Simple Truths on Godly Living
for the Simple Hearted
This book is dedicated to the Love of my life, my Father in Heaven
Table of Contents
NoTitle
01Be Born
02Know God – Know the Truth
03Know Where Your Citizenship Is
04Live & Grow
05Work-in-Progress
06Open the Box
07The Miracle Blood
08Keep the Temple Clean
Don’t just take my word for it but make sure that what you read is Biblical. After each chapter you will find a ‘Notes & Bible Verses’ section where all the Bible verses relevant to the chapter are printed for your convenience. All Bible verses are taken from the New King James Version.
Walk with God……….
Many are under the impression that Christians can do anything wrong and can go to God and ask God for forgiveness and they would be forgiven. I too, not too long ago questioned as to how that works. It is only after I started my journey with Jesus as my Lord and Savior that I began to experience and understand the transformative power of God’s love and forgiveness.
The Christian walk is unique because it involves God walking with the Christian through his/her journey of life. By the grace of God Himself, I have experienced His very presence in my life, His leading and guiding and His love. I want everyone to experience God – it is then that you realize just how joyful and content one can be in the midst of the prevailing chaos of this world. It’s not about pretending that the chaos does not exist, it’s about remaining firm and victorious in the midst of it and pulling others out of it.
Not every Christian walks with God. Walking with God refers to having a relationship with God and not merely knowing about Him. It is not about the formalities, rituals, feasts and memorized prayers it is a walking talking relationship where God is real and alive in your life.
For me, there is no other person more real than God. He is the joy and love of my life. He fills me in a way than no one else can because He formed me and knows me more than I know myself. He even loves me more than I love myself. However, I didn’t see things this clearly before I understood that God’s feelings and intentions towards me are always good.
God does not demand that I be perfect but He desires that I draw from Him the power and resources for changes that are good.
When I look back, I remember how much I hated myself. I knew what I did, thought and felt and it was not always good. Within me I desperately wanted to be someone who pleased God but when I tried to live it out, I failed miserably – over and over again. Every morning I asked God for forgiveness for my bad behavior the previous day and set out to do better but every night I went to bed angry with myself for failing to do what I set off to do every morning and angry at everyone else because they didn’t create an environment conducive to my plans. Needless to say, I felt like a total failure before God. I began to doubt if in fact I was suitable to be a child of God.
When I looked around, I saw other Christians who were so content and rested in life despite the ups and downs that life presented them with and I realized that there must be more than this to being a child of God.
I was a Christian and I thought I had a good relationship with God. I went to church every week, I prayed, I read the Bible and I tried and I tried and I tried to do the right thing, yet life was a struggle. There was no peace or rest. On occasions, I felt like I was drowning in the face of the waves of trials that came my way. I struggled for years stagnated in every aspect of life, unable to figure out what was wrong. This lead to me doubting God; I wondered if God’s hand was really operating in my life, if He was really powerful, if He really cared for me and most of all if He was real because I couldn’t explain some of the things that happened to me and around me. I was doing everything humanly possible to make things right for myself but nothing was changing and I felt that God was silent. I prayed and I prayed and I prayed and then I struggled and I struggled and I struggled. No change.
Change came only when I began to stop trying. God in His kindness began to teach me that His system is a relationship and a partnership. It’s not me screaming ‘God help me’ and God running to my rescue. It’s Us walking through it together.
Making a conscious decision and allowing Jesus into your heart and accepting Him as your Lord and Savior is the first step to your walk with God. Those who follow this step are called ‘Believers’ and are said to have been ‘Born Again’. Although it is only the first step, most believers expect all their problems to end the minute they become Born Again but find that things don’t really change that fast. They remain the same and their circumstances remain the same and soon enough they wonder if there has been any change at all. I thought the same way but God taught me that the real change that takes place is that once a person becomes Born-Again, they become equipped with the ability to change themselves and their circumstances by walking hand in hand with God – it doesn’t happen automatically. It takes action on the believer’s part – action in terms of total reliance on God.
I’m sure I’ve got you worried now, and you probably think that this booklet was a bad choice – especially if you are like me. Some time ago, weary, broken and given up. Well, don’t put the book away just yet, these actions are so simple and the heavenly back-up you get is so great that it’s a waste not to try them out.
God taught me that He connects with every believer individually. This book is based on this simple fact – you don’t have to be veteran Christian or Pastor or great servant of God. All you have to be is ready and willing to throw yourself into God’s arms and walk through life with Him. It’s a walk to victory holding on to God’s hand. The first step is yours to take and God will surely take the rest with you.
1. Be Born
When I was a child, I had many hopes and dreams and looked forward to growing up and living life to the fullest. However, as life happened, my hopes and dreams unrealized, I gave in to despair and struggled to remain sane in the midst of the chaos that life threw my way.
Since the age of about 11, I suffered from sleep disorders – but it was not a medical condition because all the various medical tests performed were clear – there was something very unnatural about the circumstances that I experienced. I was afraid of the dark and couldn’t close my eyes. I know that this is not uncommon but in my case, I felt a strange presence which now I know was a demonic presence. Often I’d lie awake in bed until the early hours of the morning and briefly fall asleep before I had to wake up and get ready for school.
Needless to say, I began the day feeling tired and jittery and this didn’t help with my studies and school. On most days, I couldn’t get myself off the bed and so, I missed school a lot.
This continued even after my school years and the chaos poured into my work-life as well. When I started working, I found that I didn’t have the will to persevere and succeed. I was plagued with fear and suffered from a severe inferiority complex. God had blessed me with much skill and ability and I got hired by some of the best organizations in the country and some of the best international organizations but my skills and abilities did not translate into achievements and success. A couple of months into the job, I would panic and resign. I would wake up in the morning and feel too afraid to go to work that day. I would be afraid of failing and making mistakes and I would call the office and inform them that I will not be coming back to work.
My self-confidence and self-esteem w
ere low to say the least and I didn’t have aims or goals in life. I wanted out. Deep within, I always felt inadequate despite the fact that the world didn’t see me that way. My life was falling apart and I feared that restoration would never be possible.
Before too long, I began to think about death. I saw death to be my only escape but was too much of a coward to carry out any form of suicide attempt to fulfillment. I was like the living dead until one day my dad who had by then come to know Jesus as his Lord and Savior, told me that the he wants me to get baptized. My dad sensed that all was not well with me and he probably thought that baptism will help me because it had helped him. I had already been baptized as an infant but thought, ‘why not?’ because I had thought of a sure way to end my life that night and it didn’t matter what I did that day because come night, I would be free from this life – so much to my dad’s surprise, I agreed to be baptized.
My dad took me to a house where I met a lady Pastor who was all ready to teach me about adult baptism and the baptism of the Spirit. My dad told me that I was going to become Born-Again. My heart was not in it and I didn’t even understand what it was all about but I decided to sit and listen for what it was worth.
Yet, there was something quite striking about this lady pastor and I picked up on it right away. She seemed to be filled with joy, assured, settled and content, in other words, she was at peace – and I was far from it. I could see when I looked into her eyes that she was joyful and at peace within. Our emotional states at that moment were like night and day and I wanted what she had so badly. I wanted at least for a moment to be at peace like her.
The Pastor was talking about God and the Holy Spirit and then she suddenly stopped talking and tears began to roll down her cheeks. I was wondering why she was tearing and realized that I too was tearing. I felt a strange warmth around me and I couldn’t quite figure out what it was. Then the pastor told me, “Natalie the Lord is just telling me to tell you that He loves you. I can’t put into words the love He has for you and He says that you are a princess in His Kingdom”. Those words literally jump-started me and for the first time in years I felt alive. I was now weeping and I couldn’t remain stone cold and hard anymore. I felt as though a hammer was breaking away the layer of stone around my heart. God touched my heart that was hard, cold and dead and sprang me back to life. It was then that I experienced for the first time what it was like to be alive – so in effect, before this happened, I was in a sense dead – or at least I felt like the walking dead and empty within.
The Pastor then told me that Jesus was waiting at the door to my heart (1) and that if I let Him in, He would come and be with me forever. Although it sounded like something that would appeal to a child, after having experienced something supernatural, I was willing to take her up on her offer because ‘loneliness’ was another factor that had contributed to my problems. I said ‘yes’.
Now I knew Who Jesus was and I thought that I had a good relationship with Him all this time and never for once thought that there was more to a relationship with God than I had experienced before this day. I thought that the bad circumstances that I was facing was because of my sin and that I had deserved to go through it. I had always had great respect and love for Jesus but always felt too sinful, unworthy and undeserving of anything He wanted to bless me with. I didn’t know about others but in my mind, I was just too much of a mess and sinful to be loved by anyone, let alone All Mighty God.
The Pastor then lead me through the Believer’s Prayer(2) and I accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior that day and was Born-Again. I had no idea that praying a simple prayer could make a person come alive and I was alive in a new kind of way. There was a feeling of freshness and newness and most of all, I could feel and sense things around me and find joy in the simplest of things. Being born again is as simple as praying a simple prayer with conviction in your heart.(3)
‘Born Again Christianity’ is not a new concept and neither is it alien to the Bible. Jesus Himself states that one cannot go to heaven unless he/she is born again(4). In the book of John, Jesus talks to Nicodemus the Pharisee about being born of water and of the Spirit being a prerequisite to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Being born of water refers to water baptism which Jesus modeled for us as an adult consciously going through the waters of baptism at the river of Jordan and God confirmed His approval of Jesus’ actions to all present by speaking out from heaven and stating that Jesus was His Son in Whom He was well pleased(5) . Let’s look at why it is important to be born of the Spirit.
When God created man, He created man to have a close relationship with Him (God). We are our best when we have that close relationship with God because we are built that way. Imagine an engine that has to be oiled in order to function smoothly. If it is not oiled, it will become noisy, creaky, slow and will ultimately stop. That is what happens to us when we exist without a relationship with God. You might wonder what kind of relationship I am talking about. Well, I am referring to the kind of relationship that Adam and Eve had with God before sin entered the world.
Read Genesis 3:8-10 very carefully:
‘And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. Then the Lord God called to Adam and said to him, “Where are you?”. So he (Adam) said, “I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself.”’
The setting is the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve had committed the first sin and were ashamed of themselves and were hiding from God (6). I am not focusing on the sin or the shame but rather on the fact that God walked in the Garden of Eden and spoke with Adam and Eve. This just blows my mind. This is the kind of relationship that I am talking about; a walking-talking relationship with Almighty God. This is the kind of relationship we were created to have with God and when we live without it, we are not complete to say the least. There is a space in all of our hearts that can be filled by God and God alone. Many because of ignorance spend their entire lives looking for someone or something that can fill that void but end up broken hearted or enslaved by someone or something or addicted to various substances simply because nothing but God can fill that void. Some have everything they could possibly imagine in terms of wealth, skills, opportunities, appearance, relationships and health etc. but still feel empty and unsatisfied without the love of God in their lives because they are ignorant of their nature of His love.
Before committing the first sin, Adam and Eve were holy and alive in Spirit or in other words, their spirits were connected to God’s Spirit. You and I have to be alive in Spirit in order to be able to connect to God because God is a Spirit(7). Man came alive because God formed man out of the earth and breathed into his nostrils(8). It is the breath of God that keeps us alive in Spirit.
So how did this connection with God break down? The connection with God broke down because of sin. Sin came in between God and man and as a result of that block, man died spiritually because that connection with God was what kept man alive in spirit. When we are physically born into this world, we are physically alive but dead spiritually. Throughout the course of our lives, God provides us with the information and support that we need to come back to Him and connect with Him(9).
When we say the Believer’s Prayer, what are we doing?
We invite Jesus into our hearts to come and fill that void that only God can fill.
We ask God to forgive us for our sins. These sins blocked our spirits connecting with God’s Spirit.
We accept that we need a Saviour who is Jesus Christ. We cannot save ourselves because we are insufficient to pay the price for our sins (we will discuss this in detail later on).
We submit ourselves in obedience to Jesus as our Lord. Recall that the first sin committed by man sin was disobedience.
If you haven’t done so already, please pray the Believer’s Prayer out loud with conviction in yo
ur heart. It was the best decision I ever made in life and you too will have many testimonies of God’s goodness in your life over the years to come. Take that first step; Be Born!
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