CHAPTER 2 - MY PEOPLE NEED TO REPENT SO THEY CAN BE RESTORED

   Chapter 2

  MY PEOPLE NEED TO REPENT SO THEY CAN BE RESTORED

   Still living in Phoenix, going to church and praising God for what He has done in our life so far.  I was still going to the Weslyan Church down the road and falling in love with Jesus more everyday.  The more I fell in love with Him, the more things in my life were changing.  I quit smoking, drinking alcohol, going to clubs, ungodly relationships and cussing.  I loved God and the people at my church.  I started going to a bible study at church called "Experiencing God" by Henry Blackaby, it was wonderful.  God used it in a very powerful way to show me how to follow His Holy Spirit.
   All was well, I THOUGHT.  Until I heard Gods voice for the first time in my relationship with Him.  He said "My people need to repent so they can be restored."  I was in awe that I heard His voice.  I went all around church telling my friends "you know what God said, He said His people need to repent so they can be restored."  Every time I would share it, I would get a response like "well what do I need to repent of?"  I had already been saved for 5 years and quit everything I knew how to quit when I heard His voice.  So I just kept sharing what I had heard and people at church started treating me badly, even the Pastor made a comment of me being crazy because I am hearing voices.  I got such an awesome revelation though as I was in my experiencing God bible study class.  It taught that whenever God gets ready to do something, He always reveals to a person or His people what He is going to do.  God accomplishes His work through His people.  (see Amos 3:7)  "Surely the Sovereign Lord does nothing without revealing His plan to his servants the prophets".   
   After being greatly misunderstood by my church who I loved so much, I found myself standing up in the congregation while open prayer was going on; and I said "INSTEAD OF ME COMING TO CHURCH WANTING YOU TO FILL MY CUP, I WILL POUR MYSELF OUT FOR YOU."  I will never forget that statement, it was the beginning of my life following the Holy Spirit and doing His work.  I ended up leaving that church, weeping as I walked home with my daughter; feeling betrayed by my church family.  I knew God was changing me to be GOD CENTERED and not people centered.  It was hard, but that's what I wanted.   I started praying, okay God what's next, where do you want me to go.
   At this time, my daughter was attending a preschool at Skyway Church.  While I was dropping her off there one morning, I was sharing with another mother and she invited me to her church, an assembly of God church.  I felt God leading me to her church and so I went.  When I got there, they were having a revival and going even in the evenings to listen to an evangelist speak.  After about the third time going, this particular evening I was having bad back cramps and didn't know why.  I even had a peculiar passing of which looked like a mucous plug of a woman about to give birth.  The Pastor of this Assembly of God Church had gone to the Brownsville Revival in Pensecola Fl. and the evangelist speaking was also from that revival, Steve Hill.  While I was seated pretty far in the back of church on the end seat, they showed a film clip from the revival of Alison Ward speaking with John Kilpatrick the Pastor of the Revival (SEE ALISON WARD BROWNSVILLE REVIVAL).  She was saying everything God was showing me already.  About Gods people not listening to Him.  And when she said there is not much time, that Gods heart is grieving for us...I flew out of my chair screaming "praise Jesus" and landed on the floor in a prostrate position wailing and weeping; so loud and so long.  I didn't even know my lungs could do that because I had smoked cigarettes for so long.  It was so loud, he could not preach, he did an altar call for people to come forward and accept Jesus as Lord.  When I got up, the woman next to me said what was that? I said "I don't know, it wasn't me."  She said it sounds like travailing.  I had never heard that before so when I got home, I looked in my bible and bible dictionary and sure enough, its in many places in Gods word.  Matthew 24:4-8   Jesus said Take heed that no man deceive you.  For many shall come in my name saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many.  And you shall hear of wars and rumors of wars; see that you be not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.  For nation shall rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom; and there shall be famines and pestilences and earthquakes, in diverse places.  ALL THESE ARE THE BEGINNING OF SORROWS.  In the olden days, when a woman was going into labor, they would say she is going into her sorrows.  God also gave me Isaiah 54.  I love this scripture, He used it to call me out.  "Shout for joy, O barren one, you who have born no child; break forth into joyful shouting and cry aloud, you who have not TRAVAILED; For the sons of the desolate one will be more numerous than the sons of the married woman," says the Lord. 52:2  "Enlarge the place of your tent; stretch out the curtains of your dwellings, spare not; lengthen your cords, and strengthen your pegs.  3- "For you will spread abroad to the right and to the left.  And your descendants will possess nations, And they will resettle the desolate cities. 4- "Fear not, for you will not be put to shame; Neither feel humiliated, for you will not be disgraced; but you will forget the shame of your youth, and the reproach of your widowhood you will remember no more. 5- "For your husband is your Maker, Whose name is the Lord of hosts; And your redeemer is the Holy One of Israel, who is called the God of all the earth.       Let those who have ears to hear...HEAR WHAT THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD IS SAYING!

   Still so much more to say.  Stay with me.  YOU CAN DO THIS ...KINGS OF PEOPLE SHALL COME OUT OF ME.  Follow me as I  follow our Father God.