When they turn against you?

Ever wondered why people suddenly started to hate you after you gave your heart to Jesus?

Here is my story, hoping it will help you to understand your Persecution better.

After I was baptised with water and with the Holy Spirit my friends started to torment me saying that they are waiting for me to snap out of "this thing".

It was as if the whole world suddenly hated me.

They told me that all I could do now was talk about Jesus and heavenly things. I was too holy for them and too radical about my faith. They told me that this was not good for a person some said that I was too holy for earthly things and that I was already living in heaven, ignoring all the facts of life. Some said that I was in a cult and that I was headed for destruction.

I was not, I was only starting to believe in my Saviour and I gave Him all my cares. This seems to the world foolishness but to me it meant power and my faith grew, even when it seemed that I did not care any more. It was not that I did not care but that I gave God all my cares and was able to live free from stress. As I saw God coming through for me in everything I asked of Him, I grew stronger and stronger every day.

it seems that Jesus was radical and He did not stop till He died on the cross for me, and you. Could one be more radical than to die for another?

Matthew 10:35-37: I came to set sons against their fathers, daughters against their mothers, daughters-in-law against their mothers-in-law; your worst enemies will be the members of your own family. "Those who love their father or mother more than me are not fit to be my disciples; those who love their son or daughter more than me are not fit to be my disciples. (GNB)

My Dad turned against me!

One day I went to my dad to visit and we were talking about salvation and I said that I learned that I was not from this world any more but that I was born into a new world (spiritual). He did not understand and became very angry with me. He went and got his Bible from the room and he threw it in my face, screaming that I must take my God and my Bible and go.

The rejection that followed was hard to carry, but I knew that God was bigger than any trial the devil could bring against me.

My friends turned away!

One of my friends came to see me with a bottle of strong liquor to party as we use to do. As we sat down, he asked what I wanted to drink. I told him that I no longer drink alcohol and now only drink soft drinks. He was furious that I would not "have a dop" with him and spun black tire marks on the driveway as he left my yard. After learning that I have given my heart and life to Jesus, he never wanted to see me again.

I went to another friend (led by the Holy Spirit to confess all my sin, (lies) I had told people) and I confessed that I had lied to him about my army days, all the stories I used to tell, and that most of the stuff I had told him, was a total lie. I told him that I was a lorry driver in the army and that nothing significant had happened to me while I was serving my two years of army time. I was his hero, yet it was all built on lies. He was so disappointed in me that he broke our friendship from that day.

My best friend came over and he brought a bottle of strong liquor and he was shocked and amazed when I told him I was saved and that I did not drink anymore.

He left very angry. He came back a few weeks later, haven given me time to recover from "this Christian thing" and he brought his bottle again. He got the same reaction and he was furious also spun out of my yard. I never saw him again.

I lost all my friends one by one till there was no one left.

It was a difficult time in my life.

I learned later that God promised that when you lose a friend for the sake of God, he will give you new friends. I had lost all my friends and for a while even my family, but God always comes through for me and I slowly started to make new friends and this time they were real friends, sharing, caring and loving me just as I am.

God gave me a new family and a new wife and child to look after, to love and care for.

So do not lose heart or hope, when persecution come, these things will happen because we are now children of the light and light and darkness do not mix.

The darkness will leave you. It will flee from your presence because the light of Yeshua is NOW in your spirit.

God will place new people with you to help and love you.

1 Peter 2:9: But ye [are] a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shows forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light: (NKJ)

John 17:14: I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. (NKJ)

John 17:16: They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. (NKJ)

John 15:19: If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. (NKJ)

1 John 5:19: [And] we know that we are of God, and the whole world lies in wickedness. (NKJ)

We are not of this world, as the Bible teaches us, we are aliens passing through.

We are special like Adam, a peculiar people, different from the world and their ways. We were placed on this earth with a purpose, to build our characters, to be tested and to live in God’s victory and power, so the world can see God through us.

Soon after my pickup (bakkie) broke down and I had to replace the engine. I did not have the money so I decided to buy a cheap car to drive from point a to point b. A guy at work told me he had a Golf I could buy. It was an old rundown light blue Golf, smoking and rattling all the way. I bought the car but as I drove the car home I was fighting with God because I thought I deserved better than this piece of junk. I cried all the way home and I hated that car with a passion.

I named the car "Smokey Robinson" because it almost burned more oil than fuel.

The Lord was teaching me to be humble and satisfied with all things.

I drove that car for almost 2 years until the Lord provided for me to fix my pickup and I decided to sell the golf! I sold it to a woman in our church and the day she came to fetch the car she couldn’t reverse it out of the yard, so I did it for her. In the street, she went on her knees beside the car and in front of everyone she praised God for this car.

She had prayed for years for a car and now her prayer was finely answered.

I felt so ashamed, I hung my head.

I was too proud to even thank God for this car and here this woman was on her knees thanking God for a car I did not even wanted to be seen in. My shame was her blessing and through that the Lord taught me that whatever comes your way, it is a blessing from Him, even if you cannot see at the time.

She had the motor redone and fixed up the car.

That car is running to this day and that woman can come to church and be independent and she is still thanking God for her blessing.

Some of my friends did not want to know or be seen with me, because of the car I was driving.

A vision was given me on the night of February 2005.

The Lord showed me what happens when we are been reborn into the Kingdom of God. I saw that there was total chaos on Earth, it was so bad that I felt I couldn’t take it anymore. The next moment I was (ripped) taken away into another World? Whether in Heaven or on the Earth, I do not know.

This place looked just like the Earth we know. In that place my first encounter was a feeling of total peace. I felt such a peace that I cannot describe. It felt so totally different to anything I had ever felt before. The next thing I noticed was that there was beautiful light, yet there was no sun or clouds. The light did not sting me, as the sun would have done here on Earth.

The sky was the bluest of blue. I saw flat grasslands as far as the eye could see, and trees here and there. There were a lot of people with me in that place and they were all peaceful. I looked closer at the people and I saw that I knew some of them. I knew that they were still living as I looked at them; these people were serving the Lord.

As I looked at the picture before me, I saw in the distance that some were praying and as they prayed, the blue sky opened up directly above them and a light would shine on them.

Then I saw someone nearer to me praying and the same thing happened. I then prayed and immediately the blue sky opened up directly above me and a brilliant light shone upon me. The peace was overwhelming and immediately I received what I had prayed for. Whatever I prayed for the same thing happened. I knew then that God answers prayer immediately. Deep in my heart, I knew that no unholy or evil person would be found here and that this place is where God’s children are living in to the Spiritual realm, away from chaos and disorder.

Although we live on Earth in the flesh, we also live in another dimension in the spirit, in peace that goes far above our understanding.

If one looks closer at this vision, it seems that when a person is reborn and he is living a holy life, pleasing to God, the Lord takes him out of this world of chaos and places him in His world of peace (another dimension). The Lord said in His Word that we are in this World but not of this World. I realised the most amazing thing; all prayer is answered immediately and the peace is ours for the taking.

One day I was working nightshift and a friend asked me to go with him to buy a train ticket at the station so I went with him.

It was freezing cold that morning and I was shivering from the cold. At the station we had to stand in a queue to buy the ticket. A woman was begging all along the queue. She was dressed skimpily and she was blue from the cold, shivering uncontrollably. The Lord said to me that I had to take off my jacket and give it to her.

I couldn’t do it, in the first place, it was cold and secondly, the woman was a black woman. I, as a white man giving a jacket to her would surely attract attention to me and I did not want that. The Lord spoke to me again and I just couldn’t. Then we left and we went into the basement of the building were we worked and as I passed my pickup I saw that there was another jacket inside the truck.

Hebrews 13:2: Remember to welcome strangers in your homes. There were some who did that and welcomed angels without knowing it. (GNB)

Immediately I turned back and ran to look for the beggar, but after almost an hour of looking for her, she was no where to be found. I started sobbing and was so disappointed in myself, knowing that that woman could have been an angel sent by the Lord to test me and I had failed one hundred percent.

All the above stories is to illustrate the goodness of God and that when Persecution come in all different forms, we have but to pray and ask for endurance and they that overcome will inherit the New Jerusalem.