Praise Report: Restoration Of Relationship With God

Dear Pastor Prince, I cannot thank the Lord enough for sending your broadcasts into our home in the past few years. My husband and I have never experienced such radical change in our thinking and that is a miracle.

I received Christ as my Savior in high school. When I was saved, my walk with God was full of grace, even though I had no idea what grace or law was at the time. I felt so free from sin and free to walk with the Lord. I had a close relationship with the Lord, loved reading the Scriptures, and had wonderful fellowship with other believers.

During college, I felt drawn to missions to share the gospel overseas. I had to go to some form of Bible training for missions so I went to a renowned Bible school after college. But after a short time into the Bible school program, I began to feel as if my relationship with God started to become distant. The pressure of studying about God suffocated my spiritual life and it produced death in me.

I had never known there was some code of behavior that Christians were supposed to have. I tried my best to fit into the school’s culture but all the while I felt as if I was sinking spiritually. Fear entered my heart because I felt I wasn’t very pleasing to God. I did not really fit the mould of what Christians were supposed to be.

When I left Bible school, I felt like a failure as a Christian. In order to get back my relationship with God, I thought I just had to try harder. I went overseas for a year and tried so hard to please God with my service. But the more I tried and served, the emptier I felt. My time in missions did not go well either and I felt even more like a failure. I felt I had let God down in some way that was not reparable.

I kept asking myself what I did wrong. Where was my free and effortless relationship with God? I thought if I just got involved in serving in church then things with God would be better.

I used to love reading the Word and hearing God speak to me. As time went by, Bible reading became a chore and something that seemed to condemn rather than encourage. I could read it and pick up on everything that told me I wasn’t doing enough or I was not being good enough. The Word drove me further from God instead of fill me with His love. It felt just like what Romans 7:9–10 said: “I was alive once without the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died. And the commandment, which was to bring life, I found to bring death.”

I went on in life to get married and lived life the best way I knew how. But all the while I was still wondering what went wrong in my relationship with God. Was He mad at me because of my poor attempts at serving Him? I obsessively analyzed my past and my motives. I looked for every conceivable sin and confessed them again and again. But this never gave me back my close relationship with God. On the outside, I acted like how a Christian should act, but my heart felt dead. I felt like such a hypocrite. I knew in theory that God had not abandoned me, but I sure felt like He did.

Then in 2012, I began to listen to Pastor Joseph Prince’s sermons. I had never heard anything so liberating and full of grace, not since I had been born again! Truly it was water to a dry soul. I saw that condemnation had entered my heart and that was why my relationship with God became so dry and so full of duty. Once I began to understand the purpose of the law and why God gave it, it was like the scales fell off my eyes.

Since listening to the gospel of grace, feelings of condemnation have begun falling off. God has connected so many dots for me and I now see how the law dealt me such a blow. Now, I can really see His grace and understand His favor, and am growing in a revelation of His love.

I am also reading the Word without feeling condemned. I can spend time with the Lord and not feel like I’m not good enough and that I haven’t done enough to please Him. As a result, I can’t wait to spend time with Him and I love hearing from Him.

Pastor Prince, I praise God for your life, your family, and your church. Thank you for being courageous and keep on teaching His grace and truth that is setting people free.

Kathleen Shea Starks | Michigan, United States

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *