Naba-man: My Christian Testimony Though my initial salvation experience was dramatic, indelible, and life-transforming (and it took place way back in 1979 when I was a young man just several months removed from living with my parents) my subsequent walk before the Lord as a new creation was often interrupted by just as dramatic, indelible, and life-transforming failures, lapses of faith, and fidelity problems. A genetic stream of alcoholism coursed my veins when the remedy, that pure stream of Christ's blood, also began to course my circuits; today the stream is clarified and its healing virtue has secured the victory. But before mercy triumphed over judgment, this body of death, which often overwhelmed me and dictated to me the horrors associated with its alcoholic nature, won many battles. The command to mortify the deeds of my flesh by the power of the Holy Spirit was not something I could easily do; drunkenness and debauchery, and followed hard by adulteries, greed, theft, and other sins, dominated me intermittently and sporadically throughout the early years of my Christian experience. I would binge, black out, and remain drunk for weeks and sometimes as long as a month straight; then I would repent, God would graciously take me back, and I would serve Him with vigor and sincerity for another season. In spite of my inconsistency, God fought loyally and vigorously for my soul, and I longed to develop and mature, to be faithful, stable, and established. One day, amidst the fog of my existence, God graciously dropped a promise from the book of Hosea into my spirit (and then it grew); He spoke of healing "faithlessness," in the Amplified Version of the Bible, of "backsliding" in the King James Version, and "apostasy" in the New American Standard Bible; and each version ended their respective verse by stating that He would love me freely and turn His anger away from me (Hosea 14:4). Though I loved God more than anything, I never had the power to remain utterly faithful until one day when He promised me by His Spirit that a miracle had been wrought within my soul. Not but 5 or 6 years ago, then in my mid-forties, did His promise to me manifest and remain; He had healed my faithlessness (those backslidings and apostasies). Alcohol faded into the background and He distinctly told me that I would never fall away again. It has proven true and solid since then, but I am humbled by my performance because I know that only He wrought this steadfastness in me (and that I can take no credit for the faithfulness I now walk in). Because He is the God of resurrection, death already has no sting with Him; though I am the chief of all sinners, and every outward sign had been one of abject failure, I overcame and won the entire victory (regardless of what many brothers and sisters in Christ thought and still think of me and my Christianity). Almighty God never loses anything placed into His hands, and even though I failed to do many things right in this lifetime, one thing I did do right was to allow the placing of my life into those scarred, gentle, and secure hands. Only because God never loses or fails, I never lose or fail (ultimately). |
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