From Religion Without Power to Being the Tabernacle of God

Hi, everybody.
This is a continuation of the testimony I wrote in a "Nothing Book" in 1989 and began here a couple or entries ago or so. It's tedious typying this from a paperback blank book, so I'm going to put about 500 words or so at a time on my blog. Eventually, I will get to all of it, but there may be other entries mixed in. I'll let you know if the entry is a part of the autobiography. This is also unedited and in process. I just want to get it on record. I'm interested in communicating what God has done in my life through the power of his Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ.

Chapter 3: Religion Without Power

Scripture Reference: Having a form of godliness but denying its power (II Tim. 3:5)

Most people I grew up with were Methodists or Baptists. I was an Eposcopalian. But nobody's religion

meant anything to them, for all that I could gather, except for Judly, whose religion drew me closer to
God. But when I found God and tried to share Christ with Judy, she wasn't interested. She was satisfied
with Edgar Cayce and other forms of occult religion, which do not further the cause of Christ, which is
getting the gospel to as many people as possible, to free them from the bondage of such "forms of godliness" and bringing them into a relationship with the living God.

My grandparents on my father's side were Methodists. I don't know if they were saved or not, but
Grandpa always said grace at family reunions and Grandma watched Oral Roberts on TV.

The Lord used Grandma to get me saved. She was in the nursing home by then. Dad and David and I
went to visit her. I was out playing my music and doing my thing. She expressed some concern about
when I was going to settle down.

"I'm not ready to die yet," I said.

"Well, you can get ready, can't you?" she replied. I can only describe that a jolt went throug me like

a flash of lightning. I'll never forget it. Maybe it was the prick in the heart, spoken of in Acts 2:37

when people first heard about Jesus.

I recovered myself temporarily, but not long after that Jesus finally broke through my crusty exterior with his power, his grace, and his love, and I was born again.

    In Leviticus 26:10, the year of jubilee is described as a time when liberty shall be proclaimed throughout the land. It was in the year of Jubilee (Pentecost) that the Holy Spirit was poured out on the apostles and the promise fulfilled to generations to come. And that includes me. Because I was set free when Jesus became a reality in my life and the Holy Spirit from God gave me power to become a child of God.

In Leviticus 26:11, God promises to set his tabernacle among the children of Israel, and walk among them and be their God and they his people. I’m so thankful that this includes me because of the work of God in the Apostle Paul who was called to bring the gospel to the Gentiles, a people who were before “aliens to the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenant of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.” (Eph. 2:12). But now in Jesus Christ, ye who were sometimes far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ…through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father…are fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone, in Whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto a holy temple of the Lord.

“In Whom ye also are builded together for a habitation of God through the Spirit.” (Eph. 2:12-22)

Jesus Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit lives within us. The person we were before is dead. Paul wrote that we are "dead and our life is hidden with Christ in God." (Col. 3:3) May we learn to let Him live His life through us. Amen.

Next installment: Chapter 4: Numbers