How God revealed Himself to me

What I am about to share with you is still amazing grace to me.  As I told you before, I was in such a depressed state that I was ready to give up on Christianity. To me it was just a religion without any meaning for me personally.  I wanted to know God.  If He was alive I wanted Him to reveal Himself to me. I knew from Sunday school that God was three persons, one God.  There was the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, but He always felt so far away.

 Three weeks after I cried out to God  in our back yard, my husband and I were invited to take our church youth group to hear a Campus Crusade speaker, Buddy Chase. I will never forget that afternoon.  For the first time in  my life I heard the gospel of Jesus Christ.  I had always believed that Jesus was God, was crucified and rose again , but I never knew how all this related to me.  I knew that I wasn't perfect, but I didn't know that I sinned because I was a sinner. The whole idea that I was created in love in the mind of God before the foundation of the world was amazing to me. God loved me a sinner?  He has always loved me  He saw me in Adam when he sinned and withdrew His spirit from him.

Centuries later, when I was born into this life, I was conceived in sin in my mother's womb, I was born a sinner, separated from the love of God that first thought of me.  I had no idea what a sinner I was.  I had tried to live a good moral life.  I went to church. I believed there was a God, I lived in a Christian Nation.  I thought I was a Christian, right?  WRONG. How could a Holy God have fellowship with me a sinner.  Buddy went on to say that "the sinner must die".  Die, what was he talking about?  I didn't want to die.  What he meant was that when Jesus died, I died, when Jesus was buried, I was buried when Jesus rose from the grave I rose in Him from the dead and by faith I was born again to a newness of life. Jesus was alive and He had breathed back into my spirit, eternal life.  The Holy Spirit was given to me and my eyes were opened to the Word of God.  At the cross, what I lost in Adam I gained in Christ. I repented of my sin in Adam as a sinner and received God's forgiveness.  I was filled with the Holy Spirit.  I haven't been the same since.   

Now I don't want to give me the wrong impression.  By no means do I believe in sinless perfection.I still sin but the good news is I now know that I am forgiven and the Lord sees me "justified as if "I never had sinned.  My sin , past, present and future, has been dealt with in Jesus Christ on the cross. I was a new creation in Christ. For the first time the bible was open to me.  I met the Holy Spirit in the pages of Scripture.  I was reading John 14-16 and it was as if Jesus Himself was speaking to me.  Jesus is talking to his disciples and told them that He had to leave but that He would send back "someone" like Himself, the Holy Spirit and he would lead and guide them into all truth. When I read that it was like a light bulb went on in my head.  I had never heard anything about the Holy Spirit. That day, reading the Word of God, I was introduced to the Holy Spirit and He continues to live in me revealing to me the Word of God, convicting me of sin, so I can repent and be cleansed by the blood of Jesus.   What a salvation I have.  God the Son has been introduced to me as my Savior, the Holy spirit has been introduced to me as my comforter, and revealer of truth. Now, all that was left, was to be introduced to God the Father.

One early morning before I was completely awake, whether it was a dream or a vision I do not know, however, I saw Jesus with His back to me.  He was holding a baby in His arms and lifting  it up as if He was presenting it to someone.  Then I heard Him say "This is Dorothy Jane Robinson Small,  Father.  I bought her in my blood and she belong to me."  I did not see the Father.  All I saw was a brilliant light burst forth. " I thought that I also  heard Jesus say to me, "Tell my children that when they came to Me and receive my forgiveness I will take them to my Father and call them by name.  They are mine and belong to me and their names are written in the Lamb's Book of Life."  I woke up praising God.  He had answered my prayer.  God was real and I could know Him.  That is why I named this blog "Dottie in Him" because that is who I am. 

Colossians 3:3 "I have died and my life is hidden in Christ in God" See you tomorrow night. Sleep well.