What insights have you gained over the years?

[cyberjosh]

I figure that we debate plenty around here but we don't have enough uplifting and edifying threads where we can just discuss about the good things of God in our life. So I wanted to pose the question of what insights you have gained over the years and what has stood out as some mile markers in your walk with God.

As for me, one of the biggest and life impacting insights I had (and not just an insight but an experience) was about 2 years ago. At the time I was living in the dorm rooms at my College and I had a good Christian roommate (thank God, and all my roommates I had there the whole 2 years were Christians) and we would talk often on Biblical subjects. Now I loved him like a brother and he was a great Christian guy but one day we had a civil disagreement over what Baptism of the Holy Spirit was. He was Pentecostal (and no I'm not trying to make a denominational point out of this thread - I'm just stating the facts so I can explain my story properly) and he believed that the Baptism of the Spirit was a second experience after salvation, but from everything I had read before I got the conviction and impression that the Baptism of the Spirit was something every believer was given. However, since I try to listen to people before attempting to judge a matter I took his points to heart, though I disagreed, and was not prideful so as to write him off. Infact, it sat so deep with me that night in bed that I began to feel terribly troubled inside, almost a spiritual crisis of sorts of wondering where I really stood before God. I prayed in humble, fearful honesty to God, "Lord am I really Baptized with the Spirit and if not then why not?" The question disturbed me so much that I spent all weekend researching the subject. I saw the promise in the Bible that we had discussed, at the end of Luke and repeated at the beginning of Acts, where Jesus said that they would be "endued with power from on high", the power being a sign of the Holy Spirit manifesting and the believer being Baptized in the Spirit.

Now my roommate, like most Pentecostals, believed that the believer can have this power, but that it comes with a secondary experience (which they believe is the true Baptism of the Spirit - and must be attained) and that the primary sign of it is speaking in tongues. And the jist of our previous disagreement was that since I hadn't spoke in tongues that I wasn't Baptized in the Spirit, and that scared me. Because secondary experience or not, I have always wanted and still desire to be as close to God as possible, holding nothing back. And so that weekend my study focused on that word "power" which was promised with the Baptism of the Spirit, and using a lexicon I found the Greek word for "power" and looked at every single instance of it in the NT. The Greek word for "power" in those passages was dunamis, from which we get the word dynamite, and the vast majority of the time it refers to the power of God or power of angelic (whether good or bad) creatures. And I began to see all the applications to believers of the "power of God" being alive and working in every single Christian believer, none withheld. This was the cumulation of 2 days worth of study and I dwelt on it, and dwelt on it, and it all hit me Saturday night when I went to hear a guest speaker at my Mom's church speak. During the worship service during one of the songs praising God I was hit by a full revelation of God's power through the Spirit in me and I was so enraptured I was almost speechless. I fell to my knees and I was literally crying with tears of joy when I fully realized that God had birthed me again in him by the Spirit, the true Baptism of the Spirit which all believers receive.

I can only compare the experience to being born again, it is the only thing to which I could compare it. The indescribable joy and comfort and revelation of what God truly did for me hit me for the first time in true knowledge of it that it overwhelmed me. See, previously I only had a vague idea, a doctrine you might say, without underlying vitality and firm conviction stemming from knowledge. I had always believed (and thus adhered to it by way of caution - thus why I did say I had a sense of "conviction" before) that all believers received the Baptism of the Spirit, but until that night I had never really known or experienced the revelation of it. And the cherry on top to that whole experience that night, the guest speaker John Bevere (an internationally acclaimed preacher and evangelist) came and preached from his new book A Heart Ablaze and spoke on the nature of God's grace like I had never heard it given before. He criticized the "grace blanket" mentality that was often so prevalent in Churches and showed me for the first time Biblically how grace was empowering, and thus calls us to action (while graciously supplying us with the ability to do so), and never before had I thought to associate God's grace (which was only another "lofty" concept for me at the time) with power. I honestly believe God orchestrated the entire weekend's events - for what is the likelihood that the preacher would preach on the same power I had been so desperately been trying to understand all weekend? But he showed, and I have since found many other instances, where Biblically God gives us his grace to enable and empower us to live the Christian life. And that all, by his Spirit.

And though it would take pages to fully explicate the theme in the Bible we see a glimpse of it in this simple and amazing (one of my favorites) verse: "And He has said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness." Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me" (2 Corinthians 12:9).

After that revelation never again have I, nor will I, take His grace for granted, nor underestimate what Christ has done for me. And now for the first time in my life, I have since realized more about the Holy Spirit and his work in me than ever before. I live and breathe and depend on God's grace now as my daily bread, clinging to God for His power to be perfected in my weakness. And most of all I strive now to never receive the grace of God in vain, heeding Paul's urgent heart-felt plead, "And working together with Him, we also urge you not to receive the grace of God in vain" (2 Corinthians 6:1).

It was a life changing experience and I am all the better for it, in the strength of knowledge of God's Spirit in me and being empowered by His mighty, and enabling grace.

That is my testimony, and for it I say Halleluyah!

How about you, friend? What has God done in your life?

God Bless,

~Joshua

 

[mutzrein]

Hi Cyber - a thread with potential to glorify God!

Are you saying that 'being born again' IS the 'baptism of the Holy Spirit'. If so, I agree.

Blessings

 

[cyberjosh]

Yes indeed I am. Have you had any gain of insight over the years, which God may have used to bring you to a better knowledge of Him? I'd enjoy any testimony you have.

God Bless,

~Josh

 

[mutzrein]

I must confess to being taught much over the years. But I’ve got to say that the learning has not always come easily. Much like the prodigal, I have learned of God’s love, mercy, grace and righteousness sometimes through anguish and pain.

I was brought up by godly parents and attended many churches and fellowship groups with them through my former years but was totally unaware of what it meant to know Christ until at age 30, when I was born again. Everything changed in a moment. No-one else was around. Just me and Christ. Unfortunately I thought that what had happened to me, happened to everyone who called themselves a ‘Christian’ As a 3 month old babe in Christ I was confounded by the fact that many who called themselves by the name ofChrist were in fact far from Him. At that point God birthed within me what I describe as a ‘passion for truth’.

One thing I have found though is that not everyone wants to know, or can even hear, the truth. Now there is one thing that is the focal point of all that the Lord has shown me and it is this. Nothing that man can do, whether in thought or deed, can make him righteous in God's sight. Now we know that there is only one righteousness – and that is through faith in Christ. But man in his folly believes that even this 'faith' is actually academic assent to something that he thinks he should believe - and more often than not - when he doesn’t understand it.

Yes there is much insight I have gained over the years but I'm almost afraid to speak of it at times because there is a cost.

 

[cyberjosh]

Does anyone else have any testimonies, insights, or revelations of God's word that they have gained over the years? Please share them and help uplift and edify the body of Christ.

God Bless,

~Josh

 

[cyberjosh]

I must confess to being taught much over the years. But I’ve got to say that the learning has not always come easily. Much like the prodigal, I have learned of God’s love, mercy, grace and righteousness sometimes through anguish and pain.

I was brought up by godly parents and attended many churches and fellowship groups with them through my former years but was totally unaware of what it meant to know Christ until at age 30, when I was born again. Everything changed in a moment. No-one else was around. Just me and Christ. Unfortunately I thought that what had happened to me, happened to everyone who called themselves a ‘Christian’ As a 3 month old babe in Christ I was confounded by the fact that many who called themselves by the name ofChrist were in fact far from Him. At that point God birthed within me what I describe as a ‘passion for truth’.

One thing I have found though is that not everyone wants to know, or can even hear, the truth. Now there is one thing that is the focal point of all that the Lord has shown me and it is this. Nothing that man can do, whether in thought or deed, can make him righteous in God's sight. Now we know that there is only one righteousness – and that is through faith in Christ. But man in his folly believes that even this 'faith' is actually academic assent to something that he thinks he should believe - and more often than not - when he doesn’t understand it.

Yes there is much insight I have gained over the years but I'm almost afraid to speak of it at times because there is a cost.

That is a powerful testimony muztrein, and straight from the heart. Thank you for sharing it with us. I can certainly understand the lessons of "God’s love, mercy, grace and righteousness sometimes through anguish and pain". My family right now is going through a rough time and my job and school are starting to wear down on me at times to where I feel like I've come to the end of myself and have to completely trust in Christ. And then I have to battle with my flesh which acts contrary to God and tries to draw me away to seeking rest in things other than God, so it is a struggle and suffering and anguish accompany such trials but I have never seen God forsake me or withdraw His mercy and grace from me and that's what helps me make it through. God bless you for your testimony. Amen.

~Josh