My 1GOD Testimony

 

Like most people who were not raised in a churched family, I was clueless about the Bible, although I believed in God from childhood.

Not all ONES are created equal. -religiously speaking.

The Lord was drawing me in my late 20's and when a trauma event happened to me, I realized how messed up my life was and I reached out in prayer with all my heart to call upon Jesus, not really knowing if He would answer. 

In the months that followed, I was drawn to read the Bible and suddenly it seemed, I wanted to go to church.  So I called my mother to go with her to her sleepy little Baptist church and I began to attend faithfully.

I remember my Baptist "new convert" class. Another lady and myself sat there while the pastor explained the trinity doctrine to us and said "do you understand?" God is three persons.

We both nodded in ignorance.

2 years later I was introduced to the "Oneness" version and swallowed it hook, line, and sinker. Becoming an advocate for it and I was reading scripture for myself.
"One God and He is Jesus."
I learned our view thoroughly and became a hard-nosed militant Pharisee in the process.

Knowing about God, knowing theology, and knowing religious observances can never take the place of knowing the Lord, and will often become a substitute for knowing God. This can be a lifelong process and God may reveal things to us that our church experience cannot.

So from trinitarian Baptist to Oneness (aka Modalist) Pentecostal/ non-denominational for 35 years. I was the guy that put tracts on the cars in other church parking lots, debated all comers. Zealous. Acts 2:38 or hell.
I followed the pulpit and the theology books and passing the District Board,  was ordained and on the path to the <professional> Ministry.

30+ years went by...we transitioned into a non-denominational, watered-down, luke warm assembly. Doctrine was not important.
But I still held to my Oneness theology, just not as dogmatic as before.

THE QUESTION:
Then one day a friend who had gone to a UPC church in Modesto, and read the Bible, asked me about John 20:17,    "does Jesus have a God?"

It was a stunning question and the moment that grabbed my attention.
I started looking at the scriptures and there were 14 places referenced for Jesus and "MY GOD".
How could this be!!??

𝐒𝐮𝐝𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐥𝐲 𝐈 𝐤𝐧𝐞𝐰 𝐈 𝐝𝐢𝐝 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐤𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐈 𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐈 𝐤𝐧𝐞𝐰.
"Touch Me not, for I am not yet ascended to My Father; but go to My brethren and say to them,
‘𝑰 𝒂𝒔𝒄𝒆𝒏𝒅 𝒕𝒐 𝑴𝒚 𝑭𝒂𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒚𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝑭𝒂𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓, 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒕𝒐 𝑴𝒚 𝑮𝒐𝒅 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒚𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝑮𝒐𝒅.’

The Lord began pointing out to me many many scriptures I had not seen with seeing eyes.
One example was in Acts 2:34-35
 "𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑳𝑶𝑹𝑫 𝒔𝒂𝒊𝒅 𝒕𝒐 𝒎𝒚 𝒍𝒐𝒓𝒅...", which had always bothered me 𝗯𝘂𝘁 𝗜 𝗶𝗴𝗻𝗼𝗿𝗲𝗱 𝗶𝘁.
-that did not fit my theology.

As I pondered Jesus as a man, wrestling with my former thinking "Jesus is God!", I wanted Jesus to be God.
But as I began to see the man Jesus Christ from the gospels in a personal way, like the people that knew him and heard him did, the man I thought was GOD was a man. I wanted Jesus to be GOD.

The assumptions, conflicts and "what about???" were many.

How the Lord led me.
He made me think to do a Bible search for the words "I SAW" and see what the prophets saw IN HEAVEN and the throne. They said  "and I saw". I remembered Daniel 7, Ezekiel 1, Isaiah 6 and others, but now I wanted to look close and use some imagination to visualize what they saw.

Reading every one of those passages with a desire to "see" what they "saw", I found they all saw the Father, translated variously as "the LORD".  "Yahweh. aka Jehovah. "GOD ALMIGHTY". "LORD GOD" "HaShem".. depending on translations whiich I searched through to compare.

But there was no doubt, HE is ONE GOD alone.

The seers:
Moses, Isaiah, Daniel, Ezekiel, Macaiah, John, Stephen. They all saw YeHoVaH GOD. Of whom it is written: The Father. GOD alone. "I AM HE". "I AM GOD". "ME". The jealous GOD.

The seers, prophets,  all saw One. The Creator. Glorious.
"He" was not the "son of God" and none saw Jesus with HIM.

𝐁𝐮𝐭 "𝐖𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐀𝐁𝐎𝐔𝐓???  -you know the verses, I knew them too.
Even though I had been a Bible reader, and taught ACTS for many years,
𝐈 𝐡𝐚𝐝 𝐧𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐬𝐭𝐮𝐝𝐢𝐞𝐝 this 𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐢𝐦𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐩𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐭 and
The Lord directed me to focus on Jesus 𝐚𝐬 𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐚𝐬 *𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐝* 𝐛𝐲 𝐇𝐢𝐬 𝐝𝐢𝐬𝐜𝐢𝐩𝐥𝐞𝐬, 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐁𝐨𝐨𝐤 𝐨𝐟 𝐀𝐜𝐭𝐬.
HOW SIMPLE!!
Just read WHAT THEY PREACHED!

Boom.
 Jesus is THE MAIN subject of the preaching of the gospel after Jesus had departed to the Father!

How in the name of remnant Christianity could we have missed THAT?
𝐓𝐡𝐨𝐬𝐞 𝐦𝐞𝐧 𝐝𝐢𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐣𝐨𝐛 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐩𝐞𝐨𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐰𝐡𝐨 𝐉𝐞𝐬𝐮𝐬 𝐢𝐬!

I had NEVER heard anyone approach Acts to see what the preachers told the Jews, pagans, Samaritans, Greeks, Kings, High Priest and Sanhedrin who Jesus is.

So I compiled their "sermons" the major ones and the minor ones, and even where Jesus answered Saul's question "WHO ARE YOU LORD?"
When I read and re-read their words,
I saw who Jesus is. It was The simple Truth as *they* preached Jesus in Acts.

The revelation that Peter received in Mat. 16:"18 was now mine.
It was there all the time but veiled.
Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God".

So they preached Jesus Christ according to the "great commission" as:
"𝒂 𝒎𝒂𝒏 𝒂𝒑𝒑𝒓𝒐𝒗𝒆𝒅 𝒐𝒇 𝑮𝒐𝒅" Acts 2:22,

- forgiveness of sins through that man. Acts 13:38.
- The man that died and who GOD raised from the dead.
- The man by whom God would judge the world. Acts 17:31
- "This same Jesus is whom they crucified, God has made both Lord and Christ".

THEY SAID THOSE things 𝐛𝐮𝐭 *𝐧𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫* 𝐬𝐚𝐢𝐝 𝐚 𝐩𝐞𝐞𝐩 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐚 𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐲, "deity of Christ", 𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐚 "𝐉𝐞𝐬𝐮𝐬 𝐢𝐬 𝐆𝐨𝐝"..
and once again we realized we were taught wrong by the churched majority.
We searched the scriptures and began to repent.
👉𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑮𝒐𝒅 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝑭𝒂𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝒐𝒇 𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝑳𝒐𝒓𝒅 𝑱𝒆𝒔𝒖𝒔 𝑪𝒉𝒓𝒊𝒔𝒕, 𝒘𝒉𝒐 𝒊𝒔 𝒃𝒍𝒆𝒔𝒔𝒆𝒅 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒎𝒐𝒓𝒆, 𝒌𝒏𝒐𝒘𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝑰 𝒍𝒊𝒆 𝒏𝒐𝒕.
2Cor 11:31
.. and one by one, all the "WHAT ABOUTS'S!!??" were cleared up.

But there was a new dilemma. 
I did not know a single person that believed what I was seeing in scripture.
Later, God would bring them into my life.....