From Atheist to Anointed
I was an atheist for 41 years. In practical terms, this means that I was the center of my universe, and I made the rules and made people follow those rules using money and the thought of being left out. I was a part of the evil in this world.
The Setup
I was spending all my time working to make more money and get to the top — to make a great name for myself. Little did I know this was the oldest setup in history, and I had fallen for it, just like Babylon.
After getting everything I thought I ever wanted, I could not stand to be in the same room with myself. What an overwhelming feeling this becomes — trying to hide yourself from yourself through any means possible. This meant I could never stay around a group of people too long, because they would begin to see through me and want to know me for real. I could not allow this to happen.
A Federal Bed and a Bedtime Prayer
This eventually led me to a federal prison bed for wire fraud — in a company where I was the sole inventor of the patent and had a controlling interest. It wasn’t until God allowed me to get everything and lose everything that I would surrender.
I only knew a piece of the Lord’s prayer that my mother had taught me at bedtime, but I continued to say it repeatedly, crying and sweating for over 12 hours. So on August 15th, 2016, at around 3 AM, I said out loud:
Jesus came into me, stopped all the crying and sweating, and calmed me down. I had no new answers, but all my questions were gone.
Repentance, Letter by Letter
I began writing in notebooks to everyone I could think of that I had hurt — trying to sort out the lies from the truth I believed. This went on for weeks, and I started sending letters to anyone I had an address for. It was like I was throwing up lies, and the more I wrote them down, the more precise the truth became. The more I asked for forgiveness from people, the more the Lord pulled me to Him, and I wanted to know Him even more.
This repentance gave way to study so I could begin to trust the Word of God. After around two years of study, the authority of the Bible started to take over my heart and mind, and I knew that God placed a hunger in me to know Him through His word.
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.”
I still hunger for His word, and that has led me here. I do not see the hunger in many people, and it is clear that the evil I was rules this world around us — but why should it? When Jesus has already defeated death. Do we not believe it? Do we not trust God?
Why Does God Allow Pain?
Do you wonder, “Why is there evil and pain in this world, if we serve a good God who is all-knowing and all-powerful? Why would God allow the things He does to happen in this world?”
Since I started as an atheist, this is one of the top-ten arguments for why God can’t exist. I will show that pain is the very reason He has to exist — and how merciful He is through all our pain.
Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; 4 Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God. 5 For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ. 6 And whether we be afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation, which is effectual in the enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer: or whether we be comforted, it is for your consolation and salvation. 7 And our hope of you is steadfast, knowing, that as ye are partakers of the sufferings, so shall ye be also of the consolation.
The Holy Bible: King James Version, Electronic Edition of the 1900 Authorized Version. Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 2009.Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. 5 For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. 6 If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer. 7 Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort.
A Real-World Example: Gabby
I was introduced to this little girl through Ravi Zacharias in his book The End of Reason, a response to the New Atheist position.
Some time ago, I read an article about a three-year-old girl in Elk River, Minnesota, who suffers from a rare malady that involves insensitivity to pain. It is called CIPA — Congenital Insensitivity to Pain with Anhidrosis. People with the disease feel no pain, nor do they sweat or shed tears. There are only approximately one hundred known cases in the world.
Little Gabby Gingras has to be watched over constantly. At four months of age, her parents noticed that she would bite her own fingers till they bled, with no expression of discomfort. When she was two years old, she had to have her teeth removed to prevent her from biting herself and causing serious injury. She could put her hand on a hot plate and burn herself without feeling a twinge of pain. She always has to wear safety glasses because in one instance she scratched her cornea badly. She plays sports with absolute fearlessness, never hesitant about banging into anything. She says she sometimes feels like crying, but she can’t. The life of this little one is in perpetual danger. The average life span for a child with this malady is twenty-five years.
The parents of children with CIPA have one prayer — that their child would feel pain.
If it is possible in our finite world with our limited knowledge to be able to appreciate just one benefit of pain, is it not possible that God has designed this awareness within us to remind us of what is good for us and what is destructive?
Once you know that even our pain is for our good, then you can know that God exists. Then we can move on to who Christ is — so that you can become a Christian. An Anointed One. Which is what Christ means: Anointed One.
Bethel — Where Heaven and Earth Meet
Why is being anointed important? Because to be anointed is to be the place where heaven and earth meet — like when Jacob pours oil on the rock in Genesis 28: “Surely the LORD is in this place, and I knew it not.”
And Jacob awaked out of his sleep, and he said, Surely the LORD is in this place; and I knew it not. 17 And he was afraid, and said, How dreadful is this place! this is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven. 18 And Jacob rose up early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put for his pillows, and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil upon the top of it. 19 And he called the name of that place Beth-el: but the name of that city was called Luz at the first.
16 Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, “Surely the LORD is in this place, and I did not know it.” 17 And he was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.” 18 So early in the morning Jacob took the stone that he had put under his head and set it up for a pillar and poured oil on the top of it. 19 He called the name of that place Bethel.
So for everyone who is a Christian today — you are the gate of heaven, the temple of God, where Heaven and Earth meet. You are anointed, if you are indeed a Christian. Your prayers are to bring heaven to earth, or as the Lord says it, “it be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
Anything you do that you do not do for Christ does not matter. We have a reason to do everything for the Kingdom of Heaven, and stop pretending that anything else matters. Since pain exists as our mercy and guidance, then God exists, sent His Son, who has anointed us with His Holy Spirit, to spread His Kingdom.
So why does evil still exist when we have the power of God?
Because we use our free will for temporary, earthly moments — moments that will burn up, that are rusting and getting older as we sit here.
A Word from the Dust
But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground. 7 And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
The Hebrew Beneath the Words
Mist — AD (pronounced ed)
Man — Adam (human)
Ground — Adamah
From the same root, the next chapters give us:
And he said, What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground.
Blood — Dam
Mist, man, ground, blood — one root, one story. The dust He shaped, the breath He gave, the blood that cries from the ground, and the Blood that answers it from the cross. Pain is the mercy that wakes us. Christ is the Anointed who saves us. And we — if we will — are the place where Heaven touches earth.
Pinson, Tennessee • ps-church.com
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