Without a shadow of a doubt

Today is December 9, 2024. It seems like this was my great aunt, my mother's aunt, my granddad's sister, Auntie Agnes's birthday. Funny how you remember some things and forget others. My mother came from Southampton, England, and her parents came over the year I was born and stayed here until they died. I miss them. I would have to look in my book to find the year they were born and the year they died, but I think they both died in their 70s. I don't know for sure, but I think Auntie Agnes was older, like in her 80s, when she died. I remember because she wanted me to come to England and see her before she died, so she must have known her time was approaching. She had come to the states when I was little, but she wanted to see me now that I was grown up. It was a strange time. My Auntie Agnes had become a spiritist at some point. She had been a Christian, and I hope becoming a spiritist didn't keep her out of heaven, because I would really like to see her again. Assuming that she had really been born again, my hope is that falling into deception would not keep you out of heaven. Anyway, the Bible says do not try to communicate with the dead, and before I was born again, I attended some sort of seance with her and some of her friends, one of them who believed he was the reincarnation of the Apostle Paul. So, those kind of beliefs and practices are condemned in scripture, and I would not want to argue with anyone about it. If you don't believe anything I say scripture says, I encourage you to look it up for yourself, but we are not supposed to be messing around with things like that, practices that Christianity forbids. I think it's somewhere in Leviticus, and other places in the New Testament warn us of false prophets. You may have figured out that I am not a Bible scholar. I love the Bible, but I am not a Bible scholar by any means. I try to live by its precepts, I am filled with the Holy Spirit and I hang around with other believers who are trying to live in God's will. England, it seems, has always been pretty into things like ghosts and parapsychology and other kinds of things that the Bible really does not encourage. In fact, it is dangerous and demonic to get sucked into things like that, but don't try to tell anyone that who is drawn into that sort of thing. My mother once told me that Jesus spoke to her and challenged her by asking her why she didn't believe in him since she was so keen to believe in all sorts of other things? I am quite convinced that that was the Lord who asked her that. Later she went with me to a Women's Aglow meeting and had a real encounter with God and was changed afterwards. I know whe was saved, and she always believed in Jesus. I don't thinkJesus is happy with us when we go off into occult practices, but hopefully we don't lose our salvation over it. However, as a pastor from my past always said, "I don't want to miss heaven on a technicality." There are things that are warned against, and we should take heed to things God says to guard against, and directs us not to practice. Witchcraft, fortune-telling and the like are literally "dark sciences" and not something followers of Jesus should be taking up, but many people choose to take them up anyway. I don't know why. Well, I do know why, in a way, because it gives them the feeling of being powerful or godlike, most likely, just like Satan said if Adam and Eve ate the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil they would be "like God." God created us in his image, but he didn't want us to try to "be as gods." That's what God's enemy, Satan, wanted. Well, I know this may be too deep for some people and maybe not deep enough for other people, but I do know that God does not want us delving into those things. He wants us to follow him and listen to him and live in his truth, not in the devil's deception. Of course, it's seductive to go around in places that God forbids, that's why people like to do it. But it's idolatrous and it is ungodly and what is idolatrous and ungodly will, in the end, destroy our soul. Before I decided to follow Jesus, I was seduced by almost every kind of spirit and false religion imaginable. I mean, witchcraft, I-Ching, Zen Bhuddism, Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses, Hari Krishna, Bahai Faith and Transcendental Meditation all came after me.It's amazing. They all have some twist on the Bible. Some of them have their own Bible, some of them have various rituals they follow. One of them was the Urantia book. I was into that for a while. But none of these things were the truth. Another one that is not the truth is Unity, in Lee's Summit, Missouri.They use the Bible for prayer and devotions, but they don't really believe in the deity of Christ. They have millions of followers. I believe my late sister was into that before she died. I think that one of their beliefs is in reincarnation, so I hope somehow Jesus got hold of her before she died. I know she had some Christian friends. But none of us can save anybody, and none of us can convince anyone just by trying to convince them, and I'm not going to try to convince anyone of anything. Jesus changed my life so if you don't like me, maybe you don't like Jesus, because according to scripture, I died and it is Christ who lives in me now. God spoke to me once as a child riding a Topeka bus by a sign that had the scripture that says, "What shall it profit a man if he should gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" That's Mark 8:36, still my favorite scripture, especially since I didn't understand it that day, but it drew me in a tangible way. After I was converted I remembered that and have attributed it to God ever since, without a shadow of a doubt. It's important what you believe about God and Jesus, because if what he says is not true, nothing in the world is true. If a man is born of a virgin, is crucified, dead and buried and rises again, if he says he is God, he is, as you may have heard, either a liar, a lunatic or the Lord. I used to believe he didn't say that he was God, but he did. You will discover that if you look for it in his word. Some other time I will list some scriptures so you can look them up, but, to be honest, I think it's better to let the spirit of God draw you to himself. No one can come to Jesus unless the Father draws him. I remember first being drawn to read the Bible. Just to read it. I still think that's the best starting place. Once someone is interested in that I can help them find verses they should look up, or chapters they should read, but I think it's better to let God lead you. You want God? That's great, because he wants you. If you don't know him and you want to know him, you will find him, and you will know that He is Jesus Christ. I know that without a shadow of a doubt. Have a restful sleep, wake up refreshed and enjoy the day the Lord has made. Goodnight and Godspeed.