Answer His Call

Being someone who ran from the Lord for about 6 years, I can honestly say that I am grateful that he spared my life and I just ended up in the hospital for over a week. Here are some very different stories of others who weren't as fortunate as I. These are true stories.

Today our evangelist preached on heeding to the Spirit of God. If you feel that the Lord is drawing you, you shouldn't hesitate and respond to that call. Here are a few different stories about different people and in different walks of life.

During one service a man came to the alter and cried out, begging the Lord to touch him. He was there for about 5 minutes and got up from the alter. He stated that the Lord will never listen to him and out the door he went. He peeled out speeding out of the driveway. The pastor went after him just to find him around the curve, where he crashed into a tree. He was dead. Maybe the Lord had called him before and he never responded. Worse, maybe he blasphemed the Holy Ghost which is the only unforgivable sin.

My pastor told us of a story about a really nice man who loved God's people. He came to church, cleaned the church, paid his tithes and did all that he could to love those around him and even love the Lord. However, he never had a relationship with God. Never came to the alter. He never would draw close to the Lord, but he was a great man. One day they drove by his place and saw that he was outside working. He was sitting down and Sis Holley approached him. He had died there, probably never knowing God.

Being a nice person will not save you. Yes, kindness is a gift from the Lord. He created us to be this way. However, kindness and salvation are entirely different.

Then there was a man who was prayed for all the time. He had been invited to church on several occasions. One day he spoke up in arrogance and knowing that there was no service on Friday, said "I will be at church on Friday!" He was arrogant and crude in the way that he said it, almost as if to mock. He was at church that Friday alright, in a coffin.

And my story in short form:

I had repented for past faults in my life and felt the Lord for the first time when I was almost 17. A couple years later I was even slain in the Spirit at a church. The Lord had been drawing me to serve Him, but with things in my life and sin, I just kept running from Him. It wasn't until six years later when I was 23 that my running brought a spirit of fear and me to my knees. It landed me in the psychiatric ward for 9 days. My running was over and I called out to the Lord. I asked Him what I should do, forsaking all I knew about religion and growing up in the Catholic church.

Forsaking all I knew by family and those around me and what they believed. Even forsaking my own beliefs and thoughts, I decided to ask the Lord to show me what to do and that is when he opened the Book of Acts up to me and revealed His perfect plan of salvation. This is hid from so many people.

Yes obedience is great and we should obey the Word. However, we should also desire a relationship with the Lord as well. No relationship can last without that communication, that bond, that friendship and love.

This picture is me right after I started running from God - I was 17.