Embracing Faith: A Journey From Vietnam to Divine Love and Salvation

Hello friends, the subtitle of this podcast is the Force of Faith. It's Season 4, episode 1. It will air on January 1, 2024. Your foundation scriptures is Hebrews 11, 1-3. Faith is not the product of reason, it is the product of the recreated spirit. 2 Thessalonians 3, verse 2 says and that we may be delivered from unreasonable or absurd and wicked men. For all men have not faith. So who has faith? Well, christians are given the measure of faith, as Romans 12-3. For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you Not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, to think soberly, according as God has dealt to every man the measure of faith. Notice that at the end of Romans 12-3, god has dealt to man the measure of faith. God does not distribute different levels or degrees of faith. God is no respecter of persons. Romans 2, 11. Well, you say, Brother Terry, some people got better faith than I have. It is not that they have more. It is that they have developed it and cultivated it and watered it, and it has grown to be larger than the faith you are. Also, you can develop and grow your faith, just like they have, by listening to the word, hearing the word and confessing and doing the word. Faith comes or grows by hearing the word of God and confessing the word of God Romans 10, 17. So, then, faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. So, Brother Terry, I would just turn on a smart speaker and listen to the word 24-7. Not so fast, Jack. That will help to listen to the Word. But look at James 1-22. But be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving your own self. So we see that everything works together and is in unison. God is not the author of confusion. 1 Corinthians 14-33. In 1967, I had just returned home from Vietnam. I had a four month old son Because of PTSD. Being married young and being overseas for a year right after the wedding, adjusting to civilian life was proving difficult. My wife left me and took my son, who was two years old at the time. I started drinking and partying most of my waking hours. I had a good job, but living a life that had gone from marital bliss to a divorce hurt me very deeply. I was in my third year of being divorced and was quitting my job to do something totally different From appliance repair to collections at a large bank. It was a Saturday and my last day on the job as an appliance repairman and I was being sent out to do some seal system repair on a refrigerator that was still in the warranty. I fixed this lady's refrigerator and we hit it off really well. She was in the middle of a divorce and had three children that were staying with her grandparents down in Oklahoma. She got settled in her new location. I finally got up the nerve to ask her to go hit golf balls. At the time she regretted agreeing to the outing but didn't want to back out. She was praying for her husband and I wasn't praying for anything but a good time. We kept seeing each other and finally I asked her to marry me, since we were both dealing with failed marriages, we decided that we would build our marriage on God's principles and put Him at the center of our marriage. This required us getting into the Word of God or the Bible. Well, it has been a wonderful 52-plus years of marriage. We are still in love. We are still married. Sure, we have had problems, difficulties and tough times, but overall we rarely argued and even disagreed over anything. I had gone to work at a warehouse and I met a very godly man who introduced me to a God that loved me and showed me how to live, loved my wife, my stepchildren, and I started growing in the Lord. I kept drawing closer to the Lord we all did and one night I attended a full Gospel Business Men's Fellowship dinner. I received a baptism of the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in tongues. I didn't care if I was theologically right or wrong. I had found Jesus and brought Him into my life, my home, my family, and because of that decision, we were better off and enjoyed a new level of life that I, honestly, didn't know even existed. I was not striving, I was not fighting, I was not trying to control my temper. I was falling in love with a Savior that had set me free. Put a spring in my step and let me see that from that day on I would walk in love, peace and prosperity, and our spiritual relationship would grow as much as I would live it. Oh, I wish I had surrendered more and gone deeper in the Lord. But now, an older and wiser man, I am saved, set apart and made righteous by God's Son, Jesus Christ. 2 Corinthians 5:17-21. My greatest joy is seeing my family loving the Lord Jesus and expectantly waiting to hear the trumpet blow to take me to my heavenly home. Now where was I, oh yes, faith comes by hearing, not with your physical ears, but your inner ears, your spiritual ears. Once I got interested in Jesus, I found out he was extremely interested in me and had actually paid my debt of sin by sacrificing Himself for me, even before I was born. Look at Psalm 139, 15 and 16 from the Amplified. My frame must not hidden from you. When I was being formed in secret and intricately and curiously wrought, as if embroidered with various colors in the depths of the earth, a region of darkness and mystery. Your eyes saw my unformed substance and in your book all the days of my life were written before ever they took shape, when as yet there is none of them. Let's press on a little more. Verse 17, how precious and weighty also are your thoughts to me, o God. How vast is the sum of them. Look at Psalm 40, verse 5. Want to know deep, intimate and comforting love? Then fall in love with Jesus. You see, God is love and you are a 100% love creation that only God, the Father, could produce. Through Jesus Christ, you are a faith and love creation. O friend, draw closer to God right now, give him your heart and find out the wonderful things he has prepared for you, things money, evil, discontent, depression and a host of other stuff has blinded the eyes and ears of your heart from seeing and realizing the wonderful things God has prepared for you, things that must be worked out before death comes and seals your fate of being separated from God for eternity. All that God has done, he has done for you, God is love. 1 John 4-7,. And you were formed, knitted together daily and watched over by Almighty God. God doesn't need your money, your sacrifice, your vows. He only needs your faith and trust in his plan of redemption to bring you into his family, recreate a new heart in you, a heart of love songs, music and fellowship. He needs you. Here is what you need to do right now Romans 10, 8-10. But what does it say? In other words, what does God's word say? The word or God's message in Christ is near you, on your lips and in your heart. That is the word or the message, the basis and object of faith which we preach Deuteronomy 30, verse 14. Because if you acknowledge and confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and in your heart believe or adhere to, trust in and rely on the truth that God raised him from the dead you will be saved, for with the heart man person believes, in other words adheres to trust in and it relies on Christ and so is justified or declared righteous, acceptable to God. With the mouth he confesses, declares openly and speaks out freely his faith and confirms his salvation. I am so glad I put my trust in Jesus and got to be the friend of God. Actually, more than a friend, I got to be a child of God. It's your turn to give your heart to the Lord, jesus Christ. It's your turn to give your heart to God, the Father, and seal permanently your destination in heaven. You have a blessed day in Jesus' name, amen. This has been Chaplain Terry Warner. Thank you for listening to my podcast. They come out every Monday morning. It is "thechapelinscornernet. When you go there, there will be a place for you to sign up and get my newsletter. Thank you so much for listening and please like and share and follow me, as it helps so much to get the word out. You have a blessed day in Jesus' name Amen.