Loving God E-Book

Deborah Tarver Waters

• Herausgeber: Proisle Publishing Services
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Seitenzahl: 219

Beschreibung

How do you love God? How does a Loving God allow difficult things to happen in your life? Can you even believe that God exists?

The secret to Loving God is trusting in His word and learning from and living through the stories found in the Bible. We can love God through prayer, through obedience, and through faith. We can even love God when we suffer.

Loving God will help you grow in Him and help build the foundation to trusting and loving the Creator of the heavens and the earth.

Deborah Tarver Waters invites us to join her on a spiritual odyssey that takes us deeper into an exploration of God's love for us and our love for Him. Through personal witness and candid sharing, Tarver Waters illustrates how God's gracious loving pursuit of us opens the door for a healing and transforming relationship with Him.

Leseprobe

LOVING GOD

Deborah Tarver Waters

© Copyright 2024 by Deborah Tarver Waters

ISBN:

978-1-963735-27-7 (Paperback)

978-1-963735-29-1 (E-book)

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher disclaims any responsibility for them.

Unless otherwise indicated, all scriptural quotations are from the New Living Translation copyright 1996, 2004, 2007, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation.

New King James Version The Schofield Study Bible copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson.

Printed in the United States of America

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Proisle Publishing Services LLC

39-67 58th Street, 1st floor

Woodside, NY 11377, USA

Phone: [phone])

[email protected]

I want to dedicate this book to my younger sisterswho have gone to be with the Lord.

Lydia Ruth Tarver and Susan Irene Tarver Williams,I love you forever. Until we meet again.

Acknowledgments

First, I want to acknowledge and thank my husband, Dr. Kenneth L. Waters for helping me with the technical part while writing this book. You have been very supportive, Doc, and I appreciate it. I also want to thank my mother, the Reverend Velma Harding, for raising me to love the Lord. She taught me how to tithe and fast. I love you forever, Mom. I want to thank Dr. Reginald Woods, the pastor of Life Changing Ministries Church who licensed and ordained me through an extensive three-year program. Thank you for seeing the call of God in my life. And finally, last but not least, I want to thank Dr. Robert L. Fairley for giving me the opportunity to learn how to teach and preach the Word while he was the pastor of New Hope Missionary Baptist Church. This book stems from many of the sermons I preached while at his church. I’ll always love you!

And I want to give a special acknowledgement to the Lord. There’s always a time when I’m writing when the Holy Spirit takes over. Thank you, Elohim!

It has always been my desire to write a book. I never thought I knew enough about anything to write one well. As I was pondering this dilemma, the Lord told me that I knew a lot about Him. The truth is that while no one can know everything about the Lord, I do know a lot. Ever since April 23, 1988, it has been my intent to read the Bible from the first word in Genesis to the last word in the book of Revelation in one year. Starting with the King James Version in 1988, and then the New King James Version, and now the New Living Translation of the One Year Bible series, I have read the Bible faithfully for the last seven years. I was sporadic before, but it is now my intent to read it completely every year for the rest of my life.

You see, the Bible never gets old. It lives! The living word of God. It never gets boring—well the genealogies are—but the more I read, the more I learn. I learn something new every year. The more I read, the more it fits together like a giant jigsaw puzzle. The Old Testament is the foundation of the New. One gets a more thorough understanding of the New Testament if you have a foundation of the Old. I like to say the Old Testament is the Messiah revealed. The New Testament is Jesus fulfilled. Loving God and accepting Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior is the most important decision one can ever make. I hope this book provides an insight on how to do that. Enjoy!

One night, I had a dream that the boys and me were driving down a street, and we saw this large beautiful house with a for sale sign in front. We wanted to see it, so we pulled over to go inside because the realtor was there showing the house. When we walked up, she looked at us and told me that I would need to make an appointment. We were disappointed because the house was really beautiful on the outside, and we wanted to see the inside. I kind of prayed and mumbled to myself that I wanted to see the house, and as soon as I said this to the Lord, the lady changed her mind and told me that I could look around. I was disappointed. The house was beautiful on the outside but not at all what I wanted on the inside. And then I woke up.

I thought about the dream and remembered that as soon as I told the Lord that I wanted to see the house, the lady changed her mind. I wondered if the Lord was asking me what I wanted. That if I told Him what I wanted, He would give it to me. I thought about what I wanted from the Lord. I thought about carnal things like more money, a better job, a beautiful house for real, a good husband, but I remembered in the dream how the house looked good on the outside, but it wasn’t what I wanted on the inside. So I said, “Lord if this dream is Your asking what I want from You, I want you to teach me how to love You. I want You to teach me Your ways so that my ways please You. That night was the beginning of the relationship that I have with the Lord today. What I realize now is that everything that I have, everything that I am with the Lord is a direct result of my praying and asking and His hearing and giving.

I asked Him to teach me how to love Him. And now I’m in love with Him. And I’ve never been in love like this before. I didn’t even know that it was possible to love the Lord the way I love Him. I think about Him all the time. This smile appears on my face whenever I think about Him. I trust Him. I want to please Him. He is teaching me His ways, and so I’m beginning to know Him. Sometimes, I still pray that I want to know the very essence of who and what He is. I’m in love. I’m in love because I prayed and asked, and He heard and gave.

I asked the Holy Spirit to teach me how to pray. He began to tell me what to pray for. I began to ask God for a relationship with Him, an intimacy with Him that no man knows is possible but that He knows is possible. That He was just waiting for someone to step out on crazy faith and ask for what most might think is impossible. You see, I want to know Him. I want to know the very essence of who and what He is. The Holy Spirit began to direct my prayers, and I began to ask God for the impossible. I prayed to know God like Enoch knew Him. The Bible says in Genesis 5:22 that Enoch walked with God. I want to know God like Moses knew Him. Numbers 12:8 says, “And God says I speak to him [Moses] face-to-face, even plainly.” I want to know God like Elijah knew Him. First Kings tells us that Elijah could ask God to do things like shut up the rains or pour down fire from heaven, and God would do it just because Elijah asked. James 5:17 says, “Elijah was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain; and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and earth brought forth her fruit.” I want to know God like Elisha knew Him. Elisha asked for a double portion of Elijah’s spirit, and Second Kings 13:21 says that his (Elisha’s) dead bones made a dead man live. Elijah has seven miracles accredited to him, and Elisha has fourteen. I want to know God like David knew Him. David was in love with God. You can read the Psalms to see how passionately in love with God

David was. Psalm 63 says,

Oh God, You are my God. Early will I seek you. My soul thirsts for You. My flesh longs for You in a dry and thirsty land where there is no water. So, I have looked for You in the sanctuary to see Your power and Your glory. Because your loving kindness is better than life, my lips shall praise You. Thus, I will bless You while I live. I will lift up my hands in Your name. My soul shall be satisfied with marrow and fatness, and my mouth shall praise You with joyful lips when I remember You on my bed. I meditate upon You in the night watches because You have been my help; therefore, in the shadow of Your wings I will rejoice. My soul follows close behind You; Your right hand upholds me.

And the Bible says that David was a man after God’s own heart. David was in the love with God, and God was in love with David. I want to know God the way Jesus knew Him. Jesus called Him Father and knew Him from the foundation of time. Sounds impossible? Yes! But the Bible says that with God, all things are possible. Jesus said in Luke 18:27, “The things which are impossible with men are possible with God.”I want the relationship, the intimacy with God that no man knows is possible. When I think of the TD Jakes, Rabbi Kirt Schneider, Pastor Rick Renner, Joyce Meyers, and Bishop John C. Hill, I know that I’m asking for a hard thing, but there is nothing impossible with God.

It’s the intimacy with God that I’m experiencing that is one of the most amazing things that is happening in my life. I told Him that I want to know Him more intimately than I ever thought possible. I read Joy Dawson’s book, Intercession, Thrilling and Fulfilling. She ends by making a statement about prayer ending with, “My lover, Jesus Christ.” I began thinking, My lover! It sounded blasphemous to me. But the Lord whispered to my spirit, “You’ve been making love to me for months.” I was shocked. How had I been making love to the Lord? The Holy Spirit said, “Through your praise and worship.” Praise and worship is actually making love to the Lord. I never thought about praise and worship like that before. But then I began to think about the scripture that says, “He inhabits the praises of His people.” Psalm 22:3 (KJV) says, “But thou art holy. O thou who inhabits the praises of Israel.” I looked up the word inhabit in the dictionary; it means “to dwell in, to make one’s abode, to stay, reside, await, endure.” God dwells, makes His abode in, stays, and resides in us during praise and worship. Our praise and worship should be coming from the very depth and essence of who we are. Therefore, God is inhabiting, residing, staying in the center of our being—our soul and our spirit, the very depth of who we are. We should now have a clearer understanding of, “Greater is He who is in me than he who is in the world.” God can and is willing to dwell, live, in us.

We know there are two different kinds of making love. One type is the passive, tolerant, “Are you finished yet, dear?” The other is the active participation: I wish it could last all night long. Where is your love making, your praise and worship with the Lord? Are you there counting the minutes until the praise and worship leader brings it to a close, or do you get caught up wishing that it would never end? I get caught up. I shut my eyes and get lost in the presence of the Lord. I’m not really aware of what’s going on around me. I couldn’t care less. I’m attentive to the praise leader’s direction, but that’s out of respect, and God always does things decently and in order. But I get caught up. I guess it’s a type of rapture.

God is a father image, a male image. And I wondered if it might be harder for a man to get caught up than a woman. But the Holy Spirit reminded me of David. David was in love with God. Remember Psalm 63? Regarding love and relationships, David said of Jonathan in Second Samuel 1:26, “How I weep for you, my brother Jonathan! Oh, how much I loved you! And your love for me was deep, deeper than the love of women.” And David’s love for God surpassed his love for Jonathan. We are to love God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength. And we know that David wasn’t gay. But David knew how to love God? Men, you do know how to love God. David, a man, taught me how to love Him.

My pastor, Dr. Reginald Woods, taught that there are benefits in having a relationship with God. One benefit is that you can tell Him everything. He’s my father, my friend, my confidant, my savior. He’s my everything, and I can tell Him everything. Bishop Clarence McClendon and Bishop Noel Jones taught that we, Christians, act like God can’t handle our sins or that He’s going to be shocked by what we tell Him. Not! The Bible says though our sins be red as scarlet, His blood will wash them white as snow. Confess your sins to Him because He’s faithful to forgive them.

The Holy Spirit gave me a parable. Mary, Jane, and Susan were best friends. Mary had a big problem but only shared it with Jane. Jane was so concerned about Mary’s problem that she told Susan but swore Susan to secrecy. Now Susan had the answer to Mary’s problem, but because Mary hadn’t shared the secret with her and Jane had sworn her to secrecy not to tell, she couldn’t help Mary. Susan couldn’t help Mary even though she had the answer to Mary’s problem. All Mary had to do was share the problem with the right person, and everything could have been resolved. That’s the way it is with the Lord. He knows everything anyway, but unless we share with Him, He can’t help us. We have to give it to Him. When we don’t, we tie up His hands. We will tell everyone but the Lord. We tell our friends, our parents, sometimes even a stranger on the street if they’ll listen. But we need to tell God. We need to ask for His help. We need to cast our cares and our burdens on Him. He’s the only one who can help most of the time anyway. I tell Him everything: the good, the bad, and the ugly.

One night, the Lord asked me if I would let a stranger into my house. I thought about it and said no. Then He asked, “Why shouldI let a stranger into My house?” When God asks a question, He wants you to think about what’s going on. I began thinking about the degrees of friendships. Some people can come to my house, and they can’t even get into the front door. Some people can come into my house, and they stay in the front room. I have other friends that can go into the kitchen, my refrigerator, and get anything they want. Only a few can go into my bedroom, lay across my bed, and watch television with me.

Only my children and my sisters or my parents can come into my house and go into my closets and get to my treasures. Where in God’s house can you go? What relationship have you established with Him? We are all called to be heirs and joint heirs with the Lord Jesus Christ. We are in the family of God. Are you a true son or daughter of the Most High God? He has called us to sonship. Have you allowed Him to know you? Have you given Him you? Can you dwell in the secret place of the Lord? Can you get to His treasures? Are they available to you because you have inherited the kingdom of God, or will He say to you at the end of the race, “Get thee away from Me, I never knew you.” Have you allowed God to know you? Pursue God. Seek His face. He’s waiting for you.

In the Beginning

I grew up in the church; my mom kept us in church when we were little, and when I got older, I was a girl who went to church. My sister was a church girl. There is a difference between a girl who goes to church and a church girl. My sister was a church girl. She loved going to church. I was the girl who went to church. I went to church because my momma made me. If I went out on Saturday night, I had to go to church on Sunday morning. As a result, I went to church every Sunday, but I didn’t have a relationship with God, and I definitely didn’t talk to Him; I just went to church. I really didn’t believe my sister and my mom when they told me that God talked to them and that He would talk to me if I gave Him the chance. I didn’t believe them. To me, God was just someone who you talked about in church, but you really didn’t know or experience. He just didn’t seem real to me even though I went to church every Sunday.

The first time God talked to me was in 1982. He reminded me that He loved me. I was in trouble. I had an awful boyfriend, and we weren’t getting along. I was miserable. I was tired. I was depressed. In the midst of my misery, the Lord said, “Remember, Deborah, God loves you too.” He said it that way because I needed to know that it was Him talking to me. It’s similar to when we talk to our children as I have spoken to my children. There were times when they were young, that I had to remind my children that I loved them, especially when I had to discipline them or they needed my assurance. I would say something like, “Mommy loves you” and grab them and kiss them. The Lord had to do the same for me to make sure I knew that He was talking to me. I recognized immediately that it was Him, and I was surprised. The Lord really will talk to you. For whatever reason, it made me feel so much better. My problems didn’t go away. I needed to get away, and my poppy, Mitchell Mosely, my stepfather, made me an offer that I couldn’t refuse.

My mom and he had separated years earlier, and he invited me to move out to California and live with him. He told me that he would take care of me until I could find a job. So in July 1982, I climbed aboard the Amtrak train because I was afraid to fly and moved to Anaheim, California. I was twenty-seven years old. I was a momma’s baby and couldn’t believe that I was leaving her. But I had to, and Pops kept his word.

When I first arrived, I wanted to find a job immediately because I didn’t want him to think that I had just come to live off him. But he told me to wait a couple of weeks, and so I did. He introduced me to California taking me around and showing me off. We went to Catalina Island, Disneyland, San Juan Capistrano, and a variety of other places. I loved being with him. He was good to me and kept his word, and I kept mine and eventually found a job. I was able to party and go to the clubs and party and dance and have fun in a way that I never could in my small hometown.

Three years later, in 1985, He spoke to my heart again. My mom had come to visit us from Kansas, and she and I went to a Marilyn Hickey conference. The Lord began to speak to my heart, and I went up for the altar call and accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. I wasn’t consistent because I was living with my boyfriend and didn’t know how to get out on my own. My mom told me that, sometimes, one had to wiggle their hands out of the mouth of the lion carefully. I knew that, eventually, I would have to move out and get my own apartment.

In the meantime, before I could move away, I got pregnant. His father asked me to marry him, but I knew that a relationship with him wasn’t going to work, so I declined. However, I decided that I needed him to help me get through the pregnancy and that would also give me a chance to determine whether we could make it work or not. It didn’t. I prayed and told the Lord that I didn’t want to marry him, but that if He would help me raise the baby, I would raise him in the church and teach him to love Him. Shortly after I had my baby in 1986, Poppy was transferred to an office in Riverside, California, and he invited me to go with him. I packed up my stuff and the baby and moved to San Bernardino, California, with him.

I like San Bernardino better than Anaheim. San Bernardino, California, is a big old country town, and I am a country girl. I enjoyed myself for a few months raising my baby and partying on the weekends. The Lord was really good to me. He blessed me with a job teaching, and I got my own apartment. I was still partying on the weekends and thought I had it going on, however, I was not including the Lord in my life.

I tried to find a church when we first arrived in San Bernardino, but the first church I went to, Loveland, was too crowded, so I gave up trying to find a church home. Eventually I began to think about how good the Lord had been to me. I remembered how He had blessed me. I had a baby that I adored, I had been hired to work for San Bernardino City Unified School District with my Kansas teaching credential, I had a nice apartment, and my stepfather loved and supported me. When I remembered that, I began to thank the Lord. And do you know what He did? He began to tear down what He had built up in me.

I loved my job—teaching. When I first arrived in Anaheim, and because I didn’t have a California credential, I had variety of jobs. But when I got to San Bernardino, I earned my teaching credential and got the job at SBCUSD teaching in the elementary school. And although teaching is a gift I have from the Lord, I hadn’t taught in the elementary schools before, so that first year was difficult as I tried to juggle being a single mom, a teacher, and a party girl. Life became more and more difficult.

There was a guy that I was sleeping with that I met at the club I used to frequent. He was seeing other women, but I thought I was crazy about him. You may have heard it said, “Be careful what you ask the Lord for, He just may give it to you.” That can be true in many cases, but not all. He absolutely was not about to let me be with this man. I tried to get Him to allow me to have the relationship. I told Him that He could use me to get “him” to accept Jesus as his Lord and Savior. Yeah, right! Not with the things I was doing with him. The Lord was deliberately ordering my footsteps and He absolutely said no. I was absolutely miserable. I was heartbroken and I was tired. By the end of 1987, I was going through so much that I had stopped sleeping. I did not sleep for six months. I was sick and tired of being sick and tired. All I wanted was peace. I prayed and cried out to the Lord, and He heard my cry.

On Saturday, April 23, 1988, I had a decision to make. I could go out to the club and hopefully hook up with this man that I thought I liked, or I could stay home and talk to the Lord. I made my decision. I stayed home and prayed. I cried out to the Lord, and He heard my cry. That night, I got out paper and pencil and made a covenant with the Lord. The reality is that I didn’t even know what a covenant was. I had to look up the word the next day in a dictionary. I told Him that for one year, I would give up cigarettes, weed, alcohol, and sex. And I thought about what I wanted from Him. I didn’t ask for the “man.” I didn’t ask for money. I didn’t even ask for peace. I finally told that what I wanted was a relationship with Him. I told Him that I wanted to know Him. I told him that for one year, I would read the Bible every night and pray every single night and in return I wanted Him. I wanted an intimate relationship with Him. I wanted to know Him. I wrote and dated the covenant, signed it, and then I went to sleep.

For the first time in about six months, I was able to fall into a deep sleep. The next morning, when I woke up, I realized that I had been able to sleep. I got up and walked into the front room, and the upper portion of my apartment that had high ceilings was full of a golden glow. It was like the Glory of the Lord was lingering in my living room. I remember walking around in amazement looking at that “glow” saying, “I can see; I can see.” It was like the darkness in my life had lifted. I had peace.