Writing this post on Christmas Eve is very fitting. Christmas Eve is my late dad's birthday and he was the one who gave me the FREE Christian book from www.bjnewlife.org that literally saved my life!

From as far back as I can remember my dad and mum had taken me and my siblings to church every weekend. At home too we read the Bible frequently.
I remember vividly as a child, how petrified I was about the things written in the Book of Revelation! There were some sentences that were etched in my mind like, how people would be saying "to the mountains and rocks, 'Fall on us and hide us from the face of Him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! For the great day of His wrath has come, and who is able to stand'?"
In fact it is no exaggeration to say that whenever there was lightening and thundering or stormy weather, I thought it was the end of the world and the fear I felt was very real when I was a child and even as an adult! Doubtless to say, the fear of God was instilled in me and nothing could take it away.
(Proverbs 9:10)

Attending church as a teenager had another added burden. I felt like I was different from everyone else in my church. They all seemed Holy and good. But I knew that I definitely was not! I did try to be good, trying to keep the 10 commandments and saying prayers etc. But I constantly failed. The "feel good factor" I got when I felt that I had been good, disappeared quickly as soon as I had bad thoughts again or even as soon as I had left the church building! Eventually, I actually despised going to church! I wished I could be a good person like how everyone else in the church seemed to be. I thought that I was a really bad person compared to them. And the sins in my conscience weighed heavy on my heart. I wished I was of an age when I could choose not to go to church anymore! It was such a burden. I was ashamed and  felt like a hypocrite when I was at church. I didn't see the point in going. Church was just for good, decent people, not people like me who did so many wrong things and had so many bad thoughts! It was torture! I couldn't wait to be old enough so that I could stop going.

That's exactly what happened. So I should have been happy but I wasn't. I thought it would simply be a matter of quitting going to church and everything would be better. But the guilt I felt before God for not only my sins and still breaking His 10 commandments but now, added to that, was the fact that I'd left the church! This was as bad as, if not worse! At least when I was still going to church I felt like I was doing something good, and I had had a sense of belonging. I'd felt somewhat safe and at the very least i felt I was a bit better than the kind of people who never went to church! But instead it was an awful feeling! I wanted to run away from my guilt and fear but there was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. Now I had become one of those people who didn’t even go to church! But I didn't fit in with them, just like I didn't fit in with the people in the church! I felt like a misfit! I wanted so much to just blend in with the worldly people, but instead I was awkward. Actually, I'd always felt awkward, at school, church and now, in the world! I tried to push all my awkward feelings and my guilty conscience before God deep down inside me, trying to cover them up with smoking, drinking, making friends, having relationships, going to nightclubs and being "normal" like everyone else! These things did help to some degree. However, it wasn't enough! When I was alone, my thoughts would always wander back to God, church, guilt and my dreaded fear of dying and being sent to hell for my sins. Whenever the weather was bad, my fear of God was as strong as it had always been, if not more! I was stuck in 'no man's land'! Going to church hadn't helped me with my sins, and leaving the church hadn't helped me to stop thinking of my sins and the punishment of hell for them! (Rom 6:23)

The years rolled by. I remember distinctly that one day when I was too weary, I had had a conversation with God. At the end of it, I was resigned to the fact that all I could do was just hope that He had heard and understood me. I'd explained to God, saying, "I do love You God, and I do believe in You too. But no matter how hard I try, I just can't keep Your commandments. And I have said so many repentance prayers, but sometimes I can't even remember what sins I've committed! And as for bad thoughts, I can't control having them! I'm really sorry God. And I don't know what to do or what I can do. But God, I really, really don't want to go to hell! But I know I will, and that's why I'm so scared of dying! God, PLEASE, please understand that I really have tried to obey You. I hope You will take pity on me and let me go to Heaven please. I can't do anything. I'm at Your mercy God. That's it, that's all I can say. I'm really Sorry."

Fast forward a couple of decades. I've adapted to living in the world now. I fit in much better. I've got two daughters too. But I'm ill. In fact I've got a lifelong condition that has been really difficult and has had me in and out of hospital continually! Unexpectedly, I've been told I need to have an operation! My fear of dying came rushing back to me! Death seemed way too close for comfort all of a sudden! But wait a minute! Never mind me ... what about my girls!!! I was gripped with fear, and, anger! This was not how my life should have been! This was not supposed to happen to me! Panic set in. I had no answers! No plans. What will happen to my girls if I die? In fact, if I die and go to hell, then so will my girls because I don't have any answers for them about God! I was stuck. I didn't know what to do. I remember I couldn't even genuinely pray because there was a part of me that I think was actually mad at God, plus I felt too guilty to pray to Him because I hadn't prayed in years! So how could I pray now just because I think I might not wake up from the operation? I didn't want to be a hypocrite.
So, pathetically, I put pen to paper and wrote a letter to my girls. But the reality was that there was nothing of any substance or value in my letter. Aside from all the emotions and apologies I'd written to them, the best I could tell them, was that if I died, they must only listen to one person's advice in this world, and that was my dad's. I said this because although my relationship with my dad had been extremely turbulent over the years (due to me wanting to leave home and live my life my way), I knew without a shadow of a doubt that my dad was the closest person to God in my eyes. He proper believed in  and revered God. That much I knew undoubtedly. And therefore, he was the only person I knew could steer my girls in the right way.

Fast forward to the day before my operation. My dad had sent my brother to the hospital to give me a book to read. When I was told the book was about God, I reacted so terrible and angrily! I was swearing saying I didn't want the book, that I knew everything about God already, so why would I need to read that book?!! I was so angry! I can't really even explain my outburst! But it was very extreme! I sent my brother away and the book with him! I think I didn't want reminding of God because I thought I had pushed all that part of my life deep down inside, out of sight. I certainly didn't want all that bringing back up now, to be reminded of my guilt, fear and hell with no resolve!! So I was angry that I'd been forced to see it all again up close and personal like this, by my dad sending my brother to me with a book about God! Besides, since when did my dad start reading books about God? He only ever read the Bible and likewise taught us to, too!
The next day, I had my operation.

I remember when I came round from the anaesthetic from my operation, I was SO shocked that I'd survived! I had been convinced that I wouldn't make it. I vividly recall saying to the doctors, "Ohhh!! Did I make it??!!" I was so relieved, so thankful!
That evening, my dad sent my brother to me again with the same pink book. This time, I calmly took the book. Later that same night, all I remember was that I could hardly see the words for the tears welling up in my eyes! I didn't need anyone to tell me, I KNEW right then and there, all alone in my hospital bed, that in the pages of this pink book, I had met the true God, the most loving, kind, merciful God Almighty and Saviour!! I believed that He had indeed taken away and forgiven me for all my sins and had blotted them all out as white as snow. I felt a peace in my heart that I had never felt before! I felt relief, thanksgiving and  new and real hope! My lifelong fear of God, fear of dying because I would end up in hell for my sins had been replaced with perfect love, the true love of God for me, my girls, my dad, for every human being!! Oh wow! This is the True God and His true salvation; the gospel of the water and the Spirit! Hallelujah! (John 3:5). 

Looking back, I don't actually remember taking everything in that I had read in the book. I don't remember the details explained in the Book about Jesus' baptism from John the Baptist (Matt 3:15). All the details of the beautiful gospel of the water and the Spirit came in time through reading the FREE Christian books one after the other. That's when I came to have a clear understanding of how precisely John the Baptist had passed all our sins onto Jesus through the laying on of hands baptism he performed in the Jordan River and how that was the reason why Jesus then had to be crucified to pay the wages of those sins of ours and be resurrected three days later. I know now that it certainly is not a matter of intelligence or one's own studious knowledge that a person comes to believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit. Rather, it is God Himself who opens our understanding and blesses us with the faith to believe in it from our hearts and be saved. For all this and more, I am eternally grateful to God. If He had not met me when He did with the gospel of the water and the Spirit I dread to think what would have become of me in this world, and I certainly would have been sent to hell in the next world! 

Words cannot describe how it feels to have been made into God's own sinless child, to have received the gift of the Holy Spirit who bears witness to the truth of the water and the blood of Jesus in my heart and also gives me 100% conviction that all my past, present and future sins have been blotted out as white as snow by the water and blood of Jesus Christ, receiving eternal life and the ability to enter Heaven by this perfect faith. (1John 5:6-8)

So, by God's grace, I live to share the beautiful gospel of the water and the Spirit by faith, to everyone, with a most thankful heart ❤ 

Now, because of God's perfect love manifested in His gospel of the water and the Spirit, these words have been fulfilled in my heart and I no longer fear dying or fear being sent to hell because I have no sins anymore, I am sinless!. 

I can never thank God, Jesus,  enough!

"There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love"
(1John 4:18)