The UNSEEN

[Paul Hazelwood]

I have a friend who is really struggling with understanding the word of God.   He's not really on board with Christian Universalism but he also wonders if what he was taught about hell is true either.   It frustrates him that he reads scripture and it just doesn't make sense.

Yet,  he will say things from his heart that really testify to God working in someone.



Hb 11:3 Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.



After saying such things one time when we were talking I asked him if he believed God could give him spiritual revelation with out him ever picking up the bible.  He said he believed it is possible.  To those who often get offended by that I am not making the case here or to my friend that the bible is not useful,  only that people often have more of Gods word in their heart than they can see due to the legalistic nature of religion from all camps.

I repeated what he said and told him to write it down, then I told him to cast aside his upbringing when it comes to what he's been told. Not that it is all wrong, but that because of the nature of how it was applied to his life by others in authority over him that he may not see what is there because that was always in the way, a blonder in his life so to speak.

Then I told him to search the scriptures by any means available to try to reference what he just said to something in scripture, take your time and do it prayerfully.

If there are no results, then put what you wrote in a place that you may label, "not sure yet"

Then the next time you think of something about God that in your heart (and not what you have been TOLD)  do the same thing.  Don't force things and don't just think of something that you'd like God to be, just out of your heart, let it come naturally.  The same way what I had you write down came.


When he agreed to do that I told him that he just took a step of faith without realizing it because he took a step in faith that perhaps God could show him direction through his own heart rather than through what everyone else is telling him and later he called me with some understanding of the verse above.

He understood that he took a step in the unseen world that he had never experienced before.


Now my point in all of this is to give example of why I share the gospel, it is seeing people find freedom, even a glimpse however small (Mustard Seeds).  Some may ask, WELL IF ALL ARE SAVED EVENTUALLY WHY BOTHER.

Well,  if ANY believer cannot see the joy in the story I just told, then they need freedom also,  pray people find freedom and be doers of the word in order to be a part of it all.

[sheila]

 Hey Paul,

  I am happy for this brother that your counsel has helped.

  Learning to follow and trust that Holy spirit not to mis-lead

you is a great step in faith. It is kinds rough at first...going a

way youv'e never gone before. Isaaih 42;16...

   I will lead the blind by ways they have not known, along

unfamiliar paths I will guide them. I will turn the darkness into

light before them,and make the rough places smooth.

   THESE ARE THE THINGS I WILL DO

   I WILL NOT FORSAKE THEM :bgdance:

[Cardinal]

 :cloud9: It is true that He will never leave us nor forsake us, and never doesn't have a beginning or an end. I heard His voice (as far as being able to remember) when I was around 9 or 10. He gave me dreams, one in particular that was astounding, when I was around 10, also.

I didn't know it was His voice or His voice in the dream, until I turned to Him just short of my 30th birthday. He revealed Himself to me personally, then began to reveal Himself to me in His Word the day I "awakened" from a long "sleep".

So I do see the joy in what you're saying, and this is something that no man can take away from them. Blessings....

[eaglesway]

    I think your friend is blessed to have a friend who is an able minister of the covenant of life written on human hearts, not by the letter, but by the Spirit. The way of seeking and studying you shared with him was beautiful, and I think your definition of the difficulties presented by the many camps (casting stumbling blocks on the seekers path) was accurate.

    Abraham heard the voice before there were any collected scriptures that we know of. The witness in the heart of the ones who know His voice is usually contrary to what is being taught out in the open highways of religianity. Sometimes it leads people to question Christianity in general as well as the bible and the name of Jesus. But thats ok....everyone who seeks finds- and to everyone who knocks the door is opened.

    I would rather see a serious seeker wander on in a search for a real and personally relevant  understanding than stop off in one of the convenient way stations along the wide way of contemporary Christianity. The Pharisees had the scriptures, but they did not have the voice or the fellowship of God. If I try to reap when God is only watering the seed, am I ministering for myself or for the seeker?The faithful husbandmen waits patiently for the early and the latter rains and is content to see growth, first the shoot, then the stalk, then the ear of grain.

Joh 5:37-40  And the Father Himself, who sent Me, has testified of Me. You have neither heard His voice at any time, nor seen His form. But you do not have His word abiding in you, because whom He sent, Him you do not believe. You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me. But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life.

Joh 10:26-28  But you do not believe, because you are not of My sheep, as I said to you. My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand.


Rom 2:29  but he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the Spirit, not in the letter; whose praise is not from men but from God.

2Co 3:2-6  You are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read by all men; clearly you are an epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink but by the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of flesh, that is, of the heart. And we have such trust through Christ toward God. Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God, who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

Rom 2:14-16  for when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do the things in the law, these, although not having the law, are a law to themselves, who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and between themselves their thoughts accusing or else excusing them) in the day when God will judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ, according to my gospel.

1Co 8:1-3  Now concerning things sacrificed to idols, we know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge makes arrogant, but love edifies. If anyone supposes that he knows anything, he has not yet known as he ought to know; but if anyone loves God, he is known by Him.