in “the negros speaks of rivers,” what has happened to the speaker’s soul?

Open Hearts

Acts 16:13–15

"And on the sabbath nosotros went out of the city by a river side, where prayer was wont to be fabricated; and we sat downward, and spake unto the women which resorted thither. And a sure adult female named Lydia, a seller of purple, of the urban center of Thyatira, which worshipped God, heard us: whose center the Lord opened, that she attended unto the things which were spoken of Paul. And when she was baptized, and her household, she besought usa, maxim, If ye have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my firm, and abide at that place. And she constrained u.s.."

I got an email the other day from a lady named Carly. She had an amazing story about her journey from the depths that Satan had taken her, to the forgiveness of Jesus Christ. Here is role of her email beneath:

For near all of my life, I hated Christians. I stood against them, I persecuted them, I would become out of my style in attempts to testify them wrong. Everyone I know is withal in shock at what happened. In fact, I think I am nevertheless in shock myself. Every time I tell my testimony, God is glorified. I experience blest and honored that I can share this with y'all right now.

I was born into an abusive family of drug users and alcoholics. I have a long history of abuse in my past, but the nigh painful scars came from the wounds that no one could see. My parents would constantly tell me how worthless, stupid, insane, and hopeless I was…and even told me many things that I would never echo. I became seriously depressed at a very young age. Even in kindergarten, my instructor said there was no light in my eyes. But I was very intelligent, and then they placed me in advanced classes, and because I kept upwardly my grades, very little was ever washed to help me.

When I was a child, my neighbors asked if they could accept me to church. My parents agreed, because information technology would take me off their easily for some time. When people told me nigh the Christian religion, near hope, honey, joy, peace, happiness . . . I clung to it for dear life. Merely in every church I went to, finding rides with whatever neighbors would have me, I would find hypocrisy. My intellect e'er got in the manner, and I would stump the pastors, preachers, ministers, and priests with my questions, or my downright challenges. I retrieve clearly being asked non to render to a Catholic church when I was 5 because I asked the priest why they bow to statues when the Bible said that was a sin, and asked why they worshiped Mary more than God.

A few years later, in the third grade, I was hopelessly depressed. That year, all the same, I fabricated some actually interesting friends. One friend in particular was very well-read, and I was always going to him to larn things. His name was Nick. He would teach me phrases in French; he would teach me science, math, history, and music. I completely adored him, and listened to everything he told me. I day, he told me that there were other religions in the globe besides Christianity. I was shocked, and felt even more acrimony towards Christians since no ane had ever told me this fact before. I immediately became obsessed with studying every religion I could get my hands on. My parents moved us, and I lost touch with Nick, which pushed me farther into depression, just I had finally establish hope. Every moment that I could, I would study books nearly religion. I would finish my school work early and get hall passes to the library. I would skip recess and lunch and read about every religion and every deity I could find. I became a recluse, at the age of ten, locked up in my own little world.

I became a follower of the Hindu goddess Kalikamata, or Kali, and intensely studied the teachings of the Golden Dawn, which is a cult. I became highly involved in the occult and magick.

At the historic period of twelve, I was performing long and complicated rituals, I made an chantry to Kali, filled with candles, incense, and fifty-fifty statues that I did indeed bow down to. I worshiped Kali while still studying about every faith I could find. I studied palmistry, tarot cards, numerology, star divination, herbology, and more than.

Before long, I got into studying a form of magick called â€Å"free energy magick”. This is the blazon of magick y'all see in movies, and you’ve probably heard about, merely I am a witness to magick being very real. I spent a lot of fourth dimension in meditation, chanting, and doing what is chosen â€Å"invocations”. For invocations, you lot plead with the deities, which I now know are demons, to come up into you lot, and â€Å"bless” y'all with â€Å"gifts”. By the time I entered high schoolhouse, I had many â€Å"gifts”, and I knew how to use them very well.

I had a lot to say. I began to stand up confronting Christians, and I became evangelical for paganism. Everyone who would mind to me, I would teach almost the religions I knew nigh, and about the occult. Even the toughest skeptics believed me. I started educational activity anyone who would listen, and a lot of people listened.

During this fourth dimension, someone I had known for years began to constantly go on my case virtually my interest with the occult, and with my pagan religion. His name was Travis, and I had known him since the sixth class. He knew the magick I did was existent, but he chosen it evil. I was highly offended past him, and much of my high school time was spent arguing with him. We never got anywhere, but I loved talking about religion, because studying it was my passion, so I did not mind having him around.

As the years moved on, though, I became more and more depressed. I became very suicidal, and my life was saved a few times. I just did non care anymore. As well, I believed in reincarnation. I was more than ready to merchandise this life in for a new 1.

I actively told Christians why they were incorrect. I wrote papers about their hypocrisy. I institute Christians who did not walk the talk, and I would verbally beat them down, and tell whoever would listen why Christians were the worst people on globe. I would practice history reports on the Inquisition and the Crusades and give copies to people, and post them online equally more than reasons to hate Christianity. I would go into apologetics debates with any Christian who dared to try to have me on. I played the persecuted political party, and would express how I felt that they were monsters for teaching that anyone who didn’t follow their religion would suffer eternally in a â€Å"lake of fire”. I enjoyed showing Catholics why they were wrong, and how they didn’t fifty-fifty follow their own teachings. I did these things every chance that I got.

So, my mother died. I was cold and heartless most it, considering of how I had been treated my whole life, only things got complicated when my begetter got into harder drugs, abased my sisters and I, and I was forced to begin working full-time to pay the bills while even so in my senior year of loftier school. My large sister adopted my footling sister, and I was left to my ain devices. I decided to go to college, and I was awarded total scholarships. I attended a very liberal university, and I shortly found myself dorsum in the occult, practicing magick with a few people on campus, and thinking about eventually becoming a priestess of a Unitarian Universalist church building. I believed all religions were only different paths to God.

I started talking to my friend Travis more. We talked about religion, as nosotros always did. Considering I told him that I did indeed believe in his God, that I prayed to Him and even wore a cross from time to time, he stopped burying me under apologetics, and started trying to get me to go to church. He did not know at the time that I was still a follower of Kali, and fix her college than the Christian God. He kept giving me sermons to heed to and articles to read, but I never would. Finally, he got on my concluding nerve, and I agreed to listen to ONE sermon. I accepted the link that he gave me, opened the file, and proceeded to completely ignore it while I checked my e-mail.

Nonetheless, most half way through, something about the speaker’due south tone made me pause. I however hadn’t heard what he was talking about, but I stopped to listen to his tone. I stopped and asked myself how he could actually believe this stuff. Christianity as a religion meant zilch to me. I thought, â€Å"Wow, he actually believes this. He believes this more than than I believe that 1+1=2. He knows this. How? How can that be?” Then, in that location was nigh this voice in the dorsum of my head that seemed to whisper, â€Å"considering…it’southward truthful.”

Something snapped in me. Everything shattered. Suddenly I knew information technology was truthful, besides. I started asking myself questions, and that aforementioned little voice always seemed to respond. â€Å"Is the Bible true?”, â€Å"Yes.”, â€Å"Was Jesus existent?”, â€Å"Yes.”, â€Å"Is at that place really sky and hell?”, â€Å"Yes.”, â€Å"Did God actually requite those laws?”, â€Å"Yes.”…and on and on it went. I believed it completely, with everything that I had. Similar a flash of low-cal, everything I thought I knew was changed. My world changed. I fell downwardly in tears, begging God to forgive me for my idolatry, for my years in the occult, and for leading so many people away from Him.

I restarted the sermon, and found out that it was called â€Å"I Thing You Can’t Do In Heaven,” by Mark Cahill. The next mean solar day, I downloaded all of his sermons that I could notice, and asked Travis to requite me equally many resources that he could think of. Marker Cahill’southward sermons walked me through the 10 Commandments, and I repented of each and every one of them.

. . . The next day I hit the streets, street preaching. I called upwardly all of my infidel friends within the next week, and preached to them. I went back to my pagan bulletin board, and shared the gospel with them. When I wasn’t reading the Bible, listening to sermons, reading books on witnessing and apologetics, I was street preaching.

I accept now been saved for about vi months, and I am on burn for God. Nobody can keep me quiet. Mark’s sermons told me I â€Å"got to preach the gospel”, and preach I practise. I am now studying Biblical Studies in college, and I plan to live my whole life to glorify God, to deliver, and to give myself to God. I am prayerful that he will use me to further His glorious Kingdom! I am so caught up in the wonderful mercy of God…His forgiveness for even me, a modern-twenty-four hour period Saul of Tarsus…the miracles He has already worked in my life…I owe him all that I am, and I intend to give it.

Every bit you can tell by Carly’s story, yous have no clue what the Lord tin can exercise with a seed that is planted. It is His job, and His job alone to open up the hearts of people. We must faithfully constitute seeds, water seeds, and pray and lookout Him piece of work His wonders on the hearts of the lost. It might be a CD given to someone, a volume, a tract, a conversation, etc., and the Lord can utilise all of that to get someone’south attention. Would y'all please exist a Travis in someone’southward life this week? Would y'all care and then much about someone’s soul that yous will never, ever give upward on what the Lord might do in their lives? If God can open the heart of Lydia, Carly, etc., He can open the center of the people yous desperately want to run into saved.

Until the nets are full,

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Source: https://markcahill.org/open-hearts/

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