In 1983 after I gave my life to Jesus. I had a lot of ups and downs in my relationship with God. I struggled in some areas that I knew were wrong but I was unable to change. I was filled with guilt which kept me from a relationship with God.
Every time I would try to pray the guilt would rise up and a voice would say to me “your not good enough to have God the Father love you.”
I wanted so bad to know God but I had a choice to make. I could listen to that voice and run from God, or run to Him and seek Him until I found Him.
Early in 1986 I ran into that struggle again and fell into the same pattern of sin that seemed to chew me up and spit me out like a meat grinder. This time I was afraid. I thought after God has done so much in my life how could I do such things?
I went to a friend and explained my struggle to him. He shared with me that the real sin was not when I messed up but when I decided not to start my day with prayer it opened the door to my natural tendency which of course is to sin.
But my friend had some more advice. He suggested I had no idea what my sins really do to the Lord. He went on to say I should spend hours on my knees begging the Lord to show me what my sins do to Him. I was not excited about this advice and tried to put it out of my mind. I did what I was good at which was to ignored him because I thought that is just too hard.
I felt haunted by what he said and finally on Good Friday in 1986 I ran out of excuses and decided to give it a try. The company I worked for was closed for the day. They had been renovating a whole floor of their building. There were empty offices on that floor so I went into one of them and put a cross on the wall. With nothing in the room but me, my Bible, a pad of paper and my coffee I started to pray.
I was really trying hard; the key word here was “trying”. I went for about an hour and a half and was ready to give up thinking this is not getting me anywhere. But I remembered what my friend said to me. “You need to spend hours on your knees and beg the Lord to show you”. So I hung in there and something happened after 2 hours.
God started to speak to me. I began to remember sins I had committed since I was a little kid (even those I had completely forgotten). They were coming to me in an orderly time line so I wrote them down. But that was just the beginning. As I was remembering the sins and writing them down I had a vision. I could see as if it was really happening right in front of me.
I saw Jesus and then I could see myself holding the whip and using it to whip Jesus with it. I recognized the sins patterns that were causing me to do this were disobedience, laziness, and deceitfulness. But as I watched Jesus looked at me with such pain and said John, I love you, why are you doing this to me?
Then I saw Jesus again and this time I was pushing a crown of thorns onto his head. I could see the thorns piercing His skin and the Blood at each point were the thorns went in. I knew the sin patterns that were causing me to do this were pride, self preservation, selfishness and not allowing the Lord to be the Lord of my life. Again Jesus turned, looked at me and said John; I love you, why are you doing this to me.
Then the hardest part came. I saw Jesus lay down on top of the cross which was on the ground. I was the one holding the hammer and nails. I had the nails in one hand and the hammer in the other. I started with His left hand to hammer the nail through his hand and into the cross. Then I nailed His right hand to the cross. He was in agonizing pain. I moved to His feet and this nail was much longer as I hammered it through both of his feet and into the cross. I could see the patterns of sin that were causing this as pure rebellion. Jesus turned to me weeping and said John, I love you, why are you doing this to me.
I didn’t realize it but I was crying uncontrollably as I watched the cross being lifted up and dropped into the hole. I watched as Jesus kept looking at me with so much pain in his eyes I could not bear it. Then I saw Him die.
I had been writing down these sins that I remembered and it took sheets of paper. I cried out Jesus I am so sorry. I put the sheets of paper with all these sins I had written down, on the floor in front of the cross and cried, I was balling like a baby. I said Lord I see now what my sins do to You. I don’t want to do this to You anymore. I am so very sorry.
Stay tuned for the rest of the story!!
John
John
No comments:
Post a Comment