Although this is about me, in Life, it’s about HIM. Now here is a little bit about my journey and me:
I was baptized Lutheran yet went to a Baptist church until the age of 12 or so. God was not something that interested me until age 38. It is a long story but for about 4-5 years, starting in 2006 or so, I searched through all religion looking for answers. I tried understanding what each religion believed in and what made sense to me. I stumbled upon many strange findings throughout my journey only to come back to what I was taught to believe at a very early age. Religion was not something that was important in my family’s upbringing. I was baptized and I did go to Church but it wasn’t something my parents stressed the importance of. I now believe it is important to teach what I know yet I also know that teaching does not make somebody believe. We must have our eyes opened. Some people will have their eyes opened wide, some not so much, and some won’t have them opened at all.
Acts 26:18 to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.
I will save you all the biblical references in this statement about me as you will one day get them out of me in talking or reading my posts. Now back to my journey.
It may be hard to believe but while searching for answers I kept hearing a voice in my head. In fact, that statement makes me tear up writing it as I remember the voice and how stern but softly it was spoken. It kept saying “Keep Looking, Keep Looking”. I opened up article after article on the Internet trying to find God and trying to find answers that would give me Faith in Christ. I wanted so bad to believe in something, as death seemed hopeless to me. I started asking friends and family about Christ and trying so hard to believe in what they were telling me but I had no luck. I would just revert back to my same ole’ non-believing self. There was just something about the message I wasn’t getting yet I kept hearing the voice over and over and over again every time I would start to look for answers. I was on the computer early in the morning on April 1st, 2011. It was about 3am and something finally clicked. I was reading something about the crucifixion and got this overwhelming feeling inside that was telling me what I was reading has more to it. There was a man that I never have met that gave HIS life for all of humanity, as HE knew we couldn’t have salvation without HIM showing us The Way. Then I started thinking about how there was somebody long ago that horrible things happened to and HE died for the cause; never demanding anything more than believing in The Way and following The Commands. A man, that they called Yeshua. I then started looking deeper. That morning at 3am, the voice in my head said, “You found it”. I was so relieved to get this voice out of my head that I told everyone I knew about it. My friend Jim thought it was an April fools joke. Little did I know that the voice never goes away. It just changes it’s message.
This started my journey on April 1st, 2011. That is the day I picked up a Bible and started to study it. To that point I hadn’t stepped foot in a Church for over 26 years nor ever once read any part of the Bible. As I searched through the scriptures I started learning things. I would get excited and start telling all my Christian friends and family about them only to find out they were never taught that nor did they believe what I said was in the Bible. This started bothering me so I started to dig a little deeper. I came across so many things that the Bible says not to do that the Church teaches are okay to do so I made it a mission to find the TRUTH.
As I was off one day, my lawn guy and now close friend Doug stopped to talk after he was done cutting the lawn. He was an acquaintance of mine and we talked occasionally about God when he would come by to cut the lawn. He said “I know you recently came into belief in God but let me ask you something. How many animals did Noah take on the Ark?” I replied “2 of every kind, that was easy, I remember that from Sunday school”. He then said “Wrong, he took 7 clean of every kind a male and his mate and 2 unclean of every kind a male and his mate”. At that point I realized I was about 2 months into studying the Bible and I was already had been misled years before when taught only 2 of every kind went onto the Ark. From that point I regrouped and started to dig into the Bible deeper and found his answer to be correct.
Genesis 7:2 Take with you seven of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate, and two of every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate.
From that point forward I have “TESTED EVERYTHING” I am either told or taught by someone against the scriptures to make sure it is true. In the Bible the Bereans did the same thing.
Acts 17:10-11 The brothers immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea, and when they arrived they went into the Jewish synagogue. Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonia; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so.
I am far from a scholar. I have no seminary training. I have just been led by HIM to find the TRUTH. I don’t have a degree nor did I even own a Bible until 2011. I have found that most of what is believed is man-centered tradition and the mainstream Church is failing us. We need to get back to the days when the Church taught from the Bible and not from some theologian’s doctrine that has been incorporated into the teachings over the last 2000 years. I now study word translations to prevent from getting the wrong message. Some things have been changed in our Bibles and other things have been tampered with. I am on a mission to uncover them as best as I can. I don’t have enough time in my life to do what I want to do but I can at least do some of it in hope of transforming what is being taught. I want to change Christianity back to the days when Paul was writing letters to correct the Churches. I want Christians to be united as one without doctrines getting in the way of that unity. I want to be remembered as a husband, father, and friend that helped spread The Gospel of Christ to those that did not know about it and help eliminate man’s doctrine from those that do know about it. My job is to make sure my family knows the Gospel so they can learn how to be saved. My calling is to uncover the misguided teachings in today’s Christianity and make sure my family and friends know the TRUTH. It isn’t an option to just be quiet and go along in life knowing the TRUTH and not teaching it to my family and friends. I won’t let them down and this is how it all started.
I am so happy for your on finding you way. You are truly a gift from God. So help your sons and wife to understand your findings.
Thanks Dad… I just hope that one day all Christians will pick up their Bibles and study. WE need to get back to doing things HIS way and not our way. Our way is flawed and HIS way is perfect.
I read your story. Read Genesis 7:8-9, “Of clean animals, and of animals that are not clean, and of birds, and of everything that creeps on the ground, two and two, male and female, went into the ark with Noah, as God had commanded Noah.” This is repeated in verses 15 & 16. It seems that Noah didn’t do exactly as told. You might have been right after all. But, on closer examination, there may be two intertwined flood stories, just like there were two creation stories. No wonder people become confused. But I am glad you are taking the journey. And yes, the voice never quits, just gets softer then louder and softer again.
We can talk about the gap theory, two creation theory, and two flood theory sometime. I will stay on topic for this reply. Notice the verses Genesis 7:9 & Genesis 7:15 state two by two. This means pairs of unclean and clean animals that are matched up male & female. The quantity of animals is much higher than just two of every kind. Logically, to have seven pairs also means that there are two pairs, since the two are included in the seven. If one verse said take only one pair and another verse said seven pairs, that would be a contradiction. In this case we are told two by two but then shown the actual number of animals later in the verse. THE MOST important lesson to learn from this is that Yahweh (God) told Noah there was a difference between clean and unclean animals. This is very important. Most are taught that unclean animals are okay to eat now through the shed blood of our Messiah that did away with “Jewish” Law. Noah did not have the Torah (1st Five Books of Old Testament=often referred to as Jewish Law). We are often taught that the 1st Five Books were only for the Jews. Noah wasn’t Jewish. Mosheh (Moses) wasn’t Jewish either. Noah knew the difference between clean and unclean animals yet Mosheh (Moses) wasn’t even around at that time and there was no Torah (1st Five books of OT) to tell them the difference in animals. We can see that Yahweh (God) told Noah to distinguish between the two long before Mosheh (Moses) wrote it down and gave it to the people at Mt. Sinai. We can also see that Noah sacrificed animals Genesis 8:20 long before Mosheh (Moses) wrote down that we should sacrifice animals. The main thing to see is that all these so called laws only for the Jews were actually Laws given to Yahweh’s (God’s) people long before the Jews came into existence. To truly understand who the Jews were we have to look further in the scriptures. Jacob had 12 sons. One of those sons was Judah which is the Tribe that the Jews come from. The entire point my friend was making about 7 clean and 2 unclean is to show that Yahweh (God) had put in place Dietary restrictions long before the Jews came along and that we have been taught wrong for a long time.
I am so glad to have found this page. Do you have a facebook page to follow? I had the Lord God tell me about a year ago, to start a church and take the structure of it back to the original church. The early church. To the TRUTH as you said. Not man’s doctrines or ideas but what Jesus taught us. Thank you for your blog. I trust you will add me to an emailing list and I will be able to follow your findings. I hope our paths cross one day. This is so interesting to find someone who wants to know the whole truth and what God really has for us.
I agree that its exciting to find others who have come to truly trust the Bible. My testimony is a little longer than yours, not with a voice leading me like the star over Bethlehem, but being guided by providences. When I did come back to the Lord after being far gone for 13 years, by that I mean when the Lord took me back 🙂 , all I could think of was having a Bible. That was my big thought, “Oh, if I only had a Bible!” And a voice spoke to me very clearly in that little attic, “It’s right behind you.” And, without wonder where that voice came from, I turned around and in the bookcase right behind me was a Bible. I took it and opened to 2 Timothy 1 and began my past 20 year love of the Bible. I have studied and read and meditated on it to this day! This morning I was thinking about all the accusations and discrediting of parts of the Bible and of the whole Bible. So many accusing voices have gone silent when they learned more about what they were accusing. I am now to the point of saying that no matter what I hear against God’s word to never get disturbed about any of it. It will be all resolved in time. Every last difficulty. No one will understand the Bible unless that approach it with the gift of faith from Jesus. People rail and complain against the Bible because they are ignorant of the circumstances that existed when the different parts were written. Like the children of Israel, who complained about everything God did for them, and died in the wilderness, all the modern murmurers are going to die in this world, and never enter the heavenly Canaan. The laws of diet given to the Israelites in the wilderness were for all time. Science is slowly come up to speed with diet and health; the followers of Jesus have had the best quality of life since the beginning of time. During the Bubonic plague the survivors were the Jews because they still obeyed the laws of cleanliness that the Lord gave Moses to give them. The truth is that every good and perfect gift comes from above, from the Father of glory, who changes not. And He sees it correct to give the truth to this fallen world of sinners in written form via a third person like us, just another regular, struggling human messenger who was inspired God, like Moses was. This initial humbling tends to sift out all the Naamans who believe they merit a more heavenly teacher than the written instructions of God through men. Some of those Naamans rethink their pride and return to the written word of God. Blessings, brother.
Love your website. Truth is great. Hosea 4:6.
Powerful Testimony. My family and I have been on this journey seeking truth for 10 years we decided in 2008 to walk away from man made traditions and to focus on Yah and his Feast Days in the Scriptures. I’ve learned so much from continuing to study in the Word.
Thank You,
And Always May Yah Bless You
In Yeshua The Messiah Namesake I Pray and in The Ruach Ha Kodesh Namesake I Pray Amen.
Thank you for your website and your testimony. I appreciate your love for Yeshua and His Word.
I came to know Him, also through a vision of Him in my mind, on the Cross. Coupled with John 14:6.
I was a Catholic for almost 30 years then, until He called me to Salvation.
I am happy that I came across your website, and will now begin to study and learn with you.
Shalom!
Thanks for checking us out… We learn more everyday.
Shalom
Thank you for finding us. It’s a great journey and we learn more each day.
Shalom
Do you still sacrifice animals? If not, why not? Those are in the law too.
There’s a difference in sacrificing and offering. You’d have to read into the Torah and find out which offerings have been fulfilled and which haven’t.