Agree. But a person need to be spiritually ready to be born from above. Natural -soul are not ready and Paul had to deal with it.
In my experience with God manifesting Himself in me I want ready for that at all, and no way I could have predicted how that would happen. I was an atheist didnt believe in a god or gods, but at least I had an open mind.
My mind, spirit, works like this -- Someone may tell me a certain thing and if I am ignorant of their proposals I will seek out by study if they were on point. So in that my family and friends kept in constant to tell me I need salvation from God. My first response to mind was saved from what?
Im the kind who will search out all the data I can to see what I can see so I was honest enough to sit and say outlaid with my my mouth " OK god if you are who all of these say you are you are going to have to reveal yourself to me, and I went about my way for several yeas when upon a day it was like here I am, this is who I Am. And I may have told you this but I didnt learn to read until I was 27 yeas old and that was in 1974 when God came and opened my eyes to Him and my whole life changed in the twinkling of an eye. I bought a Thoppson Chain reference study bible but couldn't read it. My wife for four years sat with me night after night teaching me to read and in that process I ran across Matt 3:16 and was wowed by what I read. The very same happened in me who happened in Jesus.
Not to denounce what you said about being spiritual ready, but I was so far from being spiritual ready I wasnt even competent enough to consider spirit other then ghostly ones that really didnt exist but intrigues the unsuspecting minds as myself was.
My life changed in the twinkling of an eye and started attending a church, went to a whole lot of them to learn their doctrines from Catholic to Pentecostal, to Baptists, to Methodists, non denominational, which actually is a denomination governed by the laws of just as all the rest of these so we settled in a not so big non denominational and became deacon and elder there. We had a food bank and cloths to help people in need and we had a lot of street people attend and even help in the distributions of food and clothing. We turned the gym that had a kitchen and basketball court into a distribution point which we decided was more important than to have people come to a facility for entertainment to feed the hungry, and believe me there are a lot of them.
I had been going into prisons for about 20 years and I was going to a prison in Iowa Park Texas and asked any member if they would like to go with me and just be a friend to an inmate. And exactly twelve who signed up and got clearance from the Texas Department of Corrections that went in with me.
These guys never had ever done anything like this and I actually could see the fear in their eyes. Very apprehensive for what may happen. And as we entered behind those gates and those steel doors locked down behind you is a sound one never forgets. They clung to me like a bunch of baby chickens gathering around the hen with a wolf lurking about.
If you get bored with my testimonies just let me know for you are one of the very few here who will listen how God actually works in a man and actually mock me for being egotistical, heady and of self, blasphemer, and all kinds of hatred, lies, and scandals associated with a religious mind instead of a spiritual mind of God. So I try and refrain from these because all they do is mock the reality that if foreign to themselves that they never has experienced from God that what Jesus did from God Who opens to him who He really is in Matt 3:16.
Just let me know if you dont want to hear them and I will refrain from posting my experiences with God -- and I have a bunch of them where God changes the lives of inmates, homeless people, teens in prisons, and those in our very congregation who had that religion spirit that simply mean, they try and look noble toward man instead of actually doing the will of God and go out and do something. And in that lives was changed not because of me, but because I had enough gumption from Gods Holy Spirit of Love to actually display it and many of these. religious minds who want to look good toward man changed their demeanor and started going out not to build a church but to get people in touch with God Himself not by words of wisdom, but bt action in real time reality.
Anyway, I can go on and on how God has worked His life in me and others I have come in contact with, and I can tell you now in this very forum they are so locked up in their laws to govern their beliefs for god, and some has three off them, to get them open to Christ that I much rather go into the prisons for even they could recognize when someone is genuine for they are cons and can recognize one in two seconds. And that is the very reason so many of these bible packing preaches with a pocket full of tracts fails for they try and push an agenda instead of just loving these guys for who they are at the moment. And we have a. lot of these in this very forum. They want to look noble toward man and can quote the Bible verbatim but doesn't have a clue what it is to be of God as Jesus was of God.
Something came clear in this, Jesus didnt pick the religious folk to be his disciples, he picks those who's minds was not locked into some laws for religious beliefs for he knew the minds of these so I much rather pick an inmate for they will listen than one of these in a pew, for the inmates didnt have anything to unlearn from a religious mind with agendas.
Just let me know if you would like me to stop for I love testifying what God has done in my life and the lives of others. I have seen cancer heals, heart attacks healed, minds that was in confusion who often fall in a ditch healed. And what is so sad to me is like these in this forum see that as lies and has stated they do not believe me, and I am a devil, and blasphemer, and headed for hell they desired I be in just as the same of Jesus day though of him. In that I rejoice for being identified with God the same as Jesus was. Now if any of these read this I will snide remarks such as, you are not of God you are of the devil, blasphemer, not of God at all, but the real truth and I agree with them, I am not of their gods, I am of the same One Jesus was of. And they hate me for those kinds of sentiments.
Pardon my spelling and grammar, it is atrocious I know, for I am self taught in this matter LOL.
