To those of you who know Him: Can you still remember the day you called out his Name? Can you remember that very first love? How excited you were to tell everyone you knew that you met Jesus?
Oh, friend, I remember! I remember meeting Him and having such a burning desire to tell everyone. Surely, everyone would want to know about this Jesus who took me from darkness to light in the blink of eye? I was wrong. Oh, how wrong I was. I lost some friends. They thought my coming to Jesus meant I would turn into an instant snitch or something and want to see them arrested for smoking pot and dropping acid. I could not make them understand that was the last thing on my mind. I just wanted to share the best thing I had ever found: Unconditional love, forgiveness and the truth I had been searching for.
I did have one friend. She had become born-again two weeks before me and had been praying for me. I hadn’t known about it. I reluctantly (thinking she would reject me) called her to tell her I was born-again. She got so excited and said, “I got saved two weeks ago and I’ve been praying for you!”
My very first sister in the Lord! Oh the family of God is a remarkable and awesome thing.
At some point, we planned on going to our first Christian concert at the church we attended at the time. I came down with the flu and could not go. I was heart sick. I wanted so badly to go. So I laid in bed with a fever feeling sorry for myself.
She went and then dropped by after the concert. She had bought me an album of the group who had been there. The following song was on the album. It takes me back to a good time. A time where my heart remembers the time of my first love. Can you remember your first love? Are you still with your first love or have you let the cares of the world take you away? I know what it is like to have gone astray from your first love. More than likely you don’t mean to do it, may not even have known it was happening. But one day you think to yourself, where did He go? Friend, He didn’t go anywhere. We get side tracked so easily, don’t we? We let things of the world sweep us away. We become involved in so many things, staying busy, and sometimes trying to do the “right” thing, that we soon look around and may ask ourselves, “Ok, where is Jesus?”
I know He never leaves us or forsakes us, so He has to be around somewhere. I can tell you where He is this very minute. He is lifting you up to the Father in prayer. He is interceeding for you to come back. He is not waiting with some bull whip in his hands to punish you. No, he is waiting patiently for you to come back and have that first love relationship again. It is not meant to be a one-time event. No. It is meant to last forever!
Oh how Jesus loves us!
mytreasure777:
Sep 06, 2011 @ 22:40:18
Welcome back, friend!
Sep 07, 2011 @ 01:46:11
I am enjoying your new blogging outlook, for sure. I do indeed, remember when I first called on His name…Feb. 15, 1978…I was 25 years old. And yes, my whole life changed. My husband got saved 3 months later….and we have not been the same since. We lost most of our friends, but God is so good to us…He blessed us with new friends! Friends who loved Jesus as much as we did. Thru the many trials and tribulations we have gone thru since coming to Him, He has never once left us to walk on our own….
Sep 07, 2011 @ 14:15:48
Cindy, February is the same month for me. February the 9th, 1976. Every year on that date, I think back where I was that night many years ago. Such a remarkable thing happened. Our God is an awesome God!
I’m very glad you like the “new blogging outlook.” Thanks for being out there, sister.
Sep 12, 2011 @ 06:00:45
RH, I do remember that blessed day! Ny “second birthday” (the day I was born again) has just passed, What the Lord God did for me that weekend actually began the day before, September 6, the very date of your blog.
I had been reading the Word of God for almost two years, sometimes more regularly than at other times. But neither my DH nor I were attending church at all. We had visited a couple of churches during that time, one service in particular was very moving, at which time we went forward and were baptized in water, but there was no real or lasting change in our lives.
That Saturday, I was busy at home as always; we had two children then, a toddler and a baby. That evening Billy Graham was on TV, and I watched the program. I had heard him speak many times throughout childhood, but somehow I really heard what he said that evening — it really penetrated my heart and soul. I realize now the Holy Spirit was giving me ears to hear and eyes to see His glorious life-changing Truth.
The very next morning, DH and I took our little ones and went to church — a church we had visited several months before when it was cold and dead. It is a miracle that we went back at all — we had no way of knowing a new preacher had come, truly anointed of God and full of the Holy Spirit, and that the church was in a perpetual revival — not special services called “revival”, but real, true, heart- and life-changing revival week after week.
That morning I could hardly bear to sit through the service, the conviction of the Holy Spirit was so heavy on my spirit and soul. When the pastor gave the invitation for people to come to the altar to prayer, I literally leapt from my seat and ran down the aisle. When I knelt to pray at the altar (a new thing for me; I’d never seen that in a church before), God met me there. He lifted that heavy, heavy load of sin off my heart and mind, and I was FREE! for the first time in my life. I knew then what Jesus meant when He said, “He whom the Son sets free is free indeed.”
I can still remember us driving home from church that day and me feeling as light as a feather inside. There are no words to describe the joy — truly indescribable and full of glory. Or the peace — truly passing all understanding. The love of God filled me and surrounded me as a cocoon.
That next week, DH had to go out of town for a week on business. I cannot explain it, but I hardly needed any sleep at all that week. I would spend the days praising and rejoicing in the Lord while taking care of the children and the house, then spend time in prayer/His Word when the children were sleeping. I would lie down each night to sleep, but would spend most of the night praying and praising, experiencing the presence of God right there with me — Emmanuel. I would get up in the early hours while the children were still sleeping and read the Word, and every word flooded my soul with such love and joy and peace, I just basked in God’s presence.
That was 36 years ago, and the Lord has been utterly faithful to me. He has truly brought me through “many dangers, toils, and snares” while filling me afresh with His Spirit, His love, His joy and peace, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year. There have been many times that His enemy has come after me with great intensity, so much so that I could not possibly have endured and overcome if the Lord Himself had not been with me and enabled me to do so. I truly praise His holy Name for all of this! I have learned this reality over and over:
God is able to do exceeding, abundantly above all we can ask or think! Ephesians 3
Glory to His Name!
Sep 23, 2011 @ 21:05:03
Claire, praise God for His wonderful ability to make all things new to us. He truly is a Redeemer.
Jan 17, 2012 @ 05:22:29
Jesus there is something about His name “Oh” taste and see that the Lord is good His mercies endures forever. I remember when I was a child going to those old time tent revivals oh what a delight to be among the saints of God singing this song. I remember the another song it goes like this..Every day with Jesus is sweeter than the day before oh yes it is.