deceived state I was in, thinking I had done a great job by joining church. God just gently started to deal with me over the next 2 years that there was more to salvation than this. I started to look around me one Sunday and the choir was rockin’ and the church was beautiful and preacher fiery but I was not saved. God began to bring to my mind one question that kept bugging me “how do you live holy?” I would ask people who were long standing members at church and they would say “I don’t know what you’re looking for, no one is perfect”. So I started to figure there was not much more, but I could not really believe that this is all there was to serving God because on the inside, I was not satisfied with my life. Oh yeah, the sin thing. I was still sinning away from church, I didn’t smoke the drugs but I was still doing a WHOLE LOT of other things. I had just become a religious sinner.
I asked God was there anyone living right and God answered by prayer and I met a girl in college who was truly saved, she led me to Christ. I was in my room at home, by myself, I told God that I was tired of being shackled by my sins. As I sat on the bed, god told me “I’ll keep you free from sin”. Then the Lord showed me two scriptures I did not know were in the bible. I John 3:8-9 and I John 1:7. I yielded to God at that moment, repented of my past life and sins and God forgave me and gave me this new life and I have been living for Christ. Not once did I ever have to go back to my old life, old sins, old friends, God cleansed me and gave me power to live right and say no to wrong. He took away from me the spirit of lying that I had so much trouble with, and He will do the same for whatever sins you are dealing with. If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature, the old things are passed away, and behold all things are become new. Praise the Lord!
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