What God Taught Me

By Gabriel Jaggernauth

"I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." - Philippians 4:13 NKJV

I never realized what God taught me from my experiences until recently, and I definitely did not think that He would encourage me to write a book about some of them, but here it is. What God Taught Me highlights a handful of the less

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trilogy Christian Publishing
• Release date: Sep 4, 2023
• ISBN: 9798890411082

Gabriel Jaggernauth

Gabriel Dominic Jaggernauth is a United States-born and Trinidad and Tobago-raised man of God who graduated from Oral Roberts University with a B.F.A. in Cinema/ Television/Digital Media. During his life under the diagnosis of autism and anxiety, God continued to be a guiding light on him in times of major adversity. Now filled with the passion of Christ, Gabriel, through writing and videography, continues to share the word of God with others to this day.

Book preview

Introduction

The best blessings that God could have ever given me was the lessons that He taught me throughout my life. Lessons, that although they may be simple, are at the heart of my life and that He inspired me to share. This whole book was like God making me like a sponge to soak up the experiences, then wringing me out to put pen to paper to share the gospel. God has blessed me with so much to my life experiences. Many of them may have hurt me, but God healed me while I learned. I have to give many, many thanks to Him for the person I am today. I love what He has done for me so far, but it is only the beginning, just like this introduction being the beginning of the book and the journey.

This whole book was written from experiences of my past that aims to be relatable to people in the world. God loves us all and like the examples of the Bible, like Noah, Jonah, Job and even the ultimate example of Jesus, He has us as modern examples. The word does not change at all, but the people who experience life-changing events definitely do, and it is all because of God. I am extremely grateful with the experiences and lessons God has given me because now I get to share them. I am grateful that God blessed me with the gift of writing and a passion for media arts because now I get to use it to share the word. I am grateful for the very idea that came to me during a time when I felt washed out of everything I had loved doing and during a time when I felt alone, because it created a drive for me to find new ways to share the word. Someone once challenged me on the very idea of the ways I was going to share it, and to them, I say thank you and I still love you, because it took prayer to see the very idea of sharing the gospel in new ways using what we have today. The gospel does not change, but the way we share it today is ever evolving, and God is showing me new ways to break out and share it.

Every chapter in this book felt God-guided. Some nights, I even found myself writing when there was nothing in my head, then BOOM! God gives me inspiration, and I know He will help you too. In fact, that is another point of this book. My life has been hard. To this day, I am still shocked that I went through what I did, but then I realized that everyone did in some way. I want to be able to encourage you and teach you what God taught me. God will work in His time, and I just wanted to encourage you to believe that. The whole journey is breathtaking when you zoom out and look at the entire map.

God blessed all of us, and no matter how you obtained this book, whether it be through physical print, or digital copy, I want you to know that God is going to bless you in one way or another as you read it. God blessed me with the passion, means and guides to get this done, and He is blessing you with the desire to read it because he has something waiting for you through this. God bless you, and may you be ever blessed more and more.

Table of Contents

1. To the [BLANK] Believer 9

Things I Learned About God Building Me 29

2. How God Speaks 31

3. God’s Placing Us Where We Need

to Be and When! 43

4. Love, Not Hate 63

5. A Balancing Act 77

6. God Knows 95

Things I Learned About Building My

Relationship with God 105

7. How You Can Study the Bible 107

8. How You Can Praise and Worship 123

9. Creating the Atmosphere 131

10. Jesus Christ: The Ultimate Example 139

Things I Learned about the Enemy and Flesh 157

11. The Enemy’s Attacks

(And How to Overcome Them) 159

12. Lies in Spirituality

(And Why They’re Wrong) 181

13. The World Does Not Understand the Bible 201

14.The World is Going to Persecute Us 215

15. Conclusion 229

16. Acknowledgment 233

To the [Blank]

Believer

I have always wanted to address the individual types of believers there are because each of them does need a different approach. For instance, those who never believed in the first place should not be treated the same as someone who has been in the faith for years. In fact, our approaches have always been kind of neglectful of thinking about where these different types of believers lie on the spectrum. I am guilty of this one approach for all strategy and I want to rectify that because I felt God guiding me throughout this, and I am going to address each of you individually, based on these five categories that you may fall into:

1. The NEW believer

2. The CURRENT believer

3. The RETURNING believer

4. The FALLEN (or backslidden) believer

5. The NON-believer.

If you want to skip to whichever category you fall into, feel free. I do encourage you, however, to read them all. Maybe you might learn, in your pursuit, to bring people to Christ or help guide them on their path to grow closer to Christ, how to do just that, as we are called.

He said to them, ‘Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation.’

Mark 16:15 (NIV)

1. The NEW Believer

If you are new to the Christian faith, I first want to welcome you to the Kingdom of God. It is great to see people come to get to know their creator and the one who loves them so much. In the same way that He loves you and approaches you with love, I wish to do the same. I just desire to point out one thing and it is this; this is not just a religion, but a relationship you strengthen with Christ. Christian, if anything, is just a label to identify that you worship Christ, but your relationship with Him will go so much deeper. There are people who have called themselves Christians but neglected to grow their relationship with Christ. I urge you, please, take the time to strengthen that bond with Christ.

I also want to give you some words of encouragement on this journey; Your past is in the past. God does not look at the past one bit. He already forgave you when you asked, and He will continue to forgive you because He knows we are of flesh. He knows we can stray off the path of righteousness from time to time. I know, because I used to steal from my parents, lie out of fear of their disapproval, and I was a greedy little child. Over time, God worked and changed me for the better. That’s what encouraged me to write.

Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.

Isaiah 43:18-19 (ESV)

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.

2 Corinthians 5:17 (ESV)

By accepting Christ, you have begun a new journey, and God is going to be your guide. God did not dwell on my past and He is not going to dwell on yours either, no matter where you came from. He loves all His children, no matter what. There is so much you will learn on this journey, and I am excited for you.

Also, do not worry about people putting you down for your newfound relationship with Christ. God did warn us that this would happen at the point where we decided to stray from the world and follow Him, making us not of this world.

If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.

John 15:18-19 (NIV)

Do not be discouraged by the Christian convicting you of wrongdoing either, especially while you are still figuring things out. Some of them do want what is best for you, but even the biggest and longest believers neglect grace and mercy in their desire to help you out of love. This is why I love the church I attend now. They show the example of how the Christian should help one another and that not all Christians have the way of telling you off for your shortcomings while you learn the ropes. God understands all our intentions and I do hope that you do not think negatively of them. Still pray for them and show them love and kindness. After all, we are told to show love to one another, the same way God loved us. You will see and experience, with time, God’s love.

I wish you all the best on this journey. Even though I do not know you personally, all my prayers go out to all the new believers.

2. The CURRENT Believer

If you’re reading this with the intention of asking something like what I can possibly say to the current believer, there is still a lot to learn. Alas, we do not know everything there is to know, and many things do slip past us. God even tells Job about this in the Bible. It’s a good read to learn that there are many things that we do not know. We also have those periods of doubt and struggle that can very well affect us.

When I chose to write this, I was struggling with the idea that my parents were still basically mining me. They were paying my rent, my bills and giving me money every week, all the while it was hard for me to get a proper job because I suffered from heavy anxiety, and it has affected my work three times before. I wanted to make my own living for a while and I thought I’d search, forgetting that in a time of prayer, God told me not to rush. Even with that thought back in August of 2022, I was struggling. I was struggling with patience, or maybe figuring out when the timing to hunt for a job was right, and I was struggling with my own mindset. It was awful. I want to assure you that God does love you and He has the best for you. I had to seek out so much prayer and I was afraid to reach out because I was working on my humility, but this almost breaking point, I could not keep it to myself any longer. I went to my church’s group page and let it be made known what I was going through, and the responses were overwhelmingly heartwarming. This journey is not going to be easy because there are going to be people against you. The world may be against you because we are not of it, and of course, out of spite, the enemy is definitely against you. Do not worry and keep the faith. It is not easy, but definitely worth it.

The other thing I want to make note of is grace. I do not mean God’s grace, although, that is extremely important. I mean that we need to show more grace in addition to love. I remember during my time growing up, in my teens, I was such a drill sergeant when it came to the gospel, that I did not think beyond everything being black and white. I thought it was merely a do or do not. I neglected how God would approach it. I also neglected these guys’ pasts or what they may be going through. Please try to understand that some people may be new to the Christian faith, some people may have a struggle they are trying to overcome, or some other thing and your approach to helping them may actually harm them. Your approach has repercussions so please pray on it. You might not even be the right person for that. I also learned that during my high school years, and definitely even to this day. I was the wrong person for particular calls but at least God stepped in to change things.

The final two things I want you to know in this whole thing is to take into consideration not to pick and choose which parts of the Bible to follow. It does not work that way. I think the best example comes from Matthew 7, specifically where some Christians focus on Matthew 7:1 and neglect the rest of the chapter.

Do not judge, or you too will be judged.

Matthew 7:1 (NIV)

"For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.

Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces.

Matthew 7:2-6 (NIV)

Most people I know who reference this tend to look at the first verse, then neglect the rest of it. Jesus was telling us to examine ourselves first before going to examine others. It is also cautioned that the way we do it will be used back at us. Doesn’t that seem to remind you of anything? It’s basically what is happening in the modern day. I guess I picked this one because it was what resonated with me and encouraged me to reexamine how I look at the gospel. I know I’ve been pulling certain verses that help show context, but that was because when examining the whole chapter, those verses were the most important for the time that I mentioned them. In the context of Matthew 7, you need verses 2 to 6 to understand the message of the