The story of my life 8: "When I told about Jesus to my boyfriend"

 

We had been going to the church for about three months when I invited Joaquim to join us. I felt so good there and I wanted him to experience the same thing that I was experiencing. At the time the pastor had explained about fasting; something new for me. He said that fasting was like a cry out, a stronger prayer, that we should do for specific cases, more difficult situations or just to consecrate ourselves more. So I decided to fast for fifteen days, from midnight to noon, in Joaquim's favor. I wanted him to go to church and to stay. This was the first fasting I did since I started going to the Universal Church. The great day that I invited him, to my surprise he accepted the invitation. We all went together to church: my mother, sister, Joaquim and I. I was so happy that God answered me! From that day on he never stopped going!

At first he did not understand much. I remember that every time I wrote him a letter (remember that in 1991 we did not have e-mail or WhatsApp. We communicated through letters, written by our own hand lol); and I always wrote a Bible verse and tried to explain it. My intention was to help him so that he could understand that everything that was done in the church was in accordance with the Word of God. I know that the Holy Spirit did the work in him. I never forced him to go to church or put him in this condition, even though at the time I was new in the faith too and didn’t know many things. I only had the sincere desire that he tried the same as I was living. I sought God and He honored my faith. But of course, Joaquim also had to accept, because God does not force anyone to seek Him; each person makes his own choice.

I would like to speak about this subject. Sometimes young people who wanted to date young unbelievers justified themselves through my example. They said, “If you can, I can do it, too.” However one thing is for you to arrive in church having a boyfriend already, like it was my case. When I arrived at the Universal Church in 1991, I was already dating Joaquim for one year. And another thing is for you to be in the presence of God, to have knowledge of the Word and to decide to have a boyfriend of the world; to become involved with a person who does not have your faith and put at risk your own salvation. I am not saying that it’s impossible for that person to convert, but until you see it you have to wait. It’s not okay to accept to date someone first, and then see if s/he wants to accept the Lord Jesus or not. It shows that you are putting your love life above your life with God.

That's the big difference! At that time I did not even have this knowledge that I should date a person of the same faith. I was new in church. We did not have blogs or books to teach us. We were learning everything slowly as the pastor was teaching us. Even though I did not have this knowledge, I wanted Joaquim to be with God. Even without the interest of dating someone of the same faith, I repeat, I did not know, I wanted us to be together with God and to know the Truth. Like me, he also lived spiritually blind, a slave of a religion.

So my beautiful girls, be careful not to confuse that! We do not have the ability to change anyone. It’s the Holy Spirit that does it!  Maybe at first, Joaquim accepted my invitation to please me, but he stayed, he converted and I can prove it. I will tell you more about this in the following posts. I've seen many church girls get involved with boys of the world and suffer. They acted out of passion. They did not know how to wait in God. They did not have the vision to see them converted first. So they still suffer to have married a person who does not accept their faith, mistreats them, deceives them, and so on! I ask myself, why create a problem if you can choose someone of the same faith, right? In the next post I will say a big mistake I did, but I was not aware of it. Maybe you have done it too!

Have you ever had a bad experience by getting involved with someone who does not practice your faith? Even within the church it can happen, because not all who are in the church are converted and given to God. See that God makes us aware of everything:

“Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God.” 1 John 4:1

This means that we must always see if the testimony given is true and whether the person acts by the flesh or by the Spirit. Unfortunately, not everyone who claims to be of God is really of God. But for this you have to be spiritual, because if you are of the flesh how can you detect who is spirit or flesh? Now you know it!!

Read the previous postshere!