vhusley
Active
- Joined
- Aug 11, 2021
- Messages
- 295
Hey my friend! I’m glad you are here and so grateful for that hunger that is in you to seek truth and a deeper/truer relationship with Jesus!I’m going to try to read these tonight when I’m alone. I’ve read most of these before or I know the basics I guess. I know you have to have a relationship with God and be born again. I don’t know how to let him in I think is the problem and I know I’ve had prayers answered when I pray to God. So I can’t say that he isn’t there. If that makes sense. I also have been reading some of the forums on here and it has been making me extremely anxious because of the end times and the thought of eternity and things like that. People say I would rather put my faith in God and be wrong then the opposite and then be in agony for all time. That right there is what has me extremely at unease. I’m not exactly sure how to write what I’m feeling in the best way for people to understand.
You’ve taken one of the biggest steps already, you’ve come seeking…knowing that there is still a void or empty place in your heart that needs to be filled.
Jesus promised “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled!” What an awesome promise!
So I’m not going to quote a lot of scripture here nor give you Bible references….because it seems you are off to a good start there and others are pointing you to good places in scripture. I’m just going to share one thing with you….how that promise of “being filled” comes about. It’s so simple really. In order to be “filled” with something, we must first be “emptied” of everything else. God wants to fill us up with His Holy Spirit. He wants ALL of our our heart and soul, not just a part. So how do we get “empty”?
(1) We repent. We become broken, empty “vessels” before God. We come face-to-face with our own sin and failures, and we pour them out to Jesus. We realize just how much our old, sinful life has offended God….He who gave all on the cross for us….all the while knowing we’d reject Him, and grieve Him with the lives we’d live. Repentance is not “turning away from” sin as someone would tell you, but rather it is absolutely “Changing your mind” about sin.
(2) We call upon the name of Jesus (out loud…that’s important for other reasons we learn later our walk); and ask Him to have mercy upon us, save us from our sin and eternal death, and to fill us with His Spirit.
(3) This is the important part….the first two steps above require surrender. Surrendering….yielding….letting all of our presuppositions fall away before coming to God. It requires being totally open and vulnerable. Knowing that there is nothing that we can hide from God in our hearts anyway…..yet He wants us to come to grips with those things and willingly bear them and cast them away. THEN we become that “empty vessel” that God can fill.
(4) We stay obedient to God’s Word…(including being baptized.)
Stay hungry my friend. Keep seeking with all your heart and you will find. Will pray for you today.