Paranoia Testimony
“For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.” – 2 Timothy 1:7
After being deceived into thinking that I was utterly forsaken by God, I then became subject to a battle that took place in my mind in the form of paranoia. It started out slowly. I would think about something, and someone else would have the same thought and verbalize it. But then it was happening too often to be coincidental. I was not imagining that people were reading my mind, for they were verbalizing my exact thoughts continually. I wondered how they were able to do this and why they were doing it. Why couldn’t they tell me about it? They were letting me know that they knew my thoughts by verbalizing them, but did not tell me directly “people have access to the thoughts in your mind, and this is how it became available for them to do so.” Why was it so secretive that they couldn’t tell me the details? Was there some mystery person in charge of all of this? Well, as you can imagine, this was unbearable. I was left to figure it out for myself.
I became mentally exhausted from being self-conscious of every word I spoke and trying to figure out how those around me knew my thoughts. I finally was convinced that no human being could be capable of being behind this manipulation. The only reasons that I could think of as to why this was happening and why the people who cared about me couldn’t say anything about it to me were too unrealistic and didn’t make any sense. Even though it seemed evident that they knew my thoughts, I knew it couldn’t be true. I began to search the Bible for answers.
Am I Going Crazy Or Is Something Spiritual Going On?
A major breakthrough occurred when I came across the story of the demoniac in the gospel of Luke 8:26-39. After reading it I thought to myself “I’m not crazy, I’m possessed!” I wasn’t sure which one was worse, but I knew I had hope with being possessed since I knew it could be cast out and I could be healed. So off I went to visit a Catholic priest and explained this to him, but to my disappointment he assured me that demon possession does not happen in this day and age. So I left, thinking, “If I’m not possessed, then that means I’m crazy,” and I knew I wasn’t crazy. (I later learned that demon possession is not possible for a Spirit-filled child of God. The Lord tells us in 1 John 5:18 “We know that those who are born of God do not sin, but the one who was born of God protects them, and the evil one does not touch them.” My healing eventually came by receiving God’s unconditional love for me after He took away all of my fear, confusion and mistrust that I had in Him.) Discovering this story in Luke introduced for me to the possibility that the cause behind my paranoia could be from a spiritual source.
The Spiritual Realm Revealed
After exploring every possible human angle and finding no answers, I was prepared to learn about the only other alternative of what could be happening to the mental state of my mind. This was my great awakening, God lifting the veil to show me the reality of the existence of demons and why they have temporary power over the fallen condition of mankind and the world.1 When you are searching for the truth from God, what else would you expect? God is real and He is Spirit, so I should expect that the devil is also. (I am not referring to the obvious manifestations of demons through the evil, wicked acts of people or witchcraft and Satan worshippers. The devil is much more subtle and sophisticated than he would have us believe. You can read all about his subtle influence on human behavior in the New Testament of the Bible, which is encouraged by this verse in 2 Corinthians 2:11, “in order that Satan might not outwit us. For we are not unaware of his schemes.”)2 But rest assured, although we have to deal with him as our adversary here on earth, Jesus has already defeated and conquered him.
Without a revelation and understanding of God’s love it is nearly impossible to face the reality of our sinful nature. We would be too fearful, perceiving Him to be a God of punishment. I don’t know if God would have revealed this to me had I not had those years of being nurtured by reading my mother’s devotionals, with the many stories of His loving, personal involvement in people’s lives. Had I not been convinced that God is love, I would have been too afraid to actually know for a fact that the devil is real and active on earth, nor would I have the hope of rising above his lies, accusations and condemnation. My paranoia experience would have led me to believe the lie that the devil is more powerful than God,3and that is something to be fearful about. But thankfully, the Lord says in John 8:32, that we shall know the truth, and the truth shall make us free. (See “My Healing Process” for more details at this point of my experience.)
The Truth Behind the Lie
While it initially seemed that people could read my mind, I later realized that in actuality it was a spiritual battle going on in my mind, giving opportunity for the Lord to show me the reality and difference between the kingdom of this world and the kingdom of God. The best way I can describe this experience is that God took me on a spiritual journey to see what it was like if He actually did forsake me, as if I was utterly rejected by Him and became subject to the control of Satan who is evil, manipulative, deceiving and merciless. I would have become burdened by trying to live up to his worldly standards which are the extreme opposite of God’s ways.4 In other words, it would be as if I were living in hell.
In the Biblical book of Job, he went through a severe earthly trial, testing his integrity with respect to God, and was unaware of what was going on behind the scenes in the heavens between God and Satan. In a similar way I was going through an experience in the natural realm but was unaware of the spiritual activity behind it. The devil was permitted to manipulate my mind by making it look as if people knew my thoughts when they really didn’t. This naturally would make a person think they are going insane. All the while I was looking for an earthly explanation. I could not understand this, and it never occurred to me to think that it was caused by an evil spirit. I never took the existence of Satan seriously, let alone knew that he could manipulate people’s minds like this. (This scenario was personified through people in my life at the time. I wasn’t thinking “why does the devil have power to read my mind?” but “what did this mystery person do to me that gave people the ability to read my mind?”)
How was God able to let me know that it was the devil who was doing this to me? This was the truth and He wanted me to know it. He didn’t stop it from happening, I’m the one who essentially opened the door for the devil by denying myself, and I did that because I believed his lie that God had forsaken me. I was vulnerable to the devil’s schemes because of my ignorance of the full gospel story. God was using this as an opportunity, however, to teach me first-hand about the fallen condition of the world, our sinful nature, the reality of Satan and how he is the temporary ruler of this world, and how subtle and deceptive his nature is. From this experience I would have a better understanding and appreciation of what Jesus has saved us from. But most importantly, I would come to know that God is all-powerful and loves us unconditionally. I was able to understand life from a new perspective that the Lord did not come to make this earth a better place, but to bring His kingdom on earth, to show us the difference between the two realms of good and evil.
The Lord was turning my world upside down as I knew it and was revealing to me the knowledge of His invisible kingdom.5All of my life my spirit was restless within me, sensing that it was not meant to be of this world, that there was something mysterious about this life. My spirit lay unresponsive and lifeless to the vain and meaningless offerings of this world in its fallen condition. But when God, who is life, lifted the veil to the spiritual realm of His kingdom, my spirit was awakened and leaped with joy, undeniably recognizing the truth of our identity and where we were meant to be. Through becoming a born-again Christian, I was able to understand life from God’s perspective. I have learned that we have all obtained a fallen nature ever since the original sin took place in the Garden of Eden, and have become subject to the power of Satan who is the temporary ruler of this world and blinds us of the things of God. Being that we are sinners, we are in need of God’s salvation. John 3:3 “Jesus answered and said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
Beware: The Devil Is Relentless
I soon became familiar with people who were born-again Christians and started attending a non-denominational church where the awareness of the spiritual realm is common. But as I went into this new discovery, I came across a major setback. The devil was not going to let me slide into home base that easily. I had spent nearly two years in the false belief that I was utterly rejected by God. After being set free by the true knowledge that God loves me unconditionally, I was ready to learn all about that love and be healed. But unfortunately I stepped into the wrong church and spent the first few years of my conversion under the teaching of a pastor who was nice at first, but eventually started to preach with a condemning tone from what I believed was unforgiveness in his heart.
It wasn’t obvious at first, it slowly progressed from being sound doctrine to being unsound. I was a new believer, I was naïve and was not able to discern this at first. The impact of this false, negative teaching affected my relationship with God for a while. The joy of my salvation of being restored with God did not last long. I was soon oppressed by these teachings of condemnation. They turned my wonderful salvation experience of God’s merciful grace which gave me peace, into fear of never being able to satisfy an angry God. I had to persistently work at replacing all of that negative debris from the pastor’s teaching for what I knew to be true deep inside my spirit, that God is love. The Lord had to reassure me over and over again of His love for me until the negative lies no longer had a hold on me.
Seeking and Not Finding
Even years after I left that church I was still journaling the same concerns to God that I felt were preventing me from experiencing the ultimate freedom I longed for, asking Him “Where is the Spirit-filled church? When are they going to stop preaching from their own understanding of God and start preaching in the Spirit that leads to life?” These messages were not condemning but just as harmful because they kept my eyes on myself and my ability to be good rather than learning to live through Christ’s presence in me, so that He receives all the glory in all that I am and all I that I do (Galatians 2:20). (Throughout the New Testament you will read many times of the difference between walking in the flesh and walking in the Spirit and learn the difference between being “good” in respect of thinking we can earn our salvation and being “righteous” as a result of our faith in what Christ has done for us.)
I was a young Christian and still felt vulnerable. Having allowed myself to be deceived into believing that having an abortion was right and then being convicted by God that it was wrong, I became fearful of trusting in myself and of taking on any responsibility. I made that grievous mistake of having an abortion, so I knew I had the potential to be deceived to do other grievous mistakes. But if the Holy Spirit is in me and I live by His power, then that is my ticket to freedom from the fear of what my fallen nature was prone to do. I could not find any teachings about being a new creation in Christ, and after spending time experiencing the dark side of the spiritual realm from having been paranoid, I was desperate to be led into God’s side, to learn of being edified in the Spirit, only to search in vain.
I had spent my life up to that point, living in the trial and error of living according to my own wisdom and understanding, dependent on my own abilities to survive, only to fail disastrously by being responsible for ending the life of my own unborn child. Listening to empty sermons that did not teach about living in the freedom of the power of Christ in me through the Holy Spirit left me focused on the vain capabilities of the flesh (our fallen, corrupt human nature), making Christianity seem pointless to me. Focusing on the flesh did not enable me to experience the peace that I was expecting from knowing God, but instead, it made me susceptible to the devils accusations, and rightly so, because the flesh cannot be improved in the eyes of God. So again, I was having an experience of thinking God was depriving me of what I longed for the most, only this time it was to know His love, in a community of like-minded Christians who edified one another to walk in the freedom and power of the Holy Spirit. This made me wonder if I was truly forgiven.
The Truth Will Set You Free
Because I did not know the whole Bible, the devil had a hold on me here, thinking “maybe there is somewhere in the Bible that says God does not forgive people in some situations.” So I had to find out and hopefully put an end to this torment. The Lord led me to a missionary organization away from my home that taught a 9 month inductive Bible study course, but first required a 5 month discipleship training program. After spending this time in a concentrated Christian environment and reading through the whole Bible to see that it nowhere says that God forgives everyone except me, I finally became set free from the lies of the devil. My feet were now planted on the firm foundation of truth, and I now had a better understanding of spiritual warfare, how deceiving and desperate the devil is in lying about the truth of God’s love. I am now able to fearlessly carry on in this temporary fallen world in the victory that Christ has provided, who has overcome and defeated our invisible enemy, the devil.
John 17:15-17 “ I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one. 16 They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. 17 Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth.”
1 John 4:4-6 “ You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. 5 They are of the world. Therefore they speak as of the world, and the world hears them. 6 We are of God. He who knows God hears us; he who is not of God does not hear us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.”
Ephesians 6:10-12 “Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. 11 Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. 12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.”
Acts 26:18 “to open their eyes, in order to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in Me.”
Footnotes:
1. In the Bible it is written about Satan’s temporary authority over the world, in 1 John 5:19 “We know that we are of God, and the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one,” and in John 12:31 “Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be cast out.” (See also Luke 4:6; Ephesians 2:2; Colossians 1:13; Revelation 13:2.) Adam and Eve were given free-will by God. When they disobeyed God’s command, they died like He said they would (spiritual death instantly and physical death gradually). This is when sin entered the world (Romans 5:12). They became spiritually separate from God and Satan became their new master. Romans 6:16, “Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one’s slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness?”
God is love, He has created us with a purpose, so I would think that He has no desire to see His entire creation extinguished in one moment. He said we would die but did not say it would be eternal death. Our God is all-wise, He actually had a rescue plan prepared before the foundation of the world. He created all things, and set man apart by making him in His own image. This would give us credibility to be capable of learning from our mistakes, so He gave us a chance to get right with Him through the atonement of His Son Jesus Christ. God is all-powerful, when our Savior died on the cross and was resurrected from Hades to the right hand of God, He proved that our sins were forgiven and had conquered Satan who had the power of death (Hebrews 2:14). God is patient, and until all people come to the knowledge of Christ and be saved if they so desire, Satan remains as the temporary ruler of this world until Christ comes again and permanently finishes him off by sending him and all those who reject God into the eternal Lake of Fire, never to bother us again.
2. Authority was given to Satan to rule the world, and ever since the Original Sin took place we have become subject to him and we are not even aware of it. That is because we are now limited to the physical realm and cannot know the things of the Spirit unless God reveals them to us. The world system is now over-seen by Satan, who influences mankind to think and behave contrary to the ways of God. He deceives us into thinking we can function in life without God. We are now naturally, blindly, in a rebellious fallen condition before God. You can see how our lives are impacted by the influence of Satan just by observing the characteristics of our human nature. We naturally tend to be self-sufficient, self-willed and self-ruling, but we were created to be dependent on God alone. We lack self-control, because we are always seeking fulfillment and satisfaction through the only means we know of, which is our five senses from which we intake all of our information, which is mostly influenced by Satan. Our flesh (our fallen human nature) has become corrupted by sin and its desires can only give us a temporary satisfaction that always leaves us empty and wanting for more.
It is easy for Satan to keep us focused on our flesh because that is what seems natural to us and that is all we can know apart from the revelation from God. Because of this we usually lack incentive, motivation, and power to resist self-satisfying, self-gratifying behavior, even when we see the negative effect it has on us (addictions, weight and health issues). The nature of the flesh is seated in rebellion towards God, protecting itself at all costs, insisting on being right and having its own way. Knowing that our fallen nature is under the control of Satan helps us to understand why we would be so resistive to doing anything that involves self-sacrifice, because any human act of selflessness is of God’s nature. God’s ways are contrary in every way to the ideology of Satan and the values of his world system. But God came down to earth and displayed the ultimate act of self-sacrifice, the ultimate display of unconditional love by dying on the cross for our sins. How will we, who are un-aware of being in a fallen state of rebellion towards Him, react and respond to this unique and rare form of love?
This sense of having an empty void that never seems to be filled is inevitable because the things of the world cannot satisfy the souls longing for its true home. In its fallen condition, it is in a place of exile, a strange land where self-interests and the ways of the flesh characterize its livelihood. Because we were created in the image of God, we are able to discern that something is not quite right. This empty void can only be filled with the Holy Spirit of God, for we will not experience everlasting peace until we take our proper place of staying in the limits of where we were morally designed to be – obedient and submissive children to God our Heavenly Father. To think that we are greater than God and can survive independent of Him is to be in rebellion towards Him, and being that God is love and has provided everything we could possibly need, there’s no reason to rebel. But in the Garden of Eden temptation came, and mankind fell, and we learn from our mistakes at a great price which was provided by the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.
By understanding our fallen nature you can get an idea of how our lives are impacted by the influence of Satan more than we are aware of. The following verse from Scripture describes how opposed the flesh is to the Spirit of God and shows the difference between the two.
Galatians 5:16-24 I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. 17 For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.
19 Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, 20 idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, 21 envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. 24 And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. 26 Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.
3. The devil is now defeated by the power of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, “Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it.” (Colossians 2:15), but you can’t be relieved of that fear if you do not believe the truth of Christ’s victory over him. Until you come to the knowledge of this truth, the devil will make himself out to be more powerful than God.
4. It wasn’t until I made the effort to understand the Bible, through the revelation and teaching by the Holy Spirit, that I was able to discern the difference between the realm of this world and the realm of God. It was then that I was able to be free from being a prisoner of my mind by being deceived by the devil.
By understanding Satan’s character and goal, you will be able to discern better what these differences are. If his goal is to be God, then he would have his own standard of righteousness. He can only present himself as an imitation of the true God, and he does it well. He most definitely will persecute and torture Christians, but to those who are of the world and have not yet come to the light of the knowledge of truth about Jesus, the Son of God, he has a different agenda for them. “Again Satan’s ambition is leading him to make this age of his special opportunity as nearly perfect as his wisdom and power will permit. And in this connection it may be noted that Satan’s ambition was not to become a fiend, but rather to become like the Most High. He will, therefore, strive for all that is moral and good: yet at the same time do all in his power to draw men from their natural reverence of God, in order that, in due time, they may acknowledge himself without fear. The Satanic ideal of this age is, then, an improved social order, a moral and cultured people who are devout worshipers of himself, though for the present they may imagine that they are worshiping Jehovah through their empty religious forms and ceremonies, while they are really in a state of God-dishonoring unbelief, and all their thoughts are energized by Satan alone. The Satanic message for this age will be reformation and self-development, while the message of God is regeneration by the power of the Spirit.
Satan, in his imitation of the Most High, is also working toward a universal kingdom of morality and peace upon earth which will be temporarily realized under the reign of the Beast (Rev. 13). The difference between Satan’s ideal and the purpose of God, apart from the utter folly of the one and the glorious certainty of the other, is the difference of both method and time. According to the Satanic program, the present order of society, with Satan on the throne, is to be developed into an ideal brotherhood, in which all men will practice that which is moral and good. According to the Word of God, this is an evil age of darkness and pollution, in which the folly of Satan and man is to be proven, and out of which God is to gather the heavenly people for His own name.” (Satan: His Motives and Methods by Lewis Sperry Chafer, Kregel Publications, Pg. 66.)
The ways of Satan are not always obvious. He takes everything that is of God and perverts and twists it in order to serve our corrupted, sinful nature, deceiving us into thinking it is fulfilling and desirable. A good example of this is being lustful. Lust is basically an excessive desire that burns within us for anything that is contrary to the will of God, gratifying the flesh. This can be materialism, or a pleasurable feeling, yet it only gives temporary satisfaction.
To be dominated by the flesh, we can place unrealistic burdens upon ourselves. Just to mention a few things, think about how we may be overly self-conscious and fearful of what others think about us. The worldly value system puts emphasis on outward appearances when deep inside we know its all vanity. Notice how critical we are of judging others because they are not like ourselves, creating divisions among us that affect our well-being. The fear of rejection plagues many people with the unrealistic ever changing conditions of acceptance by worldly standards. We become despairing from the insufficiency of worldly love because it is based on feelings and conditions, failing to bring us to the attainment of fulfilling our hearts most longed-for desire of being accepted for who we are in our strengths and weaknesses. Unconditional love enables us to have a realistic relationship because we can be safe and secure knowing we can be open and honest with one another without fearing judgment or rejection. God is love (1 John 4:8), He is the author of true love, and the only way we can experience it is through our restored relationship with Him. We can then start to develop a sense of having true self-worth.
True Love is described in 1 John 4:7-19. To put it briefly, God’s love is selfless love, a love we cannot express until we receive it from Him first. His love will cover your sins, cleanse away all of your dirty shame, and heal your emotional wounds. After receiving His love you will not have any needy “self” issues that cause one to have unrealistic expectations from others that only God can fulfill. When you experience how God is the fulfilment of all your desires and everything you need, you can then love others in a self-less, sacrificial way. How would you define love?
People go through with having an identity crisis, asking themselves, “Who am I?” This is a hard question to answer when our knowledge of this is limited to what we can perceive through our fallen condition. What is our identity to be based on? Is it our cultural background? Our job title? The degree of our popularity? Our outward appearance? The various types of media we prefer (music, movies, books)?
As a Christian, I have found my identity to be in the person of Jesus Christ. Everything about His self-less, loving, compassionate nature is who I want to be like. That became my reality when I invited Jesus to live within me and became a born-again Christian. Before that life-changing moment, I was a lost soul. I was never able to be content with finding an answer as to my true identity from what the world had to offer. It was all based on what I could do, not on the person I was on the inside. This is the best of what the world can offer. Satan prefers to keep us clueless to the truth that we have only two sources from which we mirror our true identity. We can either identify with Satan and his evil nature or with God and His holy nature. Satan takes advantage that we are blinded of both sources and deceives us with the superficial identity of outward things which all focus on our flesh. If Satan were to expose himself and make his existence obvious to us, we would no longer be under his deception, and because we are made in God’s image, we would naturally reject Satan as our identity and return to God.
I was blinded of my two options of knowing who I was on the inside. My true identity which was meant to reflect the image of God was hidden behind my fallen nature. And with that nature being so deprived and corrupted, causing separation from God, it made it difficult to acknowledge this truth about myself. When I learned about the true nature of Christ and His mercy and grace towards me, I was able to accept the truth that I had fallen into sin before God, and realized that I needed to trade in my dead, fallen nature and put on a new living nature – the nature of Christ. This is what it means to be born-again, because my dead spirit becomes resurrected in Christ and brought back to life so I can now start this new life in the awareness of God’s invisible kingdom by the power of the Holy Spirit living inside me.
Another way we may be unaware of how the devil operates is by manipulating with our moral conscience. He will entice us to sin and deceive us into thinking something we should not do is not wrong. But when we fall for the trap, the devil turns on us by filling us with accusation, guilt and shame. He has been using this no-fail method ever since he first used it on Adam and Eve. And what’s worse is that he deceives us by having us think it is God who is accusing us. The devil is the Accuser, not God. Out of love the Holy Spirit will convict a person of sin in hope that they would repent of it.
The Lord has graciously offered to free us from the burdens of the devil if you are willing to believe. “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30)
5. By “my world” I am referring to this physical world I was born into. I was not aware of its fallen condition before God; that I was never meant to be self-sufficient; and that by living independent of God is to be in rebellion towards Him. The depth of the knowledge of God’s love for us is unfathomable, but I will give a brief synopsis here of our fallen situation, and you can search out the details for yourself.
Sin has separated us from God. He is holy and must be separate from the infection of the sin that permeates all of creation. This separation has made us blind to spiritual things, causing us to depend on, and be limited to our five senses and what we can know from the physical world. Although we are still aware of God’s existence, the umbilical cord to Him as our source of life has been severed. We are left to ourselves and our own limited wisdom to navigate ourselves through this life and have blindly become subject to the influence of Satan who is the temporary ruler of this world. The only way for us to know the things of God is by His Spirit. Only He can give this to us, but He is prevented from doing so because we are infected with sin. Because God is also a God of justice, there must be punishment for breaking His law. So the dilemma we find ourselves in is that our sin needs to be punished and removed in order to receive the Spirit of God so that we may know Him personally.
God, in His infinite wisdom had a solution. By His love, mercy and grace, He provided a substitute to bear the punishment for us. And since it had to be sinless in order to qualify, He sent His Son to earth in the form of man to become that substitute for us. He was the sinless Lamb of God who made atonement for our sins, removing them from us once and for all. He has forgiven us and redeemed us from sin and death with the price of His own shed blood. Because Jesus suffered the wrath of God in our place, God’s justice was satisfied.
Now that we who believe in God have been justified by Him as if we never sinned, and death no longer has power over us, we can know the things of God by inviting His Spirit to live inside us. Having the full restoration of our souls, we can enjoy fellowship with God like it was always meant to be.