Richard, and all,
I relate to your newly found passion for the truth. The best way i can explain it is that your Father is rewiring your mind and heart.
Before I started learning the scriptures and what they REALLY say, I claimed to be tolerant and nonjudgmental, but in my heart I harshly and severely judged Mormons, Muslims, Buddhists, other Christians that didn't believe what I believed. I
secretly assured myself that I was going to be saved in the hereafter and they were not. My words spoke of love and acceptance, but my heart was a
white washed tomb.
My intention was not always pure, because selfishly I thought it was MY JOB to convert the world and also take the credit. God needed me. When i didn't or couldn't convert, I blamed it on the person I was trying to convert. It's your choice, you send yourself to hell.
When I started searching for answers on the hell doctrine, it was much like a PULLING in my being or a door that i couldn't close. For me, at times it was downright ANNOYING, because I was
physically ill with a longing. It was like NOTHING I had ever experienced and even COCAINE didn't feel the way this ACHING TO KNOW felt. I had been sober for a while when i started searching, but the closer I got to the FIRE of GOD, the more I knew in my CORE, that no drug could ever compare to what was about to be revealed. At about 3AM and after a long month of studying, searching and praying for the longing to end, I begged HIM (in the old fashion pitiful way) to show me. I had to know and I needed to SLEEP. I went to the notes I had wrote at the beginning of my search to
start the search over. He showed me the same 3 verses that started the search. "GOD IS LOVE." "LOVE YOUR ENEMIES." "You didn't choose me, I chose you." The LIGHT came on. I was inconsolable with a pure and awesome fear and my DENIAL of His power was burned away in a split second which was instantly followed by what I can only explain as a SHOWER of JOY. Have you ever took a SHOWER IN JOY? I've never been that HIGH. If there were Taverns or PUBS in heaven, they would serve JOY ON TAP, I say, because that is some good s*. I digress.
Today, I am learning to perceive and accept people as they are, participate in other cultures that are not my own, listen to what people have to say without interrupting. I get asked more about my beliefs now than I EVER did.
I heard someone at the conference say (won't mention names)
"LIGHT doesn't make noise it just SHINES."
Thanks for sharing.
Jen