All or Nothing: God’S One-Step Plan for Fulfillment

Copyright © 2016 by Wendy Scott.

Library of Congress Control Number:      2016909856

ISBN:      Hardcover      978-1-5245-0951-4

      Softcover      978-1-5245-0950-7

      eBook      978-1-5245-0949-1

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Scripture taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

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Rev. date: 06/24/2016

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CONTENTS

The Purpose For This Book

I Believe in God’s Use of Dreams

It’s Personal

The Realization

Heroes of Uncompromised Trust, Faith, and Submission Continues

Jesus

Not My Will but Thine, Lord

Winning through Surrender

God Is Sovereign He Must Be the First and Only

A Case of Idolatry: Make Sure It’s Not Your Problem

The Need for the Holy Spirit

Married

God Is Holy

Nothing Better Than Existing at the Transfiguration Wherever Jesus Is Is Where I Want to Be

The Martyr’s Test The Unshakable Faith

My Resolve: My Commitment Is

The Invitation

Bibliography

DEDICATION

And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses,

the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also.

2 Timothy 2:2

I would like to dedicate this book to my mother, Dr. Delores Washington, who was the personification of an example of Jesus Christ. Her love, commitment, and friendship are sorely missed. Not only did she encourage me to pursue God and to live my life to please Him, but she also taught me how to do that. I learned how to appreciate our Lord and how to love and serve Him by watching my mother. The principles indicated in this book were exemplified in her lifestyle. Her life scriptures as a Bible instructor and Bible school founder was 2 Timothy 2:2. That verse guided her personal lifestyle and all her efforts to teach others the Word of God. Not only did she teach and show me how to live a God-glorifying life, but she also recognized the gift that God gave me to teach the Bible to others also, and she nurtured and encouraged me to use the gift.

I remember when I first received Jesus Christ as Savior; my mother consistently encouraged me in my walk with God. About a year into my walk, I was struggling with something very difficult and questioning whether my life with Christ was going to be anything other than hard. Her response to my complaint and concern was an example of what my commitment to God must be and what it should look like. She said, Wendy, you have to love God and desire to serve him more than anything so that you would never allow anything to server your walk with him. She said, You do that simply by really believing that Jesus really loves you. Then she gave me an example of what she meant. She continued, You have to be so committed that even if both of your children died, it would not stop you from living a committed life for Christ. She said, There is no life outside of Christ and that he alone was our victory. She taught me that nothing and nobody can ever mean more to you than Jesus and his sacrifice for you. She let me know that my dedication to God was not something I would acquire overnight, nor was it anything that I could earn but that, over time, I would grow in Christ and begin to know him better and understand my relationship with him if I just kept living for him.

I have had no greater or better example of Jesus Christ than my mother all these years. Today I am still learning, and her death continues to serve as a catalyst that is helping me understand all the lessons she taught me and those that God wants me to learn even more so.

Mom, you said that God is faithful and that he promised to heal you of all your wounds, according to Jeremiah 30:17, and he did.

Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life:

he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live:

And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?

John 11:25–26

THE PURPOSE FOR THIS BOOK

This book originated from a dream that I had. I believe that God gave me the dream to confirm the truth about what it really means and cost to follow Jesus. It further enlightened me about how to embrace and achieve an even more intimate relationship with him. I also believe that the dream was a warning from God, instructing me to watch, treasure, and protect my walk with him and to never take it for granted. It now also serves as a preventive tool that I now use to guard the integrity of my heart by cooperating with God as he continues to perform his perfect work of transformation in my life.

Everything I just said above is about me, but the dream was also the kind of dream that troubled me enough that it woke me up and I felt compelled to write and share with others what I saw and heard the Holy Spirit say to me in my sleep. Whenever I am compelled to write, I know that it is because I need to be able to refer back to the writings as a reference later. The writings become a recorded part of my history, but more importantly and especially in the case of this book, I believe that God was compelling me to share with others what he said, so much so that when I began writing, I could not stop jotting down what I continued to hear him say after I woke up. I know for a fact that God was speaking to me. Even though I attempted to go back to sleep several times, I could not. The thoughts of what you will see in the book just kept coming into my head by the spirit of God.

Jesus was really saying that many genuine Christians are struggling in their walk with him because of what they don’t know about him—his will and his purpose. Apathy, discouragement, lack of faith, disappointment, and ignorance—all of which can foster unbelief and doubt about who Jesus said he is and cause many to doubt what he promised them. He said, My people are destroyed for the lack of knowledge. (Hosea 4:6). The worst part is that so many Christians are not experiencing the rich inheritance that we have obtained through all the redemptive acts of God. The lack of understanding and doubt not only prevent some from receiving what they should from the Lord, but both also hold in captivity those who confess to be redeemed and delivered.

Unfortunately, the definition of life in our cultural and human existence, in both the natural and spiritual world, is defined by how many things you can acquire, the opportunities afforded to you, and what you are able to accomplish through your own abilities. A lot of Christians have also brought into this myth and followed this protocol in an attempt to experience life with God and to get the fruit that comes from it—a successful and fulfilled life.

Your best work efforts only serve to work against God and will never yield the gratifying life of God that every person desires. No other life (style) can be compared to living a life full of the life of God. If you are ever going to embrace the life of God, which is where not only a successful life but also an abundant life comes from, your only pursuit must become the desire to fulfill his. When your desire becomes his, the life of God becomes yours, and success is simply the byproduct of it. Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. And using God’s prescription is the only way you can have life at all.

Ephesians 1:17–19

That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him: The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power.

I don’t really know how to accurately describe the experience of the dream, but it was like an awakening that was transitioning my mind to see the reality of what so many of us are missing. It was like God giving me a vision rather than a dream. Perhaps some would say it was a strong impression from God. Whatever the case, it moved me to record it—things I thought I already knew about God and, in fact, was certain about. He helped me understand in a different way or in a deeper dimension. Though not audibly, I was not only hearing what he said, but I was also listening intently as he described to me how it is that what we want so desperately in our walk with Jesus appears to consistently elude us. The feeling I had from hearing it was one of both profound loss and hope. The reality of our desired walk with him continues to escape some of us even though we think we are seeking after Jesus sincerely and with all of our heart. The fact is it is not only what we think. It is actually what we do that results from what we think.

The Bible also says, So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief (Hebrews 3:19). Unbelief will cause you to live your life carelessly. A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump (Galatians 5:9). There is a warning in those verses. An additional danger awaits those who are not watching or are aware of how the enemy, the devil, wants to sift everything out of them while they only live life in the present. He wants to prevent us from inheriting the great riches of Christ now and ultimately cause us to miss out on heaven too. There was a warning in the dream that demanded change in the way you and I serve God. I could not even write down the things I heard fast enough as the conviction of them was so intense. I hope I am able to accurately convey what God said to me, to you.

It is my hope and prayer that you gain some insight as you read. I pray that you will allow the Holy Spirit to speak to you and, if you can personally identify with anything in this book, that you will apply the truth of God’s Word in it to your life. If you do it will help you to make the changes you need to. It will cause you to increase in the Lord and experience him in an all new and better way.

CHAPTER ONE

I Believe in God’s Use of Dreams

And the angel of God spake unto me in a dream, saying, Jacob:

And I said, Here am I.

Genesis 31:11

Are you a Born-Again Christian? Have you committed your life to Jesus totally? When you came to Christ, did you relinquish everything to follow him? Is he Lord of your life? I can imagine, if you are a Christian, you are probably saying yes to every question, but is your yes answer really completely true? Is your yes answer true only in your own mind, or is it true in the mind of God also?

On October 3, 2014, I awoke stunned from a dream I had that night. Although I was somewhat confused about the reason why I had that dream, I began writing everything I saw and heard. The dream was challenging. It was almost as if God had some question about my commitment to him. I dreamed that we, my family and I, were preparing for and going to another wedding for a family member who had been married before. I was standing in the hallway or a room talking to somebody about the futility of getting married over and over. We were having a conversation about what being married really meant, what it should really be, and what it really looks like when it is real versus the consequences of being in an uncommitted marriage.

In the dream, I was especially attempting to describe to that person how it would feel and has felt for me to get married again and how it must have felt for the woman in the dream to be getting married over and over. The feeling was not only sad but devastating as I realized that all she had to look forward to was living in an unfulfilling marriage. This is exactly what happens when the person getting married is making an uncommitted vow. One’s attempt to find and share the fulfillment of true love, belonging, and commitment can lead to devastating consequences when such is the case. It results in the feeling of fulfillment, hollow emptiness, despair, loneliness, lack of self-respect and confidence and the overall feeling of being unloved.

All of a sudden, in the middle of my sentence, I changed the subject from what I was saying to that person and began talking about men and what their roles should be in marriage specifically. Then I said, I just wish all men really understood that they need to genuinely have a true love for the woman they intend to marry before they say I do. I continued by saying, "Men really need to be committed to the woman they chose, enough to give her all or nothing for the rest of his life."

In the dream, those words appeared before my eyes like a thunder and a sharp instrument. In the dream, I said, "Oh, that’s a good title for a book, All or Nothing." And then I woke up. What a profound dream it was, so much so that it’s going to be difficult to convey to you the meaning of it. When I woke up, I heard the Lord telling me what he meant, as he reminded me of various scriptures and biblical stories that he brought back to my memory. They all confirmed the truth about what I heard him say in the dream.

The scriptures and the stories accurately defined the meaning of the dream. I recalled stories about people in the Bible and the circumstances surrounding their lives that looked perfectly like the meaning of what I was trying to describe to the person that I was having a conversation with in my dream. What I know for sure is that it was God, and he was unquestionably speaking. He was saying, that you, me or anyone else will ever be able to know him in his fullness until we give him everything. Our mere confessions just won’t do. To really know me, God said, The recipe is all or nothing. In 1 Timothy 6:6, it says, But godliness with contentment is great gain. Giving up everything to God is where true godliness and its great gain begin.

Why would God use a dream? Why did he use a dream with me in this case? Why not use a Sunday morning sermon, a Bible school lesson, or even an occurrence in my daily experiences? First of all, dreams happen in our sleep; and because of that, I think they sometimes get our attention in ways that we cannot so easily escape from. They are personal and at times more impressionable. You may easily dismiss what a preacher said in a sermon or what a teacher mentioned in a lesson or attribute an experience to another person or meaning, but in a dream, only your mind is engaged. You can’t blame another person or event for what occurs in your mind during your sleep. Well, I guess you could; but most of the time, a dream happens independently and isolated from other people or events.

The word dream has many definitions including, one as an adjective, like a dream vacation that a person may desire, but the primary meaning of the word in the Webster’s Dictionary and many sources is a series of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations occurring involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep; a sequence of sensations, images, thoughts, etc., passing through a sleeping person’s mind. So a dream is an image, thought, or fantasy that happens in the mind while a person is sleeping or relaxing. In a 1913Webster’s Dictionary Dreams are the thoughts or series of thoughts or imaginary transactions which occupy the mind during sleep; a sleeping vision.

But my definition is the same as the one given by Noah Webster, who said In scripture, dreams were sometimes impressions on the minds of sleeping persons, made by divine agency. God came to Abimelech in a dream, Genesis 20:3. Joseph was warned by God in a dream, Matthew 2:19.

I know that God deals with us in many ways, but I also believe that he speaks to us through dreams. There are multiple examples of this in the scriptures. I will bless the Lord, who hath given me counsel: my reins also instruct me in the night seasons, (Psalm 16:7). Through dreams, God encourages, informs, warns, shows things in the future, and gives directions or instructions, among other things.

However, dreams do not necessarily have a significant meaning all the time, as seen in Ecclesiastes 5:7: For in the multitude of dreams and many words there are also divers vanities: but fear thou God. So ultimately, we only rely on God’s Word, not on dreams, to speak to us; but when God gives you and me a dream, it’s to reveal and/or confirm something he has already said. Not only that, the dreams he gives you may not only be for you, but the meaning of the dream can include others and has the potential to affect the lives of many people in order to fulfill his purpose. The following scriptures are examples of God giving people dreams for the purpose of instructing them, directing them, warning them, promoting them, giving them insight into the future, and whatever other purpose he had. Job explains how we dream in Job 33:15: In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon men, in slumberings upon the bed.

Have you ever had a dream that was so profound that it arrested your attention very deeply for days? Maybe you realized it was God speaking to you, but you saw several meanings that could apply. Maybe you had a dream and never understood who was speaking to you or why you had the dream. Reconsider some of the dreams you have had and take the dreams you will have in the future more seriously. Nine times out of ten, it won’t be God, but it could be. One thing is for sure, when he speaks, you will know it is him that is speaking. Such is the case with my dream.

I believe that God even calls some of us to salvation through dreams. He was certainly calling me in a dream. I have been attending church, and the Pentecostal Church at that, since the week I was born according to my mother, but church attendance was not the only thing that moved me to answer God’s call. For many years, from adolescence to young adulthood, I had a reoccurring dream. I had this dream more than a dozen times. In the dream, I was always in a long line with seemingly hundreds of other people, but I was always the fourth or fifth person in the line from the front. At the head of the line was Jesus sitting on a throne, sentencing people to heaven or hell. From the line, trembling with fear, anxiety, and apprehension, I would watch Jesus tell people, one at time, to go in the direction he pointed them to. Most of the people in the line before me seemingly went to hell, which caused me terror. Every time it was my turn to be sentenced by Jesus, I stepped forward and stood in front of him; but before he could say anything or sentence me, I woke up. Every single time I had that dream, I was nervous but glad that I woke up, feeling like, yes, I escaped!

At that time, I mistakenly thought that the devil was trying to torment me. It wasn’t until years later, after I received Jesus as Savior, that I understood the dream. I always woke up because although I was afraid of what Jesus was going to