From: Carley
To: The Path of Truth
Sent: Sunday, December 21, 2014 6:01 PM
I’ve stumbled upon your website, and this is the second time. Ironically enough, I have been struggling with being able to trust any piece of information. I can only not deny an experience I had when I was young. I sought the Lord for several days continually while being forced to be at this church camp. I knew it was wrong, but I knew God wasn’t to blame for man’s twisted ways. I didn’t know what I was looking for, other than God himself. In a moment of deep listening after the youth ministers had made us play a game that was traumatizing to other students, I literally felt breath on my left ear and a whisper say, “Love me.” After this, I said out loud, “I do.” Thus I repeated my statement and began to sob knowing that I had never tried to love God. My heart was on fire with a radiant deep peace and joy I had never dreamed of, and I denied myself in all my entirety.
This experience made me feel like I had never felt in my life. This lasted after I had left the camp, but left shortly and still can not figure out why.
It sounds like a cliché experience, but regardless what I do (which I have tried everything except the extremes of killing, orgies, meth and heroine, rape, and other religions. I’ve tried to be an atheist. I’ve tried to be a Calvinist. Nothing works, to put me back into the same oneness with God I’ve experienced upon and after of hearing His voice.
I question it was truly Him, but my heart will not let me say it could be anything else. No matter, literally, what I do, I am always convicted to remember the moment when I heard Him.
I don’t trust anyone, nor my own senses. I reject all man taught words, and practices. All I know is what happened to me in that moment is unexplainable, and that God has given me a heart to fear Him.
I come to you because I feel great badness in institutes, the idea of hell, and man made truths. Which you seem to agree with. I don’t know where to go, what to do. I have been looking for schools, places, ideas but cannot escape my distrust in conclusions. I’m a high school graduate. I would do anything for the Lord, and want to follow Christ in all my understanding. He will not let me go.
From: Victor Hafichuk
To: Carley
Cc: Paul Cohen
Sent: Saturday, December 27, 2014 11:29 AM
Subject: About Loving the Lord
Hi Carley,
You say you won’t trust any man’s words, but here goes speaking what you need to hear. What you do with what we say to you is up to you. Tolerate the forthrightness, for we see no other way to speak to you and to all.
What you experienced at that camp, though certainly real, was not of God. That camp was filled with the works of the powers of darkness (tell us what camp, if you will). God doesn’t come incognito and He doesn’t give warm fuzzy feelings to woo anyone to Him. Search the Scriptures, which we declare to be Authoritative and True concerning the Kingdom of God and you’ll find no such recorded experience.
In fact, when Jesus Christ and the angels appeared to anyone, people quickly knew Who was appearing to them and the experiences were invariably frightening. Look for yourself and know what we say is true – Moses, Jacob, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, Mary, Saul of Tarsus, John…the list goes on.
Now let’s consider the mysterious words you heard: “Love me.” Here’s the problem: The Lord comes first to love, not to be loved (to serve and not be served).
“We love Him because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19 MKJV).
The enemy comes first to be loved and worshipped. To the Lord, Satan came and said, “All these things I will give You if You will fall down and worship me.
No human being can love God in their own power; therefore, the Lord would not expect it of them.
Know this, Carley: The first topic of conversation in meeting with the Lord for the first time is…repentance from sin. Think of it: John introduced the Messiah of Israel by a call to repentance. All four Gospels and each event in the Book of Acts begin with the theme of repentance from sin. Isaiah immediately recognized his sin when seeing the Lord. Saul of Tarsus was immediately confronted on persecuting the saints, and Christ in them.
Anyone who has a pleasant initial experience instead of having to face their sinfulness while meeting the Lord is meeting “another Jesus,” an angel of light, and not THE Lord Jesus Christ, the Creator and Reconciler of all things and Savior of all men.
Your answer? “I do.” But your answer was not according to Scripture, which declares that nobody loves Him. All men hate the Lord, which includes you:
Romans 3:10-18 MKJV
(10) As it is written: There is none righteous, no not one;
(11) there is none that understands, there is none that seeks after God.
(12) They are all gone out of the way, they have together become unprofitable, there is none that does good, no, not one.
(13) Their throat is an open grave, with their tongues they have used deceit, the poison of asps is under their lips;
(14) whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness;
(15) their feet are swift to shed blood;
(16) destruction and misery are in their way,
(17) and the way of peace they did not know.
(18) There is no fear of God before their eyes.
If you come to love the Lord Jesus Christ, He says all men will hate you, too.
“And you will be hated of all men for My Name’s sake, but the one who endures to the end shall be kept safe” (Matthew 10:22 MKJV).
So where did your answer to Him come from? It came from you, but you were speaking carnal love, which doesn’t count with God. It must be “agape” love, the true, self-sacrificing, giving spiritual love, which no person possesses on their own.
However, He clearly does command us to love Him. Now what does it mean to love Him?
“He who has My commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves Me. And he who loves Me shall be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will reveal Myself to him” (John 14:21 MKJV).
How shall you love God? You say, “I’ve tried to be an atheist. I’ve tried to be a Calvinist. Nothing works, to put me back into the same oneness with God I’ve experienced upon and after of hearing His voice.”
Coming into fellowship with the Lord never did, nor will ever, happen that way. What did Jesus say?
“Therefore if they shall say to you, Behold, He is in the desert! Do not go out. Behold, He is in the secret rooms! Do not believe it” (Matthew 24:26 MKJV).
You can only love Jesus Christ (God) by keeping His commandments, as He said. And you can only keep His commandments by His grace, by the power of His Spirit (you need to receive His Spirit). With men, said Jesus, these things are impossible, but with God ALL things are possible.
Your experience came, went, and left you in bondage and longing. In the long run, it teased and tormented you, making you wonder what you felt, why you felt it, why you lost it and how to get it back. Still, your experience has served to hear the truth. So what’s the answer?
“And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:32 MKJV).
“Therefore if the Son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed” (John 8:36 MKJV).
In summary, what do you do, Carley? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Call on Him personally; be prepared to obey Him in whatever He may require of you. What does He require? Here are some papers to help you:
Confession of Sin
Forgiveness
Holy Waters
How One Is Saved
Obedience
What Is Faith?
The Lord grant you grace to love Him,
Victor
From: Victor Hafichuk
To: Carley
Cc: Paul Cohen, Sara V. Schmidt, Marilyn Hafichuk
Sent: Saturday, December 27, 2014 9:02 PM
Subject: Re:About Loving the Lord
Hi Carley,
Here is something further that came to me in the night for you to consider:
The first thing the Lord will address in meeting with you for the first time is… repentance from sin. Think of it: John introduced the Messiah of Israel by a call to repentance. All four Gospels and each event in the Book of Acts begin with the theme of repentance from sin. Isaiah immediately recognized his sin when seeing the Lord. Saul of Tarsus was immediately confronted on persecuting the saints and Christ in them.
Anyone who has a pleasant initial experience instead of having to face their sinfulness while meeting the Lord is meeting “another Jesus,” a deceiving angel of light, and not THE Lord Jesus Christ, the Creator and Reconciler of all things and Savior of all men.