In Pursuit of Christ

As I have been increasingly called by the Lord to become Christ-like I wanted to start my journey here. I felt documenting any blessings would act as a journal that might help inspire others to be more spiritually aware of Christ. Also I want to set goals for myself to improve this transformation process. If anyone else who is Christian would love to list their success through Christ, please share! Any positive reinforcement is welcome! May the Lord help everyone to succeed! https://wp.en.aleteia.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/09/WEB3-CROSS-SUNRISE-SUN-RAY-LIGHT-JESUS-shutterstock_366834113.jpg

August 21: God has blessed myself with a Bible study buddy. I begin a more serious pursuit of spiritual growth! First goal towards transformation--Limit curse words until I stop using them completely. "Dear Father God place a hand over my mouth, my mind, and my spirit so that I stop using profanity in my speech. Give me new words to use in place of profanity to express myself and be a better representative of you. Let me think before I speak. Let me learn to respond and not react swiftly with words that are not like you. In Jesus Name. Amen!"

Jesus on Judgement day: Thanos snap their ass https://i.ani.me/0353/1820/start_the.png

I pray you success in your journey Gabe. I can kind of relate to your stuggle with profane language, I have things I struggle with in my life that i have been trying to get better at dealing with. I need to lean more on God but alot of times i feel my pride gets the better of me.

I was reading the book of Isaiah last night and of course as I was getting off work I see someone ordered a study guide about interpreting Isaiah, haha! The signs keep pouring in. Feels good.

@hell_hound7 I experienced something rather cool today. When I went to visit my mother I had planned to speak with her about reconnecting in Christ through the scriptures of the Holy Bible. Though she's always spoken highly of Jesus Christ my mom has struggled to follow many of His teachings. She's also prone to believing in outside philosophy based in overtly fictional media such as Star Trek saying, "I feel Christ can communicate in ways outside of reading the Gospel, Prophets from scriptures, prayer and dreams." I informed my mother that I had had a dream in the past where I sat in front of a television and a person dressed in all white spoke to me saying, "Any answers from God, father of Christ, will be answered through prayer and faith, anointed messenger, or visions within dreams. Never shall it come way through earthly entertainment and media." To say the least my mom wasn't a fan of me sharing this. Yet I could tell she wasn't fully against that idea. Why I say all of this was that I forgot to bring my Bible to share what I had read in regards to receiving and interpreting the Word of our Lord. Yet when all was said we decided to take our discussion out to lunch at a nearby Italian restaurant. We had been to it once before and never encountered anything Christian about the place. That is until today when behold at the entrance of this establishment was a counter with a bright colored sign saying, "Take a free Bible to enjoy with your meal!" Talk about being direct with the messages am I right? Haha!

Thats really interesting how your encounters seem to be really in your face and obvious. I dont necessarily get such messages from God. So its kinda interesting seeing that happen to you. My messages are more of ones I gotta piece together. Idk if this is God's way of testing me. He often works through people, media, and other outlets to get the message across to me. I realize what you said about the media though, as alot of things within media is very harmful and its more about being able to weed through and discern what is biblically accurate and what is false doctrine. God isnt very direct with me at times. I often ask for help, but that help comes in the form of guiding me in a way that allows me to grow and learn as a person to be able to do it on my own. Maybe its just the way he feels is best to get through to me. Like when i learned that stealing is often punished with irl consequences. I stole something as a child and i ended up getting in trouble in a way that made it very obvious that it was meant to be a lesson. But it was round about, as i didnt get punished for stealing directly but punished through something else. I notice that theme with every sin i commit, God directly punishes me so i learn not to do them, this may be because i held strong in my faith with christ but i didnt exactly know his word i was very much raised in the way of the world and he was guiding me away from that. Also when i reflect on my past life experiences i can see God's hand in everything. Like God didnt want me to be a film editor, he dodnt want me to go to full sail university where tuition is 70k. He knew i would struggle and it wouldnt benefit him or me in anyway. Where did i learn this? I found it increasingly hard to continue on that path. Forst my tuition money was tolen, then i had trouble enrolling, then someone on here told me they go to full sail and it was the worst decision they made, then someone else aaid the degree here is useles. I ignored all these signs stubborn in my ways but my mom signed me up for another college without me knowing and its what saved me from that bad decision. But god wasnt done with me, he knew i would atill pursue film editing. He took away my ability to continue school as I lost my FAFSA. He then led me to the military as i got a letter in the mail saying i was eligible for draft. Through the military i was able to grow as a person, as a leader, woth more confidence in speaking before i wouldnt leave my house as i was scared of the world. He did all this for me, but it wasnt obvious until after reflection I noticed.

In this age where Pastors are alarmed to find many of their flock choosing Trump over Christ, it's refreshing to see someone who aspires to Christ rather than idolizes him. You have my support. So here's a tip from someone who has brushed against divinity a few times from a non-secular perspective. I'll translate the occult jargon this time because I think you might find this one useful. Encounters with beings of heaven, such as angels or the holy spirit, can happen on any layer of existence, mental, physical, or spiritual. This unfortunately is often muddied by both supernatural and mundane fraudulence. But luckily the authentic encounters can be parsed apart from them if you know the telltale sign to look for. It's difficult to describe, but easy to identify. If you know it, you know it. That is; A PROFOUND SENSE of CLARITY and PEACE, found residually in the site where the encounter happened, and the people it happened to. Oftentimes, you don't even need to be a medium to pick up on it. It's something beings not of Spirit, or people who have never truly encountered it just can't possibly replicate. If you ever encounter it, do not give into astonishment or fear, as you will swiftly loose it. It is what it is. I hope that helps. Time to return back to my side of the fence. *Meanwhile on my side of the fence* https://cdn.forums.klei.com/monthly_2022_07/terriblegif.gif.866d62ac2fc6146f0b82bb7699e3608d.gif

^ Above statement is so true, especially about feeling a sense of peace when it's God/the Holy Spirit talking to you. I don't care if anyone here doesn't believe what I'm saying, for they don't know my experiences ^-^. But since I was small I have been... tormented? Irritated by evil spirits-specifically familiar spirits and since being small I learned and knew how to differentiate between those spirits trying to sound like God/the Holy Spirit and between when God truly does speak to me. If you two Gab and @hell_hound7 (and any other believer that might be here) ever encounter a situation like that. Well, just remember 1 John 4:1, Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world. Just test the spirit by the spirit and God will hear you and show you if it's really Him. Sorry for the speech >w<