I was smart enough as a child to see inconsistency in the teachings of Christianity and the experiences Christians were having (which is why I understand the confusion and/or dislike many have about Jesus). But miraculously and supernaturally, something amazing happened to me that went beyond just religious studies when I was young that made me want to continue to seek for the answer to life’s purpose from a new spiritual perspective . At the age of 9, I got in trouble for asking my teacher a question about one of our church denomination’s teachings that even a child could see did not make sense if God was a loving God. In my religion class, we were being taught that not all babies would get into heaven. I raised my hand and asked my teacher how it could be possible that if God was loving, and if God knew everything, so He knew which babies would pass away before they could get baptized, then why wouldn’t He let them into Heaven? She promptly told me I was blaspheming God and not to ask that question ever again. Like most children, I got scared of what my teacher said and mad at God instead of asking another adult why God would not let the stillborn babies into Heaven. It never even occurred to me to search the Scriptures later on about the teaching because I was 9 and did as I was told, and frankly not one child in my class even had their own Bible that I knew of. Assuming God was real because I had been taught that my whole life, I told Him directly with a defiant attitude that “if He was going to be that unloving and keep the babies out of Heaven, then I don’t want to go there with Him either, and He could just put me with the babies that didn’t get in”. After religion class, we went straight to our church service, and I felt myself getting mad at God again about the rejected babies. There was a part in the service where we had to recite that we were “not worthy to receive Him” so I said to Him something along the lines of not wanting to receive Him if He would not let the stillborn babies come to Heaven anyway. And right then He did something Supernatural for me. He covered me with His Love. And it was indescribably and beautiful. He answered my question about whether He was a loving God or not without even using words, and I knew, as I was falling onto the church floor, laughing and crying at the same time, that the particular denominational teaching about Him, that I had been mad at Him over, wasn’t true. I knew that God would never do what my teacher told me He would do in that given situation, and He told me that not in audible words, but just let me know it through the overwhelming Presence of Love that He surrounded me in. And then I got in trouble from that very same teacher for making a spectacle of myself in church. There was no laughing in church and definitely no laying on the floor, cracking up and crying tears of joy at the same time. While I was looking up at her reprimanding me, all I could think of was that she was teaching us the wrong thing about God and babies, and she was totally missing out on what His Love felt like.
As I continued growing up…
…knowing that God Himself, The One and Only Creator of the Universe, had taken the time to personally answer my question, snotty attitude an all, and seeking for that personal interaction with Him again, I started searching for His Presence in churches of different denominations than my childhood church. I was now very confused by not only my denomination of Christianity, but by the other variations of Christianity that I tried, and the lack of the Presence of God in their church buildings too. As I got even older, still seeking for that personal connection from God again, I passed up Jesus’ teachings because most of the people I met who proclaimed to follow Him did not seem to have any personal relationship with Jesus, and not many at all seemed that loving, successful, or peaceful, so I concluded that He had very strict rules for life anyway with no payoff. Different denominations of Church people could never agree on what Jesus was teaching anyway, and some people even told me that whether Jesus ever existed or not, the Bible was a book written by some clever men just to control other people. There seemed to be “luck” involved in our lots in life anyway, with one either being born into always having whatever they needed or wanted, or those who it looked like they would have no tangible reward here on Earth except for after they died, which if they were good they might get into Heaven. Even how to enter Heaven was a hotly contested debate between Christian denominations and differing pastors. And let’s not forget the differing opinions on tithing, whether the devil or hell is even real, etc. With all this confusion, and me being a young adult by this time, I got sidetracked by work, school, concerts, clubs, and sports activities with my friends.
After growing weary and dissatisfied of my city lifestyle, I realized I still wanted the answer for why I was here, and I wanted to experience the Love of the encounter I had with God which at this point had been many years prior. It had been so many years since I had that experience with God that I started beginning to wonder if I had even had a real experience with God, or if it was just a little girl’s imagination. Still, that faint desire to hopefully have another encounter with God and the nagging question of what the purpose of life is remained. After still not feeling God in any of the Christian churches I visited, I started exploring new age spirituality and different religions besides Christianity. I needed to find that connection to God again since I still did not have that peace that passed all understanding whatsoever in my life that Christian churches told me was available. After examining other religions besides Christianity that profess to lead to God and enlightenment, nothing Supernatural happened there either. Still no Presence of God. I tried some new age practices that I thought would connect me to God again through contact with the spiritual world, and finally settled on reading tarot cards and because I could tell I was having spiritual interactions. Having spiritual power through new age practices is not the same as connecting to the love of God but it was something. I soon realized that those spirits were definitely not of God. And my cat, and God are the ones who pointed that out to me. My cat did it by hissing and growling at the things in the room when they showed up. God did it a different way. One day, He sent me a human messenger who to this day I am not entirely sure how she knew me or got to my house, but she was a Christian who shared with me something that I had never heard in a church. She said that New Age was connecting to the demonic spiritual realm and that none of it was connecting to God. As she left, I told her I would think about it, but I must admit that I really felt concerned by what she said and I felt a fear inside that there wasn’t only a good side to them. Well God’s plan worked, because I quickly decided to get out of new age practices that very night.
After falling asleep, I awakened at around 3 a.m. with the feeling that something really scary was in my room. Raised since a child to believe in Jesus, I asked Him to show me if something was in the room. At that moment, I could see these hideous bat looking creatures hanging in the corners of my room. It’s like they knew I was considering giving up working with them, so they showed their ugly side. And they truly were ugly, dark, and scary. At that point I just called out to Jesus for help to make them leave. Of course, like most people I only called on Jesus when I needed something. But He came through for me because the scary things disappeared the second I cried out. I was still too afraid to sleep so I asked Jesus to help me with that too, and I slept better than I ever had in my life that night, even though I did not feel His presence personally. The next day, my boyfriend, whom I did not say a word to about this for fear he would think I was crazy, told me that it smelled like rotten eggs and he heard cackling in the bushes outside the door but he could not see anything that would make that sound. He said it scared him so badly that he had to run inside. A few days later, after an unexplainably strange argument with my boyfriend, I opened the door to just leave the house to stop the fighting, and an angel that seemed to be made of light about 9 feet tall with a giant sword was standing just outside my door. At first he filled the whole doorway with light and I wasn’t sure what was even making the light, but as I watched the angel fly to the sky, he paused a moment to where I could see him clearly, and then at the speed of light, he flew high above me, looking like a fully visible star in the sky even though it was noontime on a sunny, cloudless day. Jesus had truly answered my prayers a few nights earlier, I was truly convinced that I wasn’t going crazy, and that something evil was around the house because my boyfriend at the time had heard and smelled them, and now an angel was there to protect us from whatever was still present yet invisible in the house. Still the logical brain in me could not connect the dots that Jesus’ teachings bring about the constant connection, and now constant protection from evil, that I wanted with God who I had met at 9 years old. But life went on, I ended up having beautiful children, and focusing on them since my relationship with their dad had not gone according to plan.
I was basically in God limbo at that point, with no church to attend and definitely no desire to touch anything slightly New Age. Finally though, a few years later, I found a church in a little tiny strip mall by my house that by “coincidence”, I had heard that church mentioned three times in one day. I took a chance that God was telling me about this church, because of the random girl that showed up out of nowhere and got me out of New Age. To my great surprise, this church with the fold up chairs and the little homemade stage actually had the same feeling in it as I had when I was 9 years old! That beautiful, tangible presence of God was in the building from the minute I walked in and it covered me like a blanket of Love again! And other people in the church were feeling it too so there was no doubt God was there! Even the children were feeling it, just running around with gymnastics ribbons, enjoying the freedom and the joy of His Presence. Nobody was looking at anyone else like they were crazy either or getting mad at them for acting up in church. They were all just having their own personal moments with God! Some were laughing, some were crying, and some were speaking in weird languages that I soon learned was a New Testament, Scripturally sound teaching and very normal. I had never once studied speaking in the gift of tongues in 12 years of private school with religious education, and never once experienced it my own church hopping. Even before I knew what these people were all speaking, everyone was too happy and too at peace to call them crazy or be scared of them. When I left the church room the presence of God was gone though so I theorized that some little churches have the presence of God but most big ones don’t. I concluded that it was some sort of “Jesus was born in a barn, and slept in a manger” effect in the humbleness of the little church in the strip mall. I went again and this time the pastor’s wife said that someone’s foot was getting healed, and sure enough, my foot pain that had been bothering me for weeks disappeared in that moment. I was amazed. I had just been the blessed recipient of a God given miracle. Call it only a small miracle or dismiss it as just a coincidence, but see what happens when chronic pain disappears for you. You’re grateful to Who made it go away. And I understood it wasn’t her doing “magic” of some sort. You could just tell that she was just a beyond joyful, fired up, conduit for God Himself. I went back a few more times to enjoy His Presence, but I had already planned to move to a different state to try yet again to have a successful relationship before I found this church, and besides, the family and friends I told about this church called it my “crazy” church, and I still needed their approval in my life. But strangely enough, those encounters in that church compelled me to actually buy my own Bible before I moved. I could not find a church with the presence of God inside where I moved to, so I watched Christian TV and I read the Bible Scriptures the pastors on TV went over that week, but I was still missing the tangible feeling of His Presence. Life was still chaotic and my relationships with people were too. The only purpose of my life that I was content with was raising my beautiful children whom I love more than anything, but with being a single mom off and on for years, I was sometimes too busy to think about finding God. Still being confused by the Holy Bible when I did have time to read some of it, I eventually tried another book that the authors claimed was downloaded to them by Jesus, and that book confused me too much to even finish it.
After a few more years I still did not have another personal connection experience with God, but instead I had a frightening dream about demons taking someone who I knew for years that had just passed away straight to hell. I knew this person did not believe in Jesus “per se”, but he believed in a universal force that he sometimes called God. That dream was so scary and seemed more real than a dream ever could. In the dream, I guess because of my past involvement in the occult, the demons actually told me that it was my fault he was going to hell because of exposing him to my tarot card reading from years prior. The guilt I instantly felt was immeasurable. I was so broken with guilt that I could not even go to his funeral. For months after that I could not shake the fear of hell being very real, which I had never thought about hell as anything other than a place where serial killers and Hitler went for eternity. I knew that demons were real but I hadn’t had any encounters with them for so long, but now I realized that demonic beings were not just around us now and again, but had access to, and control over our dreams. I knew through this dream that they could have control over our lives, to the point of people having uncontrollable impulses and addictions, and they even had the ability to prevent some people from being led to and accepting Jesus Christ as the way into Heaven if the person didn’t know that demons existed, much less had access to us. My fear of them overwhelmed me for months and months after the dream. On top of that, I was still having confusion about the hot and cold, often chaotic dynamics of human relationships, so I cried out to Jesus again for answers. I desperately said “Jesus, help!”, knowing He had helped me before. I asked Him directly from the bottom of my heart, in total frustration, “What is up with people and why do they have so many different variables to their personalities, and why can’t these variables between people stay on the same page long enough to bring lasting peace to relationships ever?!?”. At first I thought He was just ignoring me, but shortly after that very emotional question, Jesus truly answered me, but not in a direct answer to that direct question. He gave me an instruction to follow instead. One evening a few days after asking that question, while driving into the driveway, coming home from work, in my heart I felt the words, “get baptized in the Holy Spirit”. It wasn’t an audible voice but I just KNEW it was Jesus answering inside of me, because that would have never been a thought in my own head, and I felt Love in the words, and I had so much trust in the words that I just knew it was Him. I knew a demon wasn’t hijacking my thoughts either because they would not tell me to do anything related to the Bible. I had little knowledge of the Holy Spirit other than I had heard the Holy Spirit included in passing as part of the Trinity in my Christian upbringing and church hopping, but was never taught about who or what the Holy Spirit truly was, much less that there was a baptism in the Holy Spirit. I thought the Holy Presence in the strip mall church was God, not really understanding that He was Three Persons. So I was freaking out with happiness because I just got another personal connection with Jesus. Dinner was on the table when I walked in the door, but I could barely eat it. I only wanted to follow the directions given to me by Jesus. But not wanting to seem “crazy” to my boyfriend, as having Spiritual encounters with either God, Jesus or demons usually makes people think you are crazy, I patiently waited until after dinner to ask him to baptize me in the Holy Spirit. To my surprise, he said ok. I got baptized in the Holy Spirit in my own home, in my own bathtub, not by an ordained pastor with a degree in theology, but by my raised in another very denominational Christian church, but non-practicing Christian boyfriend who is now my husband. In the moment of my Holy Spirit baptism, everything changed instantly! Understanding what repentance really means and really feels like – check! Feeling beyond all description what the Scriptures mean about being born again was and knowing without a doubt that I had just been born again- check! God’s love covering me again – check! My body being literally delivered of evil spirits – check! My understanding of people’s hot and cold inner struggles and relationship struggles now as clear as a sea of glass – check! An overwhelming sense of conviction of what is right and what is wrong from God’s perspective without struggling with it – check! Understanding the difference between the presence of the Holy Spirit being in the building and how it’s even better when the Holy Spirit lives inside you – check! Speaking in tongues – check! Knowing Jesus was there helping me and rooting for me in ways I didn’t recognize or attribute to Him all along – check!
If you at this point are doubting any of that, especially if you are Christian, then I really recommend you buy this Bible Study because all of this can be backed up by New Testament Scripture. Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil. Do you know where that is in Scripture? If you don’t, you need to use this Bible Study. Do you know how much the New Testament says about the devil? If you are a Christian who doesn’t believe in the devil or hell, it’s time to ask yourself as a Christian whether or not you only believe in Jesus, or whether you follow His literal teachings. I am not judging. I did the same thing even after seeing actual demons who had been masquerading as benevolent spirits. But you should really learn through this Bible Study what the entire point of the New Testament is. Did you know there are Scriptures on baptism in Repentance, and baptism in the Holy Spirit in New Testament Scripture? Do you know where the one unforgiveable sin is in Scripture which is blaspheming the Holy Spirit? If not, get this Bible Study. Anyway, back to my testimony. Receiving the Holy Spirit inside of me went above and beyond everything I had wanted to feel again from the Spirit of God since I was 9 and what I briefly experienced again in a God filled strip mall church. Jesus had clearly given me the answer to my question about people’s emotions and especially my question about the purpose of life.
He gave me the answer by personally telling me what to do just as He personally told the apostles what to do – get baptized in the Holy Spirit! (Acts 1:1-8 and Acts 2:1-4). What happened to me at my baptism in the Spirit went so far above and beyond natural, manly comprehension, and yet it felt like the most natural thing that ever happened to me. I knew now from a spiritual understanding that at my willingness to get baptized I had given permission for the Holy Spirit to move into my heart. From there it was the most wonderful thing in the world to surrender to the Holy Spirit and give up all the earthly confusion, strife, worry and demonic interference for the amazing Love and Joy I felt from Him. Everything became different and better at this point because I was different now! At my happy surrender to His Presence in me, I had let the Spirit of God move in me permanently which is also Scriptural! And everything else dark and ugly moved out! (If you doubt this, or flat out don’t believe it, go look up some of the thousands upon thousands of YouTube videos of people who have been delivered of demons, or have seen visions of Hell, and who have been baptized in the Holy Spirit, or have had encounters with Jesus. We can’t all be crazy and the Holy Bible could not have been around this long and still be one of the number one selling books in the world to this day if it wasn’t resonating Truth. ) But anyway, at that point I knew from Holy Spirit guidance to stop dabbling in Christianity, or should I say stop being less than even lukewarm, and to start reading the entire New Testament for myself so I knew how to live the way God intended for us to live on this earth, armed with His Love and what the Truth is about how this world works, and His plans for us in this world and His eternal Kingdom. I bought more Bibles to compare them to each other so I could get every drop of the Word in me! (Yes The Word gets in you and changes you and yes that is Scriptural which I explain how in the next paragraph).
To my great surprise, the answer to making sense of why I was here, and why the heck life didn’t always work well, was there all along once I actually read , studied and applied ALL of the teachings of the New Testament for myself, and had the Holy Spirit to guide and teach me, and interpret the Word for me now too, just like Jesus said the Holy Spirit would do in the New Testament. And the answer had everything to do with what I never found in the majority of Christian churches I went to. It’s about receiving not only the Love and Salvation (from Hell) of Jesus through repentance and acceptance of that fact that He is the Son of God who died on the cross for us, but also receiving the baptism of the Holy Spirit and living in spirit and truth. Living in a Kingdom of Heaven mindset makes everything in the world make sense. Not blaming God for things that had always gone wrong or thinking He doesn’t love me because things didn’t work out, AGAIN, when we clearly have invisible enemies who just love for us to blame God, just brings you closer to Him and all He wants to give us here and in Heaven. Scripture tells us the different things that may be happening when things aren’t going right in this world. (There are several sections to explain them in the Bible Study.)
So how the Categorized Bible Study Manual came about was that after reading the entire New Testament for myself, I wanted to be able to go back over the Scriptures as I read and assimilated them, so I organized the corresponding Scripture passages dotted throughout the Books of the New Testament, categorizing them based on their specific teachings so that I could easily find the Scriptures again, and also share the Scriptures with others. I also actually started following them which is easier to do when you can study all the NT Scriptures that are in accord with each other in a row to really understand the depth of the teachings that Jesus and the apostles shared that are dotted throughout the New Testament. By studying the categories of guidance, explanations and commandments from Jesus and the Apostles, I got a clear understanding of what is right and wrong in the eyes of God, which isn’t just about Him controlling you or punishing you as many may think, but about Him protecting you from the legal rights that the forces of evil are allowed to have over you when you don’t follow God’s rules. This world was set up a certain way by His Design and Him giving you free will is a big part of it. Do you understand that? If you don’t, you should really get this Bible Study to help you find the rules of living here victoriously because it’s in the Scriptures (the Word of God). But this understanding of right and wrong in God’s eyes (righteousness vs. sin), is where the conviction of the Holy Spirit comes in and that is where repenting and being washed clean also comes in! Whether you like God’s system or not, He is God and He gave us the Holy Bible, His Inspired Manual for Living as Humans, to know how to navigate the world system, and overcome all evil through His Son Jesus and the Holy Spirit. You may as well learn what you are really up against, Who you have on your team, and how to win the battle between good and evil we were born into, whether we want to believe it or face it or not. It’s easy to face when you have the Holy Spirit inside you because you don’t feel alone and you’re not afraid anymore.
A lot of people ask me, “What are you talking about when you talk about spirit, truth, and the Kingdom of God? “. Even some Christians. How Jesus taught me to understand what was really going on in the world of good vs. evil through my baptism in the Holy Spirit, and then prompting me to immediately read and follow His instructions in the Bible, had always been right there in the entire New Testament. The New Testament tells how to live in spirit and truth and live by the ways of the Kingdom of God. Most importantly, in the Word, Jesus prays for us to be one with Him (John 17:20-21), which fills the biggest missing piece of us we are all searching for – a real one-on-one relationship with God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. The New Testament tells you how to do that. I finally realized that what I had at 9 years old was an actual encounter with God where He was relating to me because I had directly asked Him an honest question. Then Jesus Himself helped me when I asked Him for protection, but when I asked Him a real question about people that I wanted a real answer to, Jesus personally gave me the answer about the spiritual realm that I never really wanted to accept enough to have to look at out of fear. He showed me how to not only accept it, but how to conquer the darkness in the spiritual realm which messes up our natural realm. All because Jesus Himself, THE Savior of the World, was relating personally to me because of my personal requests and questions directly to Him! But something more amazing than just having a few questions answered by the Most High God and His Son Jesus happened to me when I got baptized in the Holy Spirit and received Him into my heart. Instead of hoping to hear from God again, the Holy Spirit lives in me now, and I have this amazing relationship with God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit all the time! And by relationship I mean He helps me find answers to questions in the Scriptures I still have because we never stop growing in the Word, He helps me avoid danger, He helps me help others, and He helps me find my keys. He positions me and the people and situations around me for my good and the good of His Kingdom purposes and that too is Scriptural by the way. This is possible because God is Spirit. And below our flesh lives our spirit. And when we allow Him to live in us, we get constant communication with the Godhead who created us. (There is a section in the Categorized Bible Study to explain the Godhead and the relationship between God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit). Being baptized in the Holy Spirit helped me understand the New Testament Scriptures on being of spirit and of flesh, which the New Testament Scriptures explains, that just so happen to be categorized for you in the Study Manual as well. And I got a Faithful Friend, Comforter, Teacher and Guide in the Holy Spirit who has never changed His mind about who I am to Him. I am someone He cares about so deeply that there are no words to describe it. Having a hard day? Being hard on yourself? Someone being hard on you? Don’t worry, Holy Spirit will tell you who you really are to the Father. You may get told by Him that you need to change to be more in line with Kingdom living but you won’t feel condemned, you will feel corrected and put back on course, and you will still feel so loved! You will never doubt if you are loved and your sins are forgiven. Never! Does it matter if another soul on earth condemns or judges you? Not when the Holy Spirit loves and corrects you if you temporarily miss the mark. Feeling like I am crazy? Feeling like this isn’t what the Bible really says? Feeling like your church would have taught you all of this if it were true? Then either your church leaders or you personally haven’t studied all of the New Testament and you probably should, especially if you doubt all this and especially if this world doesn’t make sense to you.
Jesus, through The New Testament, tells us exactly why He came, what we need to know about this world and the spiritual world, and how to walk with the Holy Spirit as our Guide and Comforter. He teaches us in the New Testament what our purpose is in the world. He teaches us through the Holy Spirit how to truly love and forgive others. But very importantly, He is the Word (John 1:1 and John 1:14). So when you read The Word, it’s like you are reading in Jesus. If this is hard to understand, let me just say that if you study the Scriptures through the Holy Spirit, the idea of statements like reading in Jesus (like breathing in Jesus, only it’s reading Him in), or walking in the spirit no longer become confusing, they become more natural than the natural world feels natural. It’s a lot to unpack and assimilate but understanding this through the New Testament Scriptures and then living by The Word is what I now consider the purpose of life – living a life with the Spirit of God and with love for all others. See, God has a really good plan for our lives and it includes Him, Jesus and the Holy Spirit being a part of your life while you become a part of sharing Them and Their Goodness in everyone else’s lives. When you understand the purpose of Them All you hit the Godhead Trifecta! Jesus wants us to participate in our lives and in this world through Him and with Him, and with His other children, for the good of each other and for His Kingdom purposes. I’m not special. All I did was talk to Jesus like He was real. He are ready to answer questions for you the same way He answered for me. The more heartfelt the question, the more He answers. And He loves us all the same. Even the ones that don’t trust, understand, like or love Him. He is ready to start a relationship with you any time you want so you can find out Who He really is. Let’s be real here, most of us call out to Jesus only when we really need Him no matter how much we ignored Him before, and then we ignore Him again. He answered me in times of distress, but He answers me all the time now. Sometimes I have to wait a little bit for the answer, but that too is awesome because it actually teaches me to have faith, trust and patience in Him. Deep down inside we all know He is real even if we want proof, but because we don’t always believe or remember that evil is real, we ignore Jesus’ teachings because we want life to be easy for us in the world’s ways. If you still don’t believe evil is real, then I again suggest that you explore the thousands upon thousands of YouTube videos of people who have seen both Heaven and Hell. Like I said, we can’t all be crazy. Not wanting something to be real does not mean it’s not real. Does that scare you? Then you really need Jesus and He really wants to protect you and teach you how to not be a victim of evil. Do you still doubt that the spiritual realm is real? Then go prove me wrong because while you are trying to prove me wrong, you will run right into proof of evil, either by friends admitting they have had personal experiences with the dark side, or people on video telling the whoever wants to hear them, or watching people’s lives fall apart even though they try so hard to keep it together. Once you realize that evil exists, (say by just looking at how many different experiences different people are having in the world), you can learn how to take authority over it through accepting Jesus Christ as your Savior and receiving the power and authority He gives through the Holy Spirit to those of us who Believe in Him and follow His instructions. Then you can live in the Goodness that God’s promises provide us!!!
Jesus taught me how to have, and I chose to accept, an ongoing loving relationship with Him by being baptized in the Holy Spirit as He directed us to receive in the New Testament. He was always there waiting for me to need Him until I needed Him enough to be willing to surrender to and accept the truth about what really happens in this world and in the spiritual world. I am learning to live the Scripture’s meaning with His Spirit and through His Spirit more and more every day. Instead of quoting a few Scriptures, all the while thinking you have a good handle on everything Christian because of a good memory of a few Christian Scriptures and Christian concepts, you too can live in the peace that passes all understanding, once you get an understanding in, and have faith and trust in God’s plan for us! Even if things look messy in the natural, they are calm in my spirit. Probably because I know how it all works now, well most of it because I learn more every day, and I’m not afraid anymore. My non-stop relationship with the Holy Spirit builds all of this inside me more and more every day. If I don’t feel Him for a little while I go sit and wait until I feel Him again. It’s that simple. You don’t want to go a minute without Him. And you would rather feel Him than any emotion the world can give you, especially the negative ones. (See the section on the Fruits of the Spirit in this Bible Study if you want to understand that and also on anxiety and worry). Life gets better and better every day, no matter what is happening in the outside world. My inside spiritual world is always awesome! Before I followed Jesus’ teachings, including the Holy Spirit plan, faith and trust were just words in my head. Now they are a part of me and my relationship with God. Does that make sense? It will when you study all of the New Testament and follow it for yourself, especially the part where you welcome the Holy Spirit into your heart to be your Guide and Comforter through baptism in Him. You will know when you have truly done that. Repentance is a part of this relationship too of course. Repentance in Greek (which most of the original New Testament copies were written in Greek) is the verb metanoeo, which means to change your mind. It’s easy to change your mind to want what Jesus offers you instead of what the natural world and the dark spiritual world offers you, and clinging to your natural world identity , and the need for the approval of people, and to the highs and lows in the natural world, when joy and peace are yours at one request to the Most High God Himself, or Jesus, who take time out of Their busy days to be there for you when you truly ask! There is nothing better than recognizing that your true identity is being a Kingdom of Heaven spirit living in a natural body and being a loved child of God with a purpose. Another great thing about being baptized in the Holy Spirit, is that after being baptized, it was easy to give up the fleeting values and emotional highs and lows the ways of the world had to offer in exchange for what Jesus gives us, which is way more than even eternal Salvation, as if that wasn’t enough. You learn how to navigate the natural world because of your spiritual relationship with the Holy Spirit. You can have a new understanding of sin and why you naturally will want to be free of anything that keeps you away from the tangible presence of the Holy Spirit! It can be this way for you too! It doesn’t matter if you are a farmer or a pharmacist as a career choice, you can know your real purpose through baptism in the Holy Spirit and living life from Jesus’ complete teachings, and you can live this purpose with other people whom you will want to love unconditionally, just as you are loved unconditionally. And you don’t have to be baptized by a Priest or an ordained minister. You just have to want what God’s plan gives you through Jesus and the Holy Spirit over anything the world, with all of it’s disappointments and confusions, give you. Then you either find a church who operates in the Holy Spirit or you find someone who does to baptize you in repentance AND the Holy Spirit. (There are many Holy Spirit filled churches online as well. Elijah Streams on YouTube has many different Spirit Filled pastors and people that you can find. Sid Roth, It’s Supernatural, Destiny Image is another. YouTube will start sending you like content and you can listen to who they suggest to find those Spirit filled teachers that resonate with your spirit.) I have baptized many people in the Holy Spirit just as they baptized each other in the Book of Acts! That is Scriptural too. There is a category in this Bible Study for that. Now I have an understanding of, and a great testimony of spirit and truth. And I understand how true worshipers will worship in spirit and truth. It is not hard to worship Those that love you so much! Worshiping is just love and gratitude pouring out of your heart. They (God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit) love me so much and I love them. And They love you just as much. You just have to invite Them in to show you. You have to want to fill the void that nothing on earth ever really fills. In the world’s way, people get something they want and they immediately either don’t want it or they immediately need something else to fulfill them. That’s not how you have to feel when you are filled in your heart with the Spirit. I followed the New Testament teachings and the Word proved Itself to be True and those Words are for every single one of us! My relationship with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit gets better every day! And so does my relationship with people. Even if they don’t change, I see them now for who they are, simply people who have not found the joy and the peace of the Holy Spirit yet but who are loved and valued by God and whom Jesus died for. Love and forgiveness is easy for you through the eyes of the Holy Spirit living in you. Even if it’s not safe to be around certain people who may not ever want to find the Love of God, you can still love and forgive them, and pray for their salvation directly to Jesus who hears all prayers. People who don’t think like you or agree with you always, they too are just fellow children of The Most High God deserving of your love, patience and understanding. And things don’t always work out perfectly, there are still challenges in life, but every challenge I face I overcome with the help of the Holy Spirit so it always works out. Even things that I didn’t think were working out at the time. God works all things out for good. Yep. That’s Scriptural too. (Romans 8:28)
For all my newfound peace, joy and my new understanding of the spiritual and physical worlds, it was hard to find and remember the exact Scriptures in the New Testament where Jesus told us it could be this way for us whenever I was giving my testimony. The Scriptures that answer your specific questions are dotted all throughout the New Testament so you do have to seek to find. I wanted a way to share those Scriptures with others to back up just how real a testimony could be for them too, and just how real God and His plan is for all of us, if we would just learn the truth about all of it and follow all of it, and not just parts of it. For this reason, I categorized the New Testament Scriptures in an easy to study format, based on all of the teachings about who Jesus is for us, what He did for us, what Salvation really means, everything Jesus taught us about the natural world and the spiritual worlds, how and why we are to receive the Holy Spirit, and what the Holy Spirit also teaches us continuously when we have a real relationship with Him, which is the knowledge of God’s Will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding. I encourage you to look at the Table of Contents of the Categorized Bible Study Manual to see all of the teachings of Jesus and the apostles in the categories I have sorted for studying the Word. Just hit the link below to look inside this Bible Study manual to see for yourself what you need to study more of in the New Testament to receive the love and ” the peace of God that is surpassing all understanding, that guards your hearts and your thoughts by Christ Jesus” – Philippians 4:7 (YLT).