I've been praying for an appropriate time to share some of my testimony. Here's what the Lord has laid on my heart.I’ve been praying about when it was the right time to share my testimony and now I feel led to do that. I wanted to preface what I’m going say with all of the good things that God has done in my life have been from Him (to God be the glory) and the foolish, rebellious things can be attributed to my own sinful heart. I pray it’s not so wordy that you’ll be encouraged to read it. There’s much more I can share and if the Lord leads me to do so, I’ll be happy to share more details.I’ve been a Christian since I was a small boy but I fail away in 1983. Once I graduated college, I felt (no, I knew) I was a hypocrite and could no longer follow Him. Although I wanted to serve Him, I just couldn’t. One of the primary roots in my heart was unbelief. The Holy Spirit has shown me some of the lies of the enemy that led me to this fall, which I’ll share and I pray that the Holy Spirit may search your heart and set you free if you’re struggling with some of these same issues. Jesus said that You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.I returned to the Lord in November 2001. My first wife had died in May 2001 and I had begun seeking the Lord for about two years prior to that. I was the Prodigal son and wanted to come home but I was so afraid. I can remember dressing to go to church and I would go drive around a couple of churches but I couldn’t go. How could God take back such a sinner as me? Although I “came to myself” and wanted to return home, how could God take me back? Oh how, I misunderstood how much He loved me. God forgive me…During this period of intense grief, I began crying out to God to forgive me but I couldn’t bring myself to going to church so I wept and prayed for six months and bought a new Bible and began reading it. I lived about 3 miles from the Pentagon on 9/11 and I remember waking up, calling in sick, weeping and then I went back to bed and woke up crying again. That time is still a blur.I met a woman who was going through a difficult time and she invited me to her church. I said okay but got cold feet a couple of times and finally she told me that she wasn’t going to ask me any more if I didn’t go.I went that Sunday, it was a small Korean church, and the church had a separate English service, which she attended with me. I felt convicted and loved during that service and I literally ran home after the service and spent most of that day crying out to God. The first week after I attended by grandmother died at the age of 99. She was my spiritual mother and she was one of the few people that I could talk about the Lord, even as a small boy. We would read the Word and pray together.This set me back for a few weeks but later the Lord showed me that since I returned home, but grandmother could go to be with the Lord. In other words, God kept her around to pray for me. My other grandmother had died a few years ago and she told me before she died that God kept her alive so she could pray for my brother and me (we were both backslidden). When she died she was less than 60 pounds. I still weep when I think of all that she suffered because of me. I just pray that God will give me that kind of heart that I will weep between the porch and the altar in the midst of whatever difficulty I may face for others. I pray for a heart that weeps for the backslidden and those who don’t know Him. Lord give me this brokenness and this heart for others…I’m still attending the same church and God is continuing to change me. He is still emptying me, nearly two ½ years after I returned home. God is giving me this hunger to follow Him, to serve Him, and to love Him. I can’t explain it but He is changing me. I still have some things I’m certain He wants to change but He is going to finish that work in my heart (Philippians 1:6). When I returned “home” I didn’t know what to do. How can a sinner come back after so many empty wasted years? There’s no good blueprint that I could find, other than Psalms 51, which is such a beautiful description of repentance.I found SermonIndex because I wanted a deeper relationship with Jesus. Other than my Korean brothers and sisters, I don’t have many people I can talk with seriously about the Christian life. That’s one of the wonderful things about this forum.I also wanted the true gospel that would purge everything from my heart that wasn’t from Him. God is using the wonderful sermons here, the Word, and some excellent books to take away all of this stuff. I just want my life to please Him and He has done some wonderful things in my heart that I did not deserve or earn. One of the strongholds he has broken is depression. I suffered from depression for 20 years and God set me free. What a wonderful God we serve. I believe my depression was related to this emptiness because I didn’t seek Him with all of my heart. When we don’t fully seek God, there is this hole in our heart that nothing can fill.Here is a list of some of these lies that the enemy perpetuated in my heart that I would like to share.1.\tGod is just like my father. I believe that many of us have a perverted image of God because we compare Him to our earthly father. Because my father struggles with a critical spirit, I viewed God this same way. God was a “gotcha” God and he was just waiting for me to mess up. What a distorted view of my heavenly Father I had. It breaks my heart when I think the fruits of this lie. I never knew how much God loved me. When I think of this love, it’s just so amazing. What could be better than an intimate relationship with the One who made me? My friends there’s nothing better than this intimacy with God that comes through prayer and a serious study of the Word.2.\tYou must live a holy life in our own power. I knew in my heart that salvation is by grace through faith (Ephesians 2:8,9) but I believed that I had to live the Christian life through my own power. Because of this distorted view, I tried to live without the power of the Holy Ghost and relied on the power of "Ed" and because of that I failed miserably. I knew the Holy Spirit convicted me but I thought I had to be holy on my own. Would God save me and then leave me to my own devices? A thousand times no. What a horrific lie of the enemy.3.\tRepentance is something to be avoided, at all costs. Because I was so afraid of displeasing God and so focused on doing it in my own strength, I avoided repentance like the plague. I thought if he convicted me of sin then I was no longer saved. I have found that repentance is a wonderful gift from God. Once we realize that this is God’s gift, true repentance is such a freeing thing and we won’t fear anything the Holy Spirit exposes. Although it’s painful to have some of these things removed, He will remove these things so we can have a deeper relationship with Him.My pastor asked me who Jesus is to me and I said, “He is my life.” Each day that passes, I rest in this. Glory to be God who saved a great sinner such as me. May God encourage you to follow Him with all of your heart, strength, and mind.
