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“God’s “realness” delivers burdens”

Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. He told them, “This is what is written: The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.

[Luke 24:45-48 NIV]

Joyce writes:

One morning I asked God to prove himself and the Bible true to me. I didn’t want to waste time with something that wasn’t true. Somehow I looked at Luke 24:45-48. In these verses, Christ spoke about the past prophecy concerning his life; he lived the prophecy when he died and rose from the dead, and as I sat reading his words, the prophecy of repentance and forgiveness of sins was being preached to all nations having begun in Jerusalem, just as he said it would.God has blessed me by being so real to me that I was delivered of a burden overnight. I prayed to my Father that if he could be as real to me as he had been to his disciples, I could stop smoking. I prayed that I would tell people about what he had done for me. I admitted to him that I could not stop smoking on my own. It sounds presumptuous and as if I was bargaining with God, but he knew my sincere heart. I told God that I knew how real he had been to his disciples because they had gone to their deaths with words of praise for him on their lips. The next morning I awoke a non-smoker and have remained so for two decades. I was completely delivered of any urge to smoke. God has proven himself and his word true to me many times throughout my lifetime.