Born Again Opinion

By Philip LoPresti

This book is about one man's journey through life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 10, 2013
• ISBN: 9781493122929

Philip LoPresti

Philip LoPresti, formerly proprietor of Phil's Shoe Service in Waldwick, New Jersey, is now a local truck driver in New Jersey. At one time he specialized in fixing worn down soles. Now he specializes in uplifting the other kind of soul. The local truck driver and author of this book, also writes songs - everything from rock to folk. He has been a song writer and lyricist since his days in high school: During that time he wrote a folk-opera entitled "CrossRoad". The opera took13 years to write, and is a story about societal ills in relation to the more spiritual aspects of life. That story is featured here. CrossRoad (Part 1) CrossRoad (Part 2) 63 minutes, 19 tracks 63 minutes, 22 tracks Prestin Publications Prestin Publications UPC: 886470862054 UPC: 886470863143 Can be purchased on Amazon.

Book preview

Copyright © 2013 by Philip LoPresti.

ISBN:      Softcover      978-1-4931-2291-2

                eBook          978-1-4931-2292-9

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.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

Scriptures taken from:

•   The King James Version of the Bible

•   Holy Bible, New International Version®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 Biblica. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.

•   New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission." (www.Lockman.org)

Rev. date: 01/07/2014

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris LLC

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

[e-mail]

142927

CONTENTS

Dedication

Acknowledgments

1.   Is God Aloof?

2.   Take The Next Small Step

3.   Enter By Faith

4.   God Reveals Our True Character

5.   What Is Faith?

6.   The Search For God

7.   My Personal Experience

8.   Facing My Greatest Fear

9.   Is Jesus’ Way The Only Way?

10.   The Lord Weighs The Spirit

11.   What Role Does Religion Play?

12.   What Is Born Again?

13.   Running The Race

14.   Life Isn’t Fair

15.   Satan And His Followers

16.   My Idea To Create Jobs

17.   A Gift Of Healing

DEDICATION

I want to dedicate this book to all the homeless, to all the drug addicts, to the alcoholics, to the substance abuse victims, the battered persons, the forgotten senior citizens, the forgotten war veterans, the starving and the obese people, to the people with no arms, to the people with no legs, to the people with any physical deformity, to all the battered children, to the children in orphanages throughout the world, to all prisoners, to all prisoners of war, and to all the people who feel brokenhearted and who feel un-loveable, God LOVES YOU ALL, and to the people who help them all, don’t give up! Don’t any of you give up! Help Is On The Way. Your day is coming! Thank you all for your examples of perseverance.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

To My Lord and Savior Jesus Christ who made this book possible, To my wife Nancy and my sons Joseph and Anthony, to my entire family who brought me up, to all the pastors and teachers and friends and acquaintances(you know who you are), who touched my life, To the Holy Spirit who inspired me to write this book, and to God the Father to whom I owe all thanks for everything.

1

IS GOD ALOOF?

I wrote this book to share the experience of LEARNING the difference between religion and relationship with God. I suppose there have been many books written about this subject over the course of time, but none will describe what you will read here. Christianity and churches may disagree with what I write here, but I did not write this book for them. I wrote this book for anyone who may be struggling with the same hopelessness that I felt. I needed to answer questions about God that Christianity and churches could not give me. God appeared aloof, or separated, or apart from mankind and from me. It was as though He was unsociable or too good to associate with the people He created. My religion fell short in answering my questions; so I began to question God’s existence. I became an agnostic.

I stopped attending church, and I stopped believing in any religion. I felt justified in my new outlook because God had let me down. I didn’t want to serve a God who was detached from me, and who didn’t seem to care about the struggles I was going through. I considered God to be irrelevant, and I shut God out of my life. I continued with this attitude until a change from within occurred.

As I grew older, I felt a drawing to become better acquainted with God. But I had a greater obstacle to overcome. It was my own self-centered life. In living a self centered life, I had no time to think about anyone or anything else but ME. When I yielded to God’s drawing, I felt a need to put myself and my own selfish desires to the side. I needed to concentrate on what God was trying to show me and tell me. It was not an audible voice that I heard, but rather a sensing in my heart. My personal integrity forced me to discern the difference between right and wrong. There was a spiritual presence knocking on my heart’s door. I wondered who it could be that had access to my heart.

As an agnostic, I had successfully cut ties with my Christian religion. Yet, I could not deny or turn away from the reality that a genuine, honest, spiritual being was contacting me in my time of need letting me know He was present, and wanting to communicate with me.

This contact was not a presence from without, but from within that I sensed, or my spiritual heart. It is that unexplainable place that tugs at your soul when there is something important and real to do. I did not feel fear, and I did not feel an intrusion into my privacy; so I concluded that the BEING must be God. Who else could have access to a place such as my heart? It was more like the caring concern of someone who sees trouble and wants to help. It was genuine and real. And I knew it was not me only that could be spoken to this way. It is every man or woman. God did not just single me out. That is what I’m here to tell.

Life was tough for me and I was going through a lot. I needed grown up, adult, honest and real answers. During my times of stress and anger, I sensed a prodding in my heart to relax and stop getting angry. Yet, more often than not I gave in to my anger and stress. This only caused greater negativity to prevail in my life. It seemed as though I was happy being miserable. But I learned that God had allowed this to happen to me so that I would come to an end of my situation. Only because of anger and discouragement would I take the next step to doing something about my situation. Deep down in my heart, underneath all the anger and the stress, something inside me wanted to believe God would provide a way out. When I LOOKED AND SEARCHED the answer was there! I felt a voice in my heart’s ear telling me to forget the past. I couldn’t change it, so why worry about it. I looked for a new direction.

I learned that I need help from time to time. I don’t know everything and I need a teacher to teach me once in a while. The God of the universe planned time and went out of His way to visit with me! He contacted me and communicated with me! He knew the perfect time to do it, and He wanted to be included in my life. He wanted to help me in my life, and He had a plan for my life. This was revealed to me through reading the scriptures, that I was important to God and that He loved me. I learned this in the church I felt led to go to. The minister there explained a lot of the bible to me.

Then I learned that God was ALWAYS trying to communicate with me, but I had just never listened! There was noise in my life shouting above God’s voice. Noise likes my job, my day, my plans for the night, TV, my family, my friends, but I was too busy for God! I needed to block out the noise. Thank God for that quiet place! It was in that quiet place that I did hear His communicating, and that tug at my heart. Up until now, I only knew what I had been told about God. If God existed, I needed to hear directly from Him who he was.

So the drawing I felt was God drawing me to Him. After I experienced this drawing, I read about it in the bible as well. The bible confirmed to me that it was true. My life up until that point was unfulfilled, and I was being prepared for the day I would know God as He really was. This day was my spiritual birth.

I’m not the type of person who likes to be told what to believe or how to believe it. And I don’t like people preaching AT me, or preaching with an attitude of superiority concerning spiritual matters for my life. I especially don’t like people putting me down for what I believe or criticizing my beliefs. With this writing, I want to avoid those mistakes. I am only saying that my religion or beliefs fell short in answering my questions. When I felt as though God was apart, or aloof, or separated from me, I chose to believe that He didn’t care. That was my mistake. There was too much noise in my life, and I blamed my religion as an excuse. I copped out. When I realized that I should not have given up on God as I did, I was ready for the next step. I had gone from religion to agnosticism. Now I was leaving agnosticism to enter a relationship with God!

There is a risk in investigating God’s drawing. It involves going out of your comfort zone and checking out a new experience. It involves not being lazy and procrastinating, but planning a schedule. This schedule would include visiting churches, speaking with pastors, speaking with church folk, reading the bible. Oftentimes, the word of God is understood after there is an experience of some sort. An encounter of a person or an event reveals later to be a divine destiny.

God’s working in my life was never more evident than at the beginning of that destined moment. All the work God was doing to prepare the way for me to receive Him was revealed to me on that day. He was there the day I was born and He’ll be there the day I die. I just wanted to know the