TESTIMONY
I had no religious influence during my childhood, in a coal mining village in northern England, which was next to a steel making town where my father worked. I don't think I heard the name of Jesus, apart from it being used as a curse word, so godless was the culture I grew up in, until secondary school's Religious Education lessons and even then it was very brief. However, I became very interested to know the meaning of life, how to know the truth, and whether God existed.
I began to attend the local Anglican church to the dismay of my parents who were atheist and then to borrow books from my local library on the different worlds' religions and I looked into Buddhism quite deeply.In my twenties, I met a born-again couple who befriended me and set me loose in their extensive theological library, he being an Anglican ordinand. I was amazed at what I found, having thought that all religions were basically the same but the books I read said clearly that Christianity was not the same and that the other religions were wrong and that Jesus Christ was the only path to God and if you did not accept Him as divine as well as a man, then you could not find God, the true God of the Bible that is.
This really confused me as I really wanted to know the truth and whether Jesus was the only way. There were so many questions and a thirst to satisfy the longings inside myself to find a meaning to a life that had known little human love, high levels of physical sickness, abuse and neglect. One evening, the date and time of which are firmly imprinted on my brain, I asked God to show me if this new discovery was the truth or not and He answered me as His presence filled the room and I knew beyond doubt that He was there. understanding came flooding in to me and I knew that Jesus had not only died for mankind but that He had died for me because I was a sinner. I knew that Christianity was the truth and my heart soared with love for Jesus.
I was elated for weeks, to have my deepest questions answered and to have the presence of God with me.I believe that He gave me this strong confirmation because of what would follow – that is to say – that I would not find other believers for a long time, as my friends had moved to take up a position having finished the training, and my local Anglican church seemed to consist of people who went to church out of habit or for social reasons. After a while, the elation began to fade and I fell back to earth finding that my initial desire to obey God perfectly was not so strong and in fact I had begun to compromise by trying to work out just how far it was okay to go so as to remain faithful but cope with my life at the same time. I had no outside guidance.
Within a few months I became involved with a man who wanted me to look at books by a Tibetan monk, and had I not been so firmly grounded in the truth, I may have been led astray, but God protected me. However, I now carried a heavy burden of guilt about my low state and longed inside for that closeness to God that I had known in the begin -ning but I did not know how to get it back. Long years followed, at times I was backsliding and was not praying enough. It all seemed to be such an uphill struggle and I did feel like giving up at times. I did not love God with my whole heart all of the time, in fact sometimes I felt abandoned by Him and went through times of great despair and suffering. I had yet to learn that it is through
suffering that we learn obedience and this is the pathway to to holiness.
A move away from my home town with a new husband, meant that I found a church of Reformed believers, where I received a good grounding in Bible study but no real guidance about the questions that remained, regarding the longings that remained in my heart to know God in the very present way that I had once known. Instead, all that I heard added to the burden I felt and no-one could tell me just how to 'bridge the credibility gap' that I felt between my beliefs and what the scriptures said, to what was inside of me.
Eventually, I met a spiritual believer who saw my condition and gave me a book (1) which changed my life once again. It said that Christ had done it all on the cross, and that all of our striving would not get us to grow because the old nature had to be dealt with and indeed had already been dealt with, and the answer to my problem was just to believe in this. What I began to see about the Blood of Christ and the carnal nature were like a light being switched on and at last I fully understood Paul's words in the depths of my heart when he said 'knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin' Romans 6:6. It came at a time when I was going through a trial where God was asking me whether I would accept His will for me whatever it entailed and showing me that my complaints about the sufferings that He was allowing into my life, were of the utmost rebellion as He had purchased me at a high price and that I belonged to Him and no longer owned myself. I submitted myself to Him in this crisis after repenting of these wicked attitudes I held, falling on my face, as it were in ashes, abhorring myself, then a blessing fell on me which was even more profound than at the beginning.
Once again, light came flooding in and all of my perplexities were resolved as I spent three days in the third heaven, unable to sleep or do anything, but allow Him to reform my thinking and my understanding of the scriptures. I was utterly changed and the heavy burden had rolled off of my back and I knew peace joy and was cleansed inside.
I felt at last that I was accepted in the beloved and that He was pleased with me. It was such a different world to the one I had been in, it was like stepping from under a pool of water into sunlight and air, the difference was so astounding. My heart was once again filled with His praise as I avidly searched and read the scriptures as though they were new to me as indeed they were, as a seal was broken open, and I spent a considerable time in Deuteronomy 8 where the children of God were warned to avoid spiritual pride and that it is God who gives us power, it does not
come from us and if we forget we will fall, determined not to make this mistake
I remained in this blessed state for a number of years, but slowly, things began to fade. I really could not believe it, I thought that it would be impossible for me to fall from where I was. I had felt that I had reached the summit of what God would wish for me but I was being stripped of all the things I had been given. I truly believed at that time that I had been entirely sanctified and had read holiness books where others were giving the same testimony.
My understanding of sin was that, so long as I did not delay, I would be forgiven for transgressions that were not intentional. The power of sin had been broken and I could choose whether to sin or not but I felt that sometimes I sinned through ignorance or that the old sin of anger would raise its head again but I felt that the Lord was gracious regarding them.
Once more a book found its way into my hands (2) which is the way that God used to guide me, not having a living one, and this time I was alarmed at what I was reading. It said that we are either in Christ or not in Christ, the ark of our salvation, and if we were in Him then we are united to Him and there is no sin because there cannot be sin in His presence in the Holy of Holy's.
How can we say anything is not sin when other believers can look on us and know that it is sin? If we say we do not sin then the truth is not in us. There was only safety inside the ark and I must decide now if I did not want
to lose the chance of being safely in. It meant a turning away from my idea of what sin is and believing in the possibility of Him saving me to the uttermost that I should walk as He walked and be delivered entirely from anything that would be impossible with a pure heart. I found to my dismay that I could not will it this time so I asked Him if He would make me willing and I would turn from all unintentional sin.
I went to sleep after praying this and the next morning when I awoke, I knew He had changed me. Later I would read of another person who experienced it this way. Once again it was a different world but this time it was calm and peaceful without elation or any emotion really. I felt united with Him fully as His precious bride pure and spotless, but more than this. I really had a new nature. The earlier stages were just a foretaste of it. Although each encounter with God left me feeling that I had a new nature, I saw now that although it was certainly a monumental change which had taken place each time, but at the core of my inner being, I was still the same but this time there was something inexplicable different which meant that my spirit or my inner being was drawing its source of life from Christ in me, and that I was sharing in His life. It felt that my spirit and soul had been divided and my spirit joined to the Holy Spirit were completely in
control of my whole being. I could hear Him speak clearly, in that still small voice and He directed my paths constantly.
Other than this, human language is inadequate. My heart was whole, and some very deep healing had taken place overnight there were no wounds or even scars and I felt an entire wholeness, with nothing left to heal as far as past issues are concerned. I was fully restored to the state in which God had created me for as in Adam. I knew that all of the
suffering, and the times of seeming desertion were to bring me to this place even though I was brought there sometimes kicking and I was in deep repentance over the time I had wasted in getting there, time which would have been far shortened if I had refused to listen to the enemy and had been able to put my whole trust in Christ and thank Him for my circumstances instead of trying change them myself or looking to man for help when all the Lord wanted to do was to use them to break down all the walls which were there so that His Spirit could flow out unhindered.
If only I had listened to the still small voice which is the first voice we hear, and not drown it out with reason so many times. Later I saw this pathway confirmed in the story of the children of Israel. They were children of God,
and left their land for Egypt due to famine. This is how I slipped back into sin. When they were there, they were given tasks that were nigh impossible to carry out, and they were under bondage with a hard task master (as the Lord seems to us then). They were desperate to leave but their master would not let them go – the sin nature. One day they were led forth to the Red Sea – the blood of Christ, where they were positionally made holy. Thereafter they were led by the Spirit and fed supernaturally, but they were not obedient yet. They complained about their circumstances. The sad thing is that many did not go further than this, they obviously thought that this was the land they had been promised. But there was more.
For those who believed, this time they crossed the river Jordan. It was again by faith. This time they were in the land of promise and saw the fullness of the fruit of the Spirit – the huge grapes. Their battles were in gaining ground they already had been given – they were not sins or habits, they were the method of spiritual growth that Adam failed in – in sacrificing the natural for the spiritual or rather in denying self. Self is not to be crucified, (a Buddhist idea) but the old man. Self is to be denied so that the Holy Spirit has full control even over our natural desires etc. This is the position that the greats of the faith that we read about attained and interestingly, I have
discovered that three stages was the teaching in the church during certain times in the past. It is power and purity. The power manifests itself in all sorts of ways, one of them is to be able to change the weather, having authority over the natural world. Wesley once wrote that he looked for this as evidence of entire sanctification. Creation bows
down to those who are living in His inheritance and we can walk in victory over the world Satan and the flesh.
I meet many believers on the internet who have reached the stage where Jesus breathed the Holy Spirit on them to
prepare them for Pentecost, John 20:22 and they think that they have been entirely sanctified and that is all there is.There is more but the church in general has lost this teaching which was its secret source of power. Before Holiness teaching descended into confusion and error, the church clearly held this idea of sinlessness during the early years to the fathers and the middle ages and found in the teachings of George Fox during the time of the Reformation. If we are to rise again there must be the fire and the Spirit and a people without spot or wrinkle.
My journey has been one of stages, of a deeper understanding of the truth with a working out of the preceeding encounter with Christ, leading eventually to a sense of failure and a deepening of the desire to be everything that my Saviour desires me to be. I consider myself to be the least of His servants due to my failures and unworthy indeed of any favour from Him. The further I have progressed the more I have felt my failure and the darker the nights of the soul. I am greatly indebted to the saints before me who have lent their guidance and example on the journey and consider my sufferings as worthwhile if I could be used to help others too.
My greatest suffering has been as to whether I have gone off track and have lost my way and am excluding myself from knowing the fullnesss of being united with Christ.
I am so thankful that I listened to the voice of God within and because I have not been accomodated in the many churches I have attempted to attend, due to my level of lifelong sickness, and even excluded from fellowship due to it, I have been removed from the influence of error and able to find my way to the truth which is to be able to have ones beliefs work out in the actualities of life rather than just a set of notions, which is what I searched for from the beginning.
(1)Watchman Nee 'The Normal Christian Life'.
(2)Francis Havergal-Ridley 'The Royal Invitation'.
Thanks to the OP for starting this thread, I have been very blessed this morning in going through my testimony again even though I will be castigated for it.
