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Here is the main thing that God showed me, This is what I tell people when they ask how I could have such happiness, peace
and joy when I haven't been out of TF as long as they have and some say they are still struggling to get it.
The key that unlocked everything for me was finally understanding that when I got born again, it was the spirit part of me
that got changed, not my body and not my mental or emotional part. I still get emotional at times, but it is not as hard to
deal with as in the past.
But that there was a spiritual part of me that got radically changed, totally changed. and in that spirit part I am now identical
to Jesus. I have His righteousness and holiness.
Everything that Jesus is, is already true of me in the spirit. I'm not trying to get it to become new, I'm not in the process
of asking God to stretch forth His hand and touch me again, I don't need a new touch, I don't need a new experience of God
revealing His love to me, I've already got it.
It's all on the inside, in your spirit. Now it's a matter of me renewing my mind and stirring myself up, as it says in Jude
21 to "keep yourselves in the love of God"
I came to learn that I have a spirit, soul and body, not just a body and soul. There are three parts to our existence.
This just radically changed my life, when I quit going by what I look like and feel like on the outside. And I came to realize
that there is a brand new me on the inside. Finding out that I've already got everything in Christ, changing my identity to
who I am in Christ, is what just revolutionized my life.
It transformed me, and has made a huge difference in my life. Because it is on the inside and not the outside, and the only
thing I have to express it is to say what happened to me.
This experience of knowing God's unconditional love, and developing a trust in it, and knowing who I am in Christ was the
key that unlocked everything else.
Because when you read the Bible, and you know that this is God's love to you, and you look at those words through the perspective
of God's love to you, man , I tell you, it's like the Rosetta Stone that unlocks the language of God's Word and you can relate
to everything you read through God's love to you and for you.
I don't know how to express it any better than that, but that was the key to overcoming the deep depression I was in soon
after leaving TF, after having spent so many years in, most of my life in fact, the last 15 or 20 years of that on an up and
down spiritual roller coaster that seemed to lead to nowhere, frequent discouragement, frustration and despair. No progress,
no hope of ever changing. You get build up, then let down again.
That's enough to cause anyone a spiritual and nervous breakdown.
For someone like me, whose main touch with God has been TF, and having lived many years under the constant heaviness of the
atmosphere of conditional love, being judged by how well I performed my duties, like any other job in the world, it is difficult
to understand and get a revelation of God's Unconditional love this, since I was so used to being evaluated and judged by
our performance.
These burdens were not put on me by the Lord. That is like saying that God loved us more when we didn't know Him, and were
doing all these ungodly things in our life to get kicks and thrills, but now that we know God and have been forgiven of our
sins we get all these restrictions, and rules put on us so that if we break even one of them, we got reprimanded, or sometimes
put on probation, rebuked, and now we are a sorry thing, unworthy, a backslider.
That didn't sound like God's unconditional love to me and it was difficult for me to have peace with God.
When I came out and decided that the only way to fight this depression and anxiety about my relationship with God was to do
something about it before it killed me, I dove into the scriptures and prayed "God I know you love me, but I just don't feel
it, I just haven't seen it, and I want to know the truth so please show me, and I cried out with all my heart.
I read verse after verse, and did study after study just pouring over the scriptures. I read a few other things too, but it
seems like the words of man just did not even help me unless it was a real live testimony of how God's love helped someone,
but as I poured over all the scriptures I could find , just thousands of verses and passages on God's love, I finally saw
that it was true that God loves us unconditionally, and does not judge us according to our performance or sins anymore.
All of a sudden the spiritual value of the Word of God in the Bible took me to such heights in my mind, such total peace and
joy so that I could begin to understand and relate to the unconditional Love and grace of God.
I had the joy of my salvation restored as when I first got saved, and felt God's unconditional love for the first time in
a long time, and I was determined to not let it go. Jesus set me free!
That was after months of pouring over the Word for several hours a day, working at the same time for support.
It was only after that, when I saw the spirit - soul- body connection, and started realizing that it was my spirit that was
saved, and my mind that was what needed to get renewed day by day, that I was able to start relating that love to my wife,
who was still in TF at the time, and treating her with that same unconditional love, being more concerned about her needs.
At the time she was living in the living room, quite a public place for a middle aged woman, with everyone coming in and out
at any time of the day or night. No, she didn't have a room, not even with the girls, so I saw that and talked to her about
it, and told her it was not a good situation. I wondered if there wasn't something someone could do to rectify the situation
so that she would have the privacy an older woman needs.
She needed things like a desk chair, heater, warm clothes, desk lamp,that the home could not afford , or she didn't want to
ask for.
She also was often weak and got sick from being in a cold drafty room, and from being involved in all the activities and jobs
in the home.
I guess they did their best to take care of her, and I am not accusing anyone of anything as they had enough to do taking
care of their own families there, but it seemed to not be enough, as busy as they were, with all that has to be done in a
home where different families are living together.
Since her room was the living room, she couldn't go to bed until the home meetings were over, which sometimes went on until
one or two in the morning, and which she was obliged to attend.
She finally, after several months, decided to leave the home and come and get together with me, at my invitation, and said
she believed that Jesus told her to come,and since then we have been growing together in the spirit.
She also started realizing these same things about God's unconditional love and now knows that what she had in TF was NOT
God's unconditional love and grace,although was a form of it, in name and letter, but was not experiential, and it was a
shock to her when she started realizing that at first.
You see, God's love and favor, His blessings upon the life of a Christian has very little, if anything to do with how you
perform for God. Your good works and deeds or stats.
God's love is UNCONDITIONAL.
However, that does not give license to sin.God is not angry at your sin anymore, but to keep on willfully sinning against
God and man brings earthly consequences that you have to pay now , in this life, and maybe learn some lessons in the next,
if not here.
So back to the love. That is what changed me and helped me over the depression, condemnation, confusion, unbelief, and was
the prime factor in my "thought reform" or renewing of my mind, which is an on going process.
The key was finding out what happened to me in the Spirit. Who I really am in the Spirit and in Jesus. Because if you don't
know, then you are vulnerable to fall for any fiery dart Satan wants to throw your way.
Because I read scriptures that said "As Jesus is , so are ye in this world"1Jn 4:17. It didn't say so are you going to be
in the future.
I mean we would sing songs like "When we all get to heaven, what a day of rejoicing that will be" and everything about victory,
overcoming, peace and fullness of joy was relegated to when we get to heaven, and that now we had to go through it and suffer
persecution, suffer disease, and then we will be worthy to reign with Him.
And then I would run across these scriptures like 1Jn 4:17 that says "as Jesus is so ARE we in THIS WORLD" and because I made
a commitment to believe God's Word I would say "yes its true" but I could not make a practical application of that because
everything I saw in my life at the time seemed like failure.
When I looked at the Word and saw that it promised all these things such as total healing, perfect peace, joy, victory, prosperity,
blessing, lack of fear etc, I was just falling short of pretty much all of these things in every area of my life.
I mean I would go look in the mirror and say "I'm not like Jesus, what's going on here?"
But the key to my understanding this and what these verses are saying, was when I realized that in the physical I am not like
Jesus. My physical body and mind are not like Jesus. I also read verses like 1Thessalonians 5:23 that says "And I pray God
that your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. That made it very
clear to me that I have three parts, not just two as we were taught in TF. I realized that I have a spirit and a soul and
a body, and not just two parts, and understanding that was the key that like unlocked the door to a brand new way of thinking
for me that helped me to understand why my feelings and thinking wasn't always going along with what I read in the Bible.
It's the spirit part of us, which the Bible calls "The hidden man of the heart" 1Peter 3:4.The reason it says hidden is because
it is not easily discernible. It's not external , or tangible or obvious like your body and your soul , or the emotional part
of you.
So I decided to read up a lot more on the subject of spirit -soul -and body and see what others had to say about it, so that
was one subject I read a lot of books on, and that was the key that helped me to understand that it was my spirit that was
saved, and not the body and soul(or mind) part of me, and that I now needed to work on renewing my mind, or the soul part
of me and the body will just follow. I know it is easier said then done, and so I went to work on that. But not without a
lot of mind wrenching, challenging , stretching and changing much of my pre-conceived ideas I had been fed and taught for
years in TF.
I mean, there is just nothing else that can even relate to it, and that is why a lot of former Family members have a hard
time and struggle with this concept. They can't relate to it, and is hardly even taught in mainstream Christianity, but it
has been there all this time right there in the Bible.
The closest thing I could think of to help me relate to this truth of God's Word that I was already familiar with was a letter
called " Feeling Close To Jesus". There were things said in there were we can know by faith that God loves us by what happens
all around us. The love of a baby, the flowers and trees, and nature, a hug, affection, and showing love to each other, but
as I was thinking about that it dawned on me that STILL does not express the closeness of a relationship with God.
That may be the Brother Sun ,Sister Moon approach, where you approach God through His creation. well, if you want to be another
Saint Francis, and approach God that way it's your choice. I choose to approach Him directly, go right to the throne of grace.
I believe in an intimate relationship with God. I believe I have an intimate and close relationship with the Holy Spirit.
I believe in spending quality time with the Lord, in prayer, worship, adoration, intercession, praise and thankfulness, in
communion with the Holy Spirit of God. This is my favorite time of the day, and I wish it would never end, but there is business
to take care of too.
I believe in asking the Holy Spirit to teach me the meaning of God's word, after all, who knows it better than the Holy Spirit?
He wrote it. So I do not share The Family's concept of a female Holy Spirit. I know there are certain traits of the Holy Spirit's
nature that do resemble the love of a mother, but you can't tell me that the Old Testament, in Proverbs 8, probably written
by Solomon, where it talks about wisdom in a female term, is talking about the Holy Spirit of God.
Jesus came to SHOW us the Father, and to bring the Holy Spirit back into authority upon the earth as the representative
of the Godhead.
I will take what Jesus, Paul, Peter and John said over what Solomon said ANY DAY! I am not a follower of Solomon, but of
Jesus!
It wasn't just the letter of the law or doctrine, but coming to the realization of those things above which was just the
key of the start of everything else, and that goes for forgiveness too. You can't look to yourself to forgive. You have to
seek God and ask for a revelation of HIS love through you in order to forgive. No human, no matter how holy, has enough love
within himself to forgive. This kind of love can only come from asking God to reveal it to you.
I am just beginning to learn deeply of the height, breadth, length and deepness of God's love and that it is not a fleshly
carnal thing. It goes beyond our understanding.
I am so so sorry for those who left the Family and are depressed or having troubles and can't find the answers they need now.
I am so so sorry that there were those who left The Family and committed suicide. It wasn't necessary I believe. If I could
find such love and peace in my after Family life, and take things in stride I know others could.
I feel I want to share this with many ex members who do not have victorious Christian lives, but a lot of them do not receive
it. However , there are those who have, and who were helped by things I shared with them.
"God is a Spirit", Jesus said, " and they that worship Him MUST worship Him in Spirit and in Truth"
Thanks for your time.
love and prayers, and all the best to you,
Charles
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