When I decided to get baptized in 2017, is when I really started studying Scripture on my own.
Although I was a Christian my whole life, I was lukewarm at best. I lived my life as a hypocrite to the Word and didn’t even know it.
2017 marked a serious turning point in my life because not only did it initiate my “Job season” (if you know, you know), but it was the first time in my life where I REALLY wanted to walk the walk and get serious about it.
I kid you not, TWO MONTHS after I made a sincere heart change and decided to take my walk seriously, I began to walk through fire.
The next two years of my life would lead me to a sobering realization that I was knocking on death’s door—literally.
I reached a point by the end of 2018 where I was beginning to come to terms with the fact that my body was physically failing me (due to autoimmune issues) and I was actually coming to terms with the fact that it was the end of this life for me.
It was an experience that I don’t think I could ever really explain, but it was a reality that I was dealing with at the time.
Those who know me know that Yahuah (who I referred to as ‘God’ at the time) HEALED ME.
In 2019, through an entire year of surgery after surgery and hospitalization after hospitalization, I did nothing except read my Bible, day after day.
Scripture truly became the meditation of my heart.
Not only did the Father physically heal me, but through that entire year, He began healing my heart through His WORD. Another thing that I don’t really know how to explain.
2019 CHANGED ME.
Then 2020 rolled around, when the *C word* hit the entire world. When the world shut down, I spent another year in solitude with my Bible. I continued to grow and align my heart with His Word in so many ways.
All of that to say, that since I started honestly studying my Bible (not just reading—STUDYING) for myself in 2017, I have grown in a deeper understanding of Scripture. And as I’ve grown, I’ve also changed my mind about what the Word is actually saying. This took a lot of time.
Even to this day, I am STILL learning, growing, and “changing my mind.”
I’m not changing my “opinion” of what Scripture means, I’m actually being intentional in denying my flesh so that the Father can continue to align me more with Him and His Word.
My goal is to really KNOW HIM.
In other words, what I *thought* I knew in 2017 about Scripture at that time is something entirely different than what I know and believe now.
I am so thankful for my beginnings in the Christian Church, and I will never despise those beginnings, but as I kept studying Scripture on my own, I realized that more and more of what I was learning in my own study with the leading of the Holy Spirit, it simply was not aligning with Christian theology and church doctrine. In fact, it was quite contrary.
This conflict burdened and disturbed me. I stayed silent about it for years because I honestly thought I was “crazy” but had absolutely no one to talk to about it.
But I stayed persistent and continued to bring my questions, doubts and confusion to Him through prayer, and submitted myself to endure through more study.
So, I started studying history—specifically, church history.
I started seeing how and when certain doctrines were created out of Greek philosophy and Babylonian paganism.
I invested in different Bible translations, and started learning the Hebrew and Greek language, and I was able to see that there were numerous mistranslations, and subsequently, misunderstandings of Scripture based on mistranslations.
I started learning how the Father’s name and His Son’s name were removed from our Bible and how deeply this has affected our worship today.
I started learning exactly why the “messiah” that I was seeing being presented by the church was actually not the same Messiah that I was learning and loving and following in Scripture.
And then I started understanding what Scripture was saying, that the call of the last days is for the body of Messiah to “come out of Babylon.”
None of this would have been able to happen if I wasn’t willing to change my mind—and yes, this has involved going against the grain, against the current of mainstream Christian belief.
I learned that many people say they love the truth, but they’re not willing to be challenged in what they believe.
Just because we believe something our whole lives, doesn’t necessarily make it true.
Because the thing is, the Truth will never mind being challenged.
It grieves me to see people get so offended when you challenge them in their faith and doctrine, but it’s the spirit of fear that convinces them that they don’t need to change their mind.
The Spirit truly is willing, but the flesh is weak (Matthew 26:41).
But something beautiful I learned about our relationship with Yahuah is that He is never offended by our questions or doubts—we just have to bring it Him, always.
1 John 2:27 tells us that we don’t need men to teach us anything, but it’s the Spirit that teaches us everything we need to know.
Do we have the faith to believe that? Do we have the faith to pursue that promise?
Change is uncomfortable, but it’s required in order to grow.
I’ve read my Bible many times, and what I understand now is actually radically different than what I understood about it the first time I read it. I’m sure that 10 years from now, I will still be saying this exact same thing.
I encourage everyone to study Scripture on their own, without the influences of men/women. Don’t lean on arms of flesh to teach you, when our Father promises that HE WILL TEACH YOU.
Because you are going to need more than a mustard seed of faith to stand on what the Bible truly says and endure the persecution that comes with it.
With Love,
Stephanie Green