The Journey

Introduction

Dear Disillusioned,

Have you ever felt that this Christian life was falling short of what you see in the scriptures, have you come to the point in your walk with the Lord where something has to change, where you’ve always felt there was more, you knew it and you wanted it! No more books, no more sermons, no more empty promises. That is exactly where I found myself not so long ago, and if you will lend me your ear for a few pages, I think you will start to see a light at the end of the tunnel a light that you have been longing for and more important a light that the Lord has been longing to share with you all of your life. So join me for this wonderful trip out of the darkness and into the light, on the road to understanding and becoming who you really are in Christ! And ultimately walking in the complete Power and confidence of our Glorious Lord and Savior, Jesus the Messiah!

Over the next few pages you will be exposed to some Scriptures verses, and some thoughts and ideas that you may not have ever looked into before, or you may have never even knew they were there, either because you were never taught by your Pastor, (for whatever reason), or more likely because the both of you, as well as most of the entire Church (myself included) has been blinded by the enemy of our Souls! His plan is to keep the children of God in a state of defeat and ineffectiveness by deceiving us concerning the gifts, dominion, authority and power that was given to us in the garden and then reclaimed and bought for us at the Cross! And it goes without saying that satan has been very successful with his strategy over the last few thousand years! I myself lived most of my Christian life in this state of deception, fear and failure! It was only after years of pouring through His Word and asking God for wisdom and understanding concerning all these things, that my eyes were finally opened and the powerful light of God’s Word, so plain and clear was right there before my eye’s waiting for me to wake up and act on what His Word say’s!... Praise His Name Forever!

My friends, if even a small portion of the true body of Christ ever gets a hold of this, it would wreak havoc in the kingdom of darkness, and we would see what the scripture means when the Lord said, “the gates of Hell Shall Not Prevail against us!

Chapter 1
From Relationship to Religion to Relationship & Rejoicing!

So I am 20 plus years into this… this surrender, this wondrous treaty with God, the incredible King of all Creation, the all consuming Holy Presence that I’ve sensed and spoken to all of my conscious life. You see I had known Him and believed in Him sense I was a small child, He revealed himself to me many times but one in particular was when I was imprisoned in my bedroom by the evil warden Mom to take the dreaded nap, I was lying in bed that morning and looking out my window, I saw a big beautiful full moon in the day light, as I laid their I thought, that is just a big ball of dirt, floating around in this black stuff called space, and it’s suppose to be floating around the bigger ball of dirt that I live on, and were both floating around this huge ball of fire in this black stuff called space? Well first of all I thought, there is NO SUCH THING as Black Stuff Called Space! And there is no such thing as floating dirt balls, and just then as clear as a bell God put it in my heart that the only way there is floating dirt balls and black stuff called space is if He made it, and He let me understand very certainly that He did Make it and He made it all for us! I remember lying their letting this soak in and thinking how foolish it was for anyone to think it could have happened any other way, I mean there is no such thing as black stuff to float in! I really understood this and was in awe of God! This was BIG NEWS, so I got out of bed and ran out to tell my Mom that there is no such thing as black stuff called space unless God made it! I remember standing their thinking my Mom would start rejoicing with me over this incredible revelation and that it would change the world!, but she just made me go back to bed? You would think that if she suspected this to be just a ploy to get out of bed, that I, being only 4 years old would have at least gotten some kind of reward for coming up with this masterpiece! You got to admit this should have gotten me something, ice cream, early release for good behavior, or at least an, at a boy Greggie! Whats more amazing is that even after understanding this powerful word from God, I still never surrendered to Him till I was in my mid twenties.

Well in 1987 I was powerfully saved out in southern California several months after a childhood friend shared the simple Gospel with me. I was Born Again while I was out running one hung-over Saturday morning, and I have never looked back! (I had already been there and it wasn’t all that it was cracked up to be!)

So after 20 something years of this Journey with God, I realized I was dying inside, something was missing, I was completely disillusioned, not seeing any likeness between the believers in my Bible and the believers in my life! I had kind of drifted off into some kind of stupper, into this dead complacent Christianity, I now found myself desperately trying to do religious things to re-kindle the raging fire I had known and experienced, and then forgotten so many years earlier when I first surrendered my life to Jesus. Now all of the sudden it was like I was waking up out of some kind of fog, and I started remembering little moments of that terrifying exciting time with God when I first realized that the Spiritual realm was really true, even more true than this physical world which were imprisoned in. (for our 20 to life sentence) You see in the beginning I was willingly possessed by God and filled with His Holy Spirit!, it was all new and powerful, almost enchanting! My first few years of walking with Jesus were just me and His Word and the Holy Spirit, (I had not started going to any church yet) that honeymoon period was full of excitement and wonder, I experienced visions and revelations and powerful encounters with the Holy Spirit that would last for hours, and this was on a regular basis!

Just by the way, don't let anyone ever tell you that the so called honeymoon experience is ever suppose to end! This is an Eternal Adventure and the joy and Power and the excitment experienced during this Journey never ends whan you are walking in the dust of the Rabbi!

So with that said, approximately a year or so after I surrendered my life to Jesus I had to return to California to do some jail time in a county facility for some things I had done before becoming a believer, (I had moved to Georgia a few months earlier) I probably wouldn’t recommend this for everyone but the time I spent in jail was one of the most incredible times of spiritual growth I could ever hope for. If it wasn’t for the daily strip searches and constant concern of getting shanked by a certain Hispanic gang member that I had crossed swords with, it might of even been enjoyable! After getting out and going back to Georgia, and after visiting dozens of churches I ended up finding a little church where the youth group, (even thou I was older than all of them) kind of adopted me, I guess they thought the leathers and Harley were cool, anyhow I started attending on a regular basis, even thou I didn’t quite fit in right away (most of these folks didn’t even know anybody that had ever smoked cigarettes before, much less a pot head that had come from a life of drugs, alcohol and adult entertainment) but eventually I started doing what I saw everyone else doing, I thought that was what Christianity was,… go to church Sunday morning and evening and then again on Wednesday, and an occasional Christian concert or a revival meeting. Certainly these good people knew more about being a Christian than I did?!?,… or did they?

I learned about tithing, and not working on Sundays and someone said I shouldn’t dance or ware jewelry, others said that the women shouldn’t cut their hair or wear long pants? Other churches I visited before I settled into mine said we had to keep the Saturday Sabbath, or we weren’t saved, and still others said we shouldn’t play musical instruments and if we did we weren’t saved either? Some said we needed to light candles, pray to the saints and say 100 hail Mary’s! While others said I needed to go on a two year missionary trip and do some temple ritual? And then there were a few that I have no idea what they were saying because ah, they were ah, screaming so loud ah! (not to mention the sweating and spitting) The most amazing thing was that all these churches called themselves “Christian” and were all supposedly looking at the same book? Now I had been reading that Wonderful Book for thousands of hours and couldn’t figure out where the heck they came up with 99% of that garbage ah!

I guess the church I was going to looked a little closer to the New Testament church than some of the others… but still… NOT! And another thing I noticed, most every believer I ever met could barely afford to even live a modest lifestyle, while the New Testament 1st century church was described as “lacking nothing” and had all things in common and were able to give to the needy whenever necessary! While most of our churches were trying to support only a small handful of missionaries with money from bake sales, and car washes, it seemed the enemies faithful servants (Islamic Shake’s, & all the Buffet’s, Turner’s, Chavez’s and Heffner’s of the world) seemed to have all the money they needed and were hoarding Billions of dollars and funding all sorts of wickedness! Not to mention None of the believers I knew, or churches I went too seemed to walk in any of the Power that the New Testament believers walked in!

This should Not be so!!!

My Bible said; and these are the Miraculous signs that WILL Follow Believers! And when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, You SHALL be endowed with POWER! And that; The wealth of the wicked is laid up for the just! And; My God shall supply ALL my need’s according to HIS Riches an Glory! And…and…and! I knew it was true, I had experienced it!

Well after getting thoroughly “Churchnotized” I soon conformed to the Borg and drifted into that lukewarm fog I had mentioned. I am not sure how it happened nor when but I guess it was a combination of me just closing my eyes and starting to listen to those that taught us that these verses weren’t for us anymore, and then on top of that, I was thinking that maybe I wasn’t holy enough to earn that kind of life, or maybe I needed to repent some more or something? However it happened, the end result was, the cares of the world crept in and all those verses just went away, and faded from my mind! The devil had successfully snatched the seed away that had been planted in my heart.

The exciting powerful relationship I had with God was now completely sanitized and neutralized, then, the 20th century American Christian lifestyle,… the lifeless, powerless, monotoness, let’s just play church life kicked in, I got married and started having children and then,… it was 20 years later and I was here dyeing inside, under self imprisonment buy manmade law’s of Sunday worship and tithing as well as a bunch of other junk! By the way, we are gentiles and were never put under the law of Moses! Still there I was trying to keep law’s and living in absolute defeat, not realizing that the all powerful Glorious Savior that had radically changed my life, Jesus Christ was now made of no effect in my life!

Dear friend, please don’t do another thing until you go read the book of Galatians, read it five or six times if you need, and pray over it, this is key to what is keeping you and the church in bondage! Read it and you will see what has happened to the 21st century church! Gal 3:1-5 vs. 13-14 vs. 4:9 vs. 5:1-5