From the Beginning…..

Where to begin might be the real question….

I’d like to welcome you to Written N Red, where I’ll be sharing with you my personal journey from Christianity to Christ, through a focus on the teachings of Jesus Christ.

Born in the piedmont area of North Carolina, I lived the majority of my life in the surrounding areas attending several churches, for many years.

I struggled, like many have, with so many things I was taught, and what I seen being done by those saying they were Christian, until one Sunday morning in 1997, when I knew without question that I was to leave the church, and be taught of God directly.

I didn’t realize at the time, what this would mean but I knew it was what I was to do without question. No matter what anyone else thought, or how many would try to talk me out of it… I knew what I was to do.

So many times in my life, from my earliest remembrance of childhood, there was a “knowing” that I had about things…. even when I struggled against them, or let others convince me that they were wrong, or shouldn’t be done, there was still the “knowing”. As I sat there on the church pew that Sunday morning, the “knowing” once again was there.

As I began thinking of how I was going to explain this to my pastor and family, I was reminded of the scriptures in the bible where Zacharias was given a word from God, yet didn’t believe it, and was struck mute until the event happened.

Having been hit by a train years earlier, unable to speak for a while, I knew what that was like! I knew without a doubt what I had to do, and I knew I never wanted to find myself unable to speak again, so despite the doctrines of the church against woman, and being submissive to ones own husband, and what my family or friends would think….I knew what I had to do. I left the church that Sunday, forsaking all, to be taught of God, and began to discipline my life, by the commandments of God given by Jesus Christ, in the pages of the bible.

I had made a personal profession of faith in God and Jesus most of my life, and yet I never realized the extent to which Christianity had actually convinced me to live against the teachings of Jesus found in the pages of my own bible. Many times I had seen passages in the bible where Jesus taught his followers to do things, that the church and Christianity for the most part, totally ignored and actually taught people to go against, but at the time I left the church, I had no idea the extent of it all.

It would be the most horrific and yet amazing journey of my life, yet at that moment, I didn’t have a clue as to what it would mean, or where it would lead me, all I knew was that I had to do this, and I had to trust God to lead me, guide me and take me where ever it was that I was to go.

Shortly afterwards, I began, Written N Red to share my journey with others, and what I was learning and being taught of God. I began directing the focus of my own life, and this website to the commandments of God, given through Jesus Christ! I began to see for myself that the “kingdom of God was within” and where so many of my own struggles originated. It was an amazing journey, and still is even to this day.

Many of the articles that you will find here are what I’ve been taught, and what I’ve come to understand from a careful examination of the bible, through eyes that were not blinded or overshadowed with trying to fit the verses into what Christianity had taught me as so many of us have been a part of trying to do.

I began seeing how the writers of the bible made it clear that Jesus said that no one comes to him, to know him, or who he is through flesh and blood, that it is God himself that draws a person and reveals Christ to that person.

Flesh and blood was not to do this, and yet the only thing that I could honestly say at this point in my life that I knew of God, Jesus or the bible was what I had been taught of flesh and blood, or read from the pages of the bible.  The experience I had from my childhood had not been the result of man, or flesh and blood, and yet it was through flesh and blood teachings I had found myself “identifying” those experiences through.

I also began to see from the writings in the bible that Jesus and the prophets said that all were to be taught of God. That people would show their love for God, by keeping the commandments that God gave to them, what was written in their own hearts and on their own minds, and how they interacted with those in the world with them.

It was through a disciplined life of hearing from the mouth of God, following what one was told to do or not to do, as the writers of the bible wrote of doing themselves and by which Jesus is shown to have done and said all men were to live by. That had been my way of living from my childhood, had been changed and now would once again become my “way” of living once again.

To be obedient to God, one must be hearing from God and being taught of God…. and no one else… and knowing that this was what I was personally being drawn to for myself…without question… I closed down the consulting business that I owned for years, and followed the direction that was coming from “within me”…..

Originally, my husband Rob, was opposed to the idea of my leaving the church, but I knew that it would be up to God himself to resolve that issue and make Rob aware of what it was that I was being drawn to do, and that is just what happened. Within a short time, Rob left his career, we sold our home, and possessions, and began the most wonderful journey toward knowing God, knowing Jesus Christ, and living in total obedience to what we knew from within.

We were determined to know the truth, the truth that would make us free! It didn’t take very long for me to start seeing that so many times in my life I had a knowing about things, that I could not explain. I began reading the bible and studying it carefully, examining every word and researching what the original words were that had been translated into the English versions that we have today. I began asking questions of God, no one else.. and letting whatever understanding or knowing come to me, without resisting it and without dismissing it as not being from “God” because it wasn’t found in the pages of the bible.

As I did, I began seeing how clear and concise Jesus was. There was a confidence in what he is recorded to have said, and an “authority” that was recognized by those that heard him. The other writers of the bible, also recording what they had heard from the mouth of God was as well. I read that Jesus told his followers, that if they loved him they would keep his commandments and those that kept his commandments were the ones that would be given the right to the tree of life and have eternal life. I had professed my loved of Jesus and God all those years but now I was seeing, for what seemed to be the first time, what it was that Jesus himself said that those that love him would do…..if they loved him.

Like a person on a journey to find a pearl of great value, I began careful examination of what the bible said was the commandments of Jesus Christ. I began disciplining my own life in accordance with each one of them. As I did, it was amazing to see, not only how far away from following them I was personally, but how far Christianity had taught against Jesus. I also began realizing that I too had been a part of teaching others to go against them as well, without realizing it myself.

I began to see the differences in what we call “Christianity” today and what Jesus actually is recorded to have taught and commanded those that loved him to follow, in the pages of our bibles. It was such an amazing thing to see. I began to understand how it was that Jesus had made the blinded eyes to see, in his own day…. and why it was that after his own disciples had spent three years being themselves disciplined followers of his teachings themselves, he had directed them, and only them to go into the nations, teaching them to observe whatsoever Jesus had commanded them.

For it was in keeping those commandments, that they showed their love for Jesus and the God who sent Him, but it was also in doing so that they came to know and understand what eternal life was, and to have it. It was about “knowing the only true God and Jesus Christ whom he sent”.

So as you visit the site, I will be sharing with you, my own journey, what it was that I began to see, and how things worked in my own life, this amazing journey from Christianity to Christ… and why it was that Jesus commanded those that were disciplined by his teachings, to teach others to follow them as well.

Doing so is how one understands what Jesus meant by “ye shall know the truth and the truth shall MAKE you free”..

So join me, in reading and studying the words of Jesus Christ, and what I know I’m to share here. Remembering always… “if ye lack wisdom, ask God who giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not”….

Denise