My journey from atheism to the character of God?

Here is my story of my own walk with Jesus from atheism to the character of God.

Born into an atheistic family, obviously my doctrine was evolution. I had no reason to doubt my upbringing and the things I was taught regarding our origin. This went on until 2012. Long story short I have made the decision to look into this doctrine I believed in through much research and I found out it was a lie; we did not come from ancient apes. Was I devastated? Yes. I was very upset that the authorities in my life willfully or ignorantly mislead me and others to believe such a deception but at the same time I was comforted to know that this little earth was not left alone without some intelligent being protecting it.

I did not need to search hard to find out which God was the real one. I was lead to the Bible for the hundreds of accurate prophecies regarding our messiah and the historical events that were laid out in plain sight for anyone to understand if they so choose to do. 

I prayed to our Father for guidance to lead me to the right denomination so I may understand the doctrines that He had taught in His word and I studied more and discovered that the Sabbath was not on Sunday but on Saturday. This was a clue and I was able to eliminate so many denominations for that very reason.  God kept on sending me to the SDA church, either through posts, religious adverts, youtube videos even though I was not really searching for them but I was a little hesitant due to  all the bad things shared about the SDA church and Ellen White through the internet.  I thank Him today for the conviction He blessed me with to continue to study and not to rely on man's opinions.

Now I was officially convinced that God led me to the SDA church and I started to attend the church, I was baptized shortly after. A few months past and having added many SDA’s on my FB page, I began to  notice a contention regarding the Trinity and was wondering what was the whole deal.  So again I started to look into it, I prayed so hard to understand why such confusion regarding His identity and I  remained silent on FB for a few weeks while I was studying the subject.  I prayed "Father, I was deceived in believing the evolution theory, this upset me greatly, please lead me to the truth even if this will cause persecution I will embrace what you show me"  Not long after when I would open the Bible the verses that so revealed the truth were jumping at me consistently .  The obvious verses as you likely know "John 20:22; 1 Cor. 8:6; the chapter of John 17 just to cite a few were made so plain that I could no longer deny that the Trinity was a man made doctrine.  I didn't stop there, I searched the historical origin of the Trinity and with the understanding that God had bless me with I finally accepted and embraced the truth regarding this issue.

A few months later I began to see a division regarding the appointed times, I was part of the Godhead movement now and it was pretty obvious that the Feast keepers were under attack. I had friends who had come to understand that the appointed times were instituted for man as much as the seventh day Sabbath, now this was a little harder for me to understand why such persecution but I tried to remain unbiased for the simple reason that if I wanted to study this I couldn't come to God with a biased heart.  So again, I stayed away from FB to avoid its influence. It was not always easy but the topic was important and I really needed to know if these things were true. 

Long story short, one Sabbath I prayed on and off for 3 hours before I opened the Bible, I was so compelled to pray because one thing I had difficulty with was the language of the OT regarding the appointed times, I was too focused on words such as "the 10th day of the first month" "Nissan, Abib" etc... God said not to worry about that for now but to study the importance of observing the Feasts .  God led me to the book of Nehemiah.  I opened it and as soon as I began to read it I could so clearly see that Nehemiah's story was parallel to the Advent movement. I read the 13 chapters that same day.  I was so thrilled that Father had opened my eyes through the book of Nehemiah and I reached out to someone and said "The Feasts are true!!! we can observe them!  Then I shared my findings and this person did a quick search, found a profound quote to my surprise I had no clue about the quote.

The experience of Nehemiah is repeated in the history of God’s people in this time.  {ST December 13, 1883, par. 6}

Can you imagine how glad I was when the person shared this? I thought Wow!! Thank you so much Father! This was a real confirmation to me. Even without the quote I was still convinced but with the quote now I was able to stand firmly on the appointed times without being moved.  The details regarding the feasts were not a burden to me and still are not. I just accepted the barley method because the weight of evidence seemed to lean on it but regardless I have no desire to strife over which method to use for the calendar, this is up to the individual and God.

Now if I regress a little, when I embraced the Father - Son truth this led me to TRSC and MM. This is when the elders and pastor Adrian crossed my path and I began to watch their presentations but always with vigilance and prayerfully would search the Scripture to see what they were saying was true. Thankfully we can go to the SOP for support once we search the Bible.

I was encouraged to read the book "Identity wars" and I did. I was blessed to know that I was a daughter of God, this is where my true identity was founded. I did not have to believe I was a mere servant and needed to do stuff to please Him.  God convicted me that in my fallen state I had a performance based mindset and was compelled to do works for Him but like a loving Father He assured me that no works would please Him because He loved me even if I would hide under a rock, in a cave and do absolutely nothing.  He is love.  We are asked to partake in the work of the Gospel to lead others to Him, not for brownie points. I was so relieved to know this. Then I moved on to the Divine Pattern and this helped me understand my relation with others, with elders and authority figures.  This helped me in understanding a lot more than I expected, because it lead me to see that this pattern is not only found in Scripture, SOP but also in nature. 

These two foundations ( Identity Wars/Divine Pattern) are old lights made new for us, I believe with them it will lead us to a better understanding of the covenants and the 1888 message. Mainly it helped me in prayers to ask God to bless me with a spirit of meekness and submission towards others without harming my integrity and freedom of conscience.   The covenants were eye opening and now I'm free of the dispensationalism that has plague Christianity since Augustine. This too I studied to make sure what was taught through TRSC and MM was correct regarding this issue and the weight of evidence leans that the covenants are 2 personal experiences in the heart of the individual that are ongoing until total victory over unbelief, sin and character blemishes are cleansed through the Spirit of God.  As the Bible and Ellen White said the new birth is a process; the human heart is desperately wicked and deceitful, and so it makes sense that it is a process. Just like the literal birth, it takes time to learn to crawl, walk, talk, etc.. 

This understanding of the covenants led me to understand that because it apply to each individuals, the weight of evidence is clear that it was also the experience of the individuals in the Bible, in the OT and the NT.  These are examples for us today.  The Bible teach that God will meet men where they are and work in their hearts the process of conversion, step by step is laid out plainly in the Scriptures. Under Bible inspiration we can now see each individual, or group were either walking in the Old covenant or the New covenant which to me is a blessed revelation because I can now relate to the people in the Bible, they were no different than we are.  As Jesus said in the garden in  Mar 14:38 Watch ye and pray, lest ye enter into temptation. The spirit truly is ready, but the flesh is weak.  It applies to me too and this is wonderful news to me.

The truth regarding the covenants led me to the glory of God, this topic is one I have studied the hardest and did the most research on.  The covenants will automatically give understanding on the ministration of death, they go hand in hand and now I can understand why Satan tried so hard to blind us through Augustine. Without the ministration of death we have no real knowledge of our own sinful nature in principle, we might know it by knowledge of course, it's all over the Bible and SOP…we are sinful, we sin, we hang on to bad character traits, we pivot towards others faults because we can't fully discern our own needs in principle and apply it in our lives. The ministration of death helps us in searching our own hearts and in leading us to Jesus for atonement instead of looking at others faults and sins as a comparison.  True healing begins, it's a process, the law comes to us, convicts us and leads us back to Jesus for cleansing and it's a back and forth experience.  It's daunting at times but our hearts is desperately wicked and deceitful, what can we expect?  These experiences of the ministration of death have been the experience of all men who walked with God and we have been blessed to have these examples in the Bible, SOP and we can even see it in the lives of our pioneers.  We are all made of the same heart, fallen sinful humanity has been the same throughout history and the plan of cleansing us from sin and our character defects has been done the same way throughout history by a Loving merciful God through the ministration of death, but it could only be understood through the correct understanding of the covenants. For me it has been the most beautiful revelation in my walk with Jesus. 

These truths embraced will lead to the light of the character of God, it's automatic.  Each individual who has accepted that God does not use lethal force to destroy sinners, and keep His own commandments has to go through the process I explained above.  The Identity Wars because we have been born and raised in a performance base world lead by the god of the world; the Divine Pattern to help us understand the principle on how to related to men, women and children regardless of their views and faith which lead us to a peaceful existence in this life I Tim. 2.  - The Divine Pattern helps in understanding the true relation between Father and Son without making the Son a subordinate divine Being,  helps us understand the principle of the role of the literal church, it helped us in understanding the relation between the Bible and SOP,  it helps us understanding the relation between the OT and the NT and to reconcile many other seemingly contradictions in the Bible and SOP.   1 Cor. 8:6 is one verse that has opened the Scripture and SOP in a magnitude that no worldly words can describe.  It needs to be experience.

Once the understanding of God's character was established in our hearts we had more light regarding the framework in our way in studying the bible and SOP, our Father tells us that our thoughts and ways are not His and He is above us, this statement is important as to why He would claim this,  as finite beings we know God is above us but why He is reminding us?  He also tells us that He wants us to know and understand Him.  Why would He say this? The Bible teaches us that our framework in understanding scripture and the things of God  is perverted and now I can appreciate why God tells us to not lean on our own understanding but to lean on His.  We are full of misconception and we hang to false ideas of what the Bible and SOP tells us.  The correct framework leads us to harmonize both sides of the Bible which have caused some much divisions and debates  in  Christianity.  I think we all seen opponents debate by sharing each side of an issue by throwing bible passages that would refute the others, but both belong to the Bible and both are inspired the same  for the SOP, so what is the issue here?  This is when the light of the mirror applies, we know the apostle James understood this through inspiration when he penned Jas 1:23 and it is plainly supported in the SOP.  We need to understand our perverted mind, our preconceive ideas in a biblical way and God has blessed us with the mirror, once this is understood we can better know our own motives and where we stand in relation to God.  These  are the deep things of God that we all must understand to survive our walk and to avoid falling of the path and  to give us encouragement.   The mirror is our personal compass to see if we are in Jesus.

Without this process, no one can truly understand why we hold dear to our view regarding the character of God.  Unless someone is willing to understand the process we have been through to get to the platform we now stand they cannot see the light we have been blessed with, they cannot be comforted with the light we have been blessed with.  I am not asking anyone  to go through this process to convert to our view, only the Holy Spirit can do that  but I ask you to look into it so you may at least understand what lead us to this view. 

As I explain to the atheist who accuses Christians of being brainwashed and can't think for themselves; blind, and dumb " unless you look into the prophecies and do the research on evolution you cannot understand why I believe the Bible and it can only result in mockery and scoffing.  This applies for all religious views and doctrinal beliefs. 

All our questions can be answered through the Bible and supported by the SOP.  Without understanding this platform, no amount of answers given to our opponents will convince them  of what we are saying..  It is by  the grace of God only can we see what He wants to show us. My own journey testifies that I did not need to ask anyone questions regarding the Trinity,  the Feasts and the character of God.  Our Father pours out His Spirit on His appointed times to give us light, health and strength as sister White said.   She also said if we depend on man for truth we will be lost, that quote is profound to me and I take it seriously. I have studied each topics I stand by today without any outside influence as some have assumed, it is an assumption that could prove fatal to those who continue to repeat it without knowing the truth. I do not know your testimony but from my experience when you realise that you been duped in believing that you came from apes and you see it is because you have not looked into it than this will affect how you proceed with other things that are presented to you.  As the Bible said " We have to study for ourselves"  By the Grace of God He has given me the desire to never rely on man for my doctrinal beliefs.  All I can say is what I have learned through MM and TRSC are treasures from Heaven. I have proved this from the Scripture and SOP. 

I pray that our opponents  may understand where we come from and that even if they decide to believe otherwise.

Tina