Diligence in Searching For Pure Gold Rewarded

How Tempted Like Me Has Delivered Me

As I was reflecting upon the mountain and valley experiences of the current year soon to end, I considered how I might rise from my twelve months of floundering in despondency. There was one thing I did learn from my near fatal experience of a little more than a year ago…I was dangerously at risk of eternal spiritual consequences. By this time, my mind had begun to respond to the quiet plea to “turn—return to the only place of safety and eternal hope.” I sensed that the message was told me in love, that the urgency was real. And I had already made a covenant to find tools to learn to overcome and be restored to my first love. The race was on. Here are some of the providential gifts the Lord used to quicken my heart.

The plea that I had been gently but firmly admonished to heed pointed me to the state of my case by saying, “You are ‘dead in trespasses and sins’.” The enemy of my soul had arrayed before me my mistakes and tempted me to distrust God, to question His love all with the intention to discourage my soul and cause me to break my hold on Him. When I reached the part in the book I'll mention below about the condition of men outside of Jesus, especially in the revised copy, I knew God sent that as a gift to me.

My sin was clearly pointed out to me and made the message of mercy and entreaty a matter of serious warning. I was told that I would have my place in the second death for nurturing the sin of being fearful and unbelieving, (see Revelation 21:8). This was proof that I must come face to face with the REAL gospel of Christ in this new year. But where was I to find the tools I needed to begin again? (Continued...)