Trusting God

Why I Am A Christian.

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What’s going to happen to me after I die? That’s the ultimate question isn’t it. It’s this question that attracts me to Jesus.

When I was seven years old my parents began attending an AOG (Assemblies Of God) Church in the small town we lived near. I began to learn heaps about God and suddenly the world began to make sense to me. Heaven, Hell, what Jesus did for me. It all made sense. I prayed along with my Sunday School teacher and asked Jesus to forgive my sins and I put my trust in Him. I became a Christian that day. I’ve never looked back. The Lord has a plan for my life and it was his will for me to become a Christian that day. When I was eight years old I decided that I wanted to be baptised to further show my commitment to the Lord. My Sunday School teacher and Pastor baptised me at the local beach. It was a glorious day. I was very young but still understood the old me was being washed away in the water and the new spirit within me was rising up and I was ‘born again.’

I remember writing in my journal back then, a prayer from my young heart.

“Lord let me always be close to you. Don’t let me ever become distant from you and follow the world. I want to be yours forever. Use me to do whatever you want me to do in my life. My life is yours. Amen”

I learnt that I can be in a relationship with Jesus. I can speak to Him anytime and anywhere. He delights in being close to me. He will speak to me by reading His word – the Bible. He can also speak to me and lead me along the right path for my life through the Holy Spirit which he sent to help us after he went up the heaven.

I realised that there was nothing I could do to get right with God. No good or nice thing will get me into Heaven to be with the Lord. It’s only by God’s grace that I am saved.

God sent his only son into the world as a baby. So he would grow up and become a sacrifice for me. I am a sinner and deserve to die. We all are. But God in His mercy, sent His son to lay down his life for me so I could live forever. My heart burns for my Lord as I think of him suffering on that cross. It deeply distresses me. I take this as seriously as I live and breathe.

The thought though, that I am now saved gives me hope and joy down to my deepest being. I imagine myself on those golden streets, as the Bible describes, dancing whilst weeping for joy!

I’ve had a burning passion since I was a little girl that others around me would be saved too. It’s a huge desire of mine. My passion for telling others about Jesus peaked in my teen years where I would begin telling everyone in my public school about Him. Some listened and asked questions. Some said I was weird. A particular group of boys harassed me very badly for it. I was spat on, tripped over, punched and kicked to the floor and verbally pulled to pieces.

Still all the while this Bible verse was going through my head…

And you will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. Mark 13:13

The Bible speaks about Hell. Torment, isolation, fear, pain and burning for eternity. That place was made for Satan and his fallen angels, not for man. But because of mans disobedience to God way back at creation, they sadly must die and be judged. God judges the condition of our hearts by the way, not all the ‘good’ things we do.

But there is hope! That is why God sent Jesus into the world. So we didn’t have to spend forever apart from Him being tormented in Hell.

To be saved and spend eternity in the paradise of heaven, all we must do is…

  1. Repent. Which basically means to feel deeply sorry for all the sins we’ve done. (Lying, stealing, lust, using the Lord’s name in vain etc) and asking God for forgiveness.

  2. Believe in Jesus, God and the Holy Spirit with your whole heart.

  3. Trust in the God. – Put your trust in Him and dedicate your life to serving Him.

All this can be done, in your heart and in the privacy of your own home, or at church. Anywhere. Not to a priest or pastor. Just between you and God.

Other important things…

Once we become a Christian it is REALLY important to connect with other believers. Without regular contact with other Christians your faith can dwindle. All the ways of the world can begin to slip back into your life. The best place to connect with other believers is at a Bible believing Christian church.

There are many great denominations of Christian Churches! Here’s a few I recommend.

  • Baptist
  • Australian Christian Churches – ACC also called AOG
  • Lutheran
  • Acts 29.
  • Many non denominational churches are great too.

I went to an AOG (ACC) church for 20 years. I now have been attending a Baptist church for the last 2 years.

Having a Bible to read is also important. The Bible is God’s handbook for our lives. In it you will find the answers to all life’s big questions. Reading God’s word will bring us closer to Him, deepen our faith and transform our lives. I try to read mine daily.

For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword… Hebrews 4:12

You can download a Bible app onto your phone right now! Or go http://www.biblegateway.com. Or buy one from a Christian book store. http://www.koorong.com is a great place to buy Christian books, music and DVD’s if you are in Australia.

Another important thing is being baptised. There are some that agree with babies being baptised. However it is my understanding that it is better to be baptised when you are at an age of understanding. Being baptised is a decision of faith in action. Something a baby cannot yet comprehend. Jesus was baptised as an adult. All through scripture it tells us to believe and be baptised. Ask the pastor of the church you are attending about baptism. Many churches do baptism services from time to time where they baptise a few people at a time who are ready and willing.  They are baptised by full body immersion in water in a pool, river or beach. Like I mentioned above – I was baptised at the age of eight at the beach. Many members of our church came and stood on the foreshore to watch and congratulate me as I came out of the water.

There really is more to life than just going through the motions of getting up, going to work or school and coming home and going to bed again. There is hope and it is found in Jesus Christ.

This is why I am a Christian.

me and Willow playground

 

Blessings, Peta

PS. Beware of cults. Cults take God’s word and twist it to make up their own set of beliefs. They follow their own written book of rules and are NOT Christian. Cults are controlling and repressive. Some examples of cults are Jehovah’s witnesses and Mormons.

 

Why we intentionally decided to have a large family.

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Our 5th baby Willow – I can’t imagine life without her.

Not everyone desires to have a large family. Actually it’s becoming less and less common in this century. And I also realise that some couples desire to have lots of children but, because a whole huge number of reasons, may be unable to.

It’s funny how when you have more than the average number of children (1.2) that people suddenly seem to think that it is their business to ask if the couple uses contraception.

“Haven’t you worked out what causes that yet?” Is one cringe worthy comment I’ve been receiving since I was pregnant with our third child. Most likely because when I was pregnant with our third child I also had a 2-year-old and a 6 month old baby. I try not to let these comments bother me, they are often meant well and often the person saying it just doesn’t really know what to say.

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Our first three babies are now aged 4, 5 and a half and 7.

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Like most couples do, Luke and I talked about how many children we would love to have before we were married. We thought 4, maybe 6. But as the years went on and we dove deep into research about what God’s word says about having children our thoughts and convictions began to change.

Psalm 127 v3-5

Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord,
the fruit of the womb a reward.
Like arrows in the hand of a warrior
are the children of one’s youth.
Blessed is the man
who fills his quiver with them!
He shall not be put to shame
when he speaks with his enemies in the gate.

The Bible is pretty clear that it is important to have children if we can. Children are a blessings and gift and they are our heritage. And the barren womb is something to weep over.

But how can you tell if your quiver is full? This is a pretty huge question.

Is it even Biblical to use contraception? How can we decide who, how many, and when children come into this world? This is why often Christian couples decide to leave their family size and spacing in the hands of our sovereign Lord. And this is what Luke and I decided to do when I was pregnant with our first baby. We soon discovered that I have been blessed with super sonic fertility! *laughs! Even while full-time breastfeeding my little baby boy I was pregnant again 5 months postpartum. Sadly this baby was found on a scan to be a “blighted ovum” and I miscarried at 7 weeks. I was pregnant again within a few months and gave birth to a big beautiful bouncy boy. A baby daughter soon followed 16 months later. I then had 3 children ages almost 3, 16 months and a newborn. We had a busy time caring for these little 3. I’m so thankful that I had a lovely mums group during this time that I went to every Friday morning and these ladies were very encouraging to me and my three little ones.

When my baby girl was around 8 months old I was pregnant again, but yet again had a heart wrenching miscarriage, this time at 12 week along. I had a scan at 8 weeks along and there was a 8 week old baby there on-screen with no heart beat. The doctor offered me another D&C operation to remove the baby but I declined this time and went home and waited an anxiety ridden 4 weeks for the baby to be delivered at home.

Life gets hard and what then? We still trusted God with all our hearts to shape our family the way He sees fit. But we were weary and wearing thin. We prayerfully decided to space our pregnancies with non abortive methods of contraception. I can’t take the pill either as my body has awful side effects from the artificial hormones. I  have never felt right about the pill because some forms are abortive, which I am very against. I am entirely pro-life. We have also decided against doing anything to permanently end our fertility.

We kept having babies, just spaced apart a little. We have been blessed with two more full term healthy pregnancies both girls. We feel so incredibly blessed to have our children. My heart keeps increasing with each new child born into our family.

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Pregnant with baby number #4 in 2014  – Holly.

It’s hard to not let fear control whether we have more children or not. For us, one of the fears we have struggled with is having the finances to care for our brood. But this is where we have exercised our faith in our God the provider.

Not long after our 5th baby Willow was born I began thinking about money and I went down that destructive thought pattern of all the “what ifs” and began having a panic about how we were going to pay for schooling and driving lessons and our daughters weddings! Sometimes swirling thoughts can overwhelm me! But instead of entertaining these thoughts for too long I prayed and gave it all over to God – I put my complete trust in him. That same afternoon He led me to read this scripture during my quiet time;

Psalm 37 v 25 – 26

“I have been young and now am old. And in all my years I have never seen the Lord forsake a man who loves him; nor have I seen the children of the Godly go hungry. Instead, the godly are able to be generous with their gifts and loans to others and their children are a blessing.”

As I look at the beautiful children of the couples of the church we are now attending I imagine what it would be like if they had decided to stop having children after they had their second baby. (One family has 5, another 8, one 10 and one couple has 11 children!) There would be no one in the choir, all their smiling faces, eternal souls, witnesses for Christ, wouldn’t be here.

I met the eldest child of the family with 11 children a few days ago. She is now grown, married and has a baby of her own. I asked her what it was like to be the eldest of eleven. She says it was busy and often noisy, but she wouldn’t change it for anything. She adores all her younger siblings.

It’s easy for us to just follow the crowd and do the norm of society but I encourage you to be prayerful and dive into the scriptures today and read and learn more of the blessings of children.

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Blessings, Peta.

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