A Personal Walk With God

By Steven Vincent Price

This book focuses upon the individual and his or her relationship and walk with God in their daily lives. The book is based upon my own personal life and walk with God outlined in a packet I put together for myself and to share with others. The principles and practices outlined within reflect the truth and knowledge that God assimilated into my own daily life behind these prison walls. They most assuredly can be (and should be) assimilated into your lives out there in the real world. This book is a practical theological guide to enable you, the reader, to learn, develop, and apply fundamental spiritual and physical disciplines in the Christian faith to your own personal lives. I hope and pray that you will apply these truths continuously through repetition to develop long lasting patterns that will influence and effect every area of your lives. There is no age limit to beginning this personal walk, and no end to the glory, understanding, and benefits you will experience from simply applying these truths on a daily basis. Thank you, and God bless you. Amen.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Mar 11, 2016
• ISBN: 9781682136201

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Copyright © 2016 Steven Vincent Price

All rights reserved

First Edition

PAGE PUBLISHING, INC.

New York, NY

First originally published by Page Publishing, Inc. 2016

ISBN 978-1-68213-619-5 (pbk)

ISBN 978-1-68213-620-1 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Dedication

Contents

Foreword

Introduction

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Bibliography

About the Author

Dedication

Iwould like to, first of all, give glory and acknowledgment to the One who is worthy, who created all things for His name and glory’s sake, and from whom I was created and who exists even today: our God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. He gave me the physical and spiritual life I possess today, the talents, skills, relationships, and opportunities to produce something, anything, even this book. Moreover, it was by His mercy and grace that I am even alive today after all my years of sinful practice and foolishness, which He knew I would engage upon even before the world was ever created. And yet still He brought me into this world and endowed me with such wonderful family and friends, knowing that one day I would respond to His providential love and internal call to receive the saving knowledge of His Son Jesus Christ and that my life would be transformed to worship and serve Him forevermore. It is this God, manifest as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, whom I love and adore and to whom I dedicate this book as one of my crowns now laid at His feet. Amen.

I also dedicate this book to my precious and faithful parents, Walter and Carla Price, who have been God’s instruments bringing me into this world, teaching and training me, loving and correcting me, and supporting me all throughout my fifty-four years of life here in this natural realm under the sun, even though I surely didn’t deserve it. To this very day they have never left me or forsaken me, which has been an example of our Lord and His unfailing love for us as His children. I love my parents for who they are and what they continually do with all my heart.

I also dedicate this book to my children, Christel and Steve Jr., and ask for their forgiveness for not being the father or parent to them that God wanted me to be. I am thankful that now I can leave a heritage to them as a godly father and friend through this book. I want them to see who I am today by the grace of God and to receive the healing and reconciliation in their hearts of both God’s and my love for them, and my two grandchildren, Landen and Savanah, whom I hope to meet one day.

I also dedicate this book to my Christian family who have become as close as my natural family and have not been ashamed of me in these chains (prison): Hal Kemper and Norman Jones, who have gone to be with our Lord; Bobby Denton, Mark Boucher, Faron and Debbie Eckelbarger, and all my brethren at the Christian Radio Ministry, volunteers, staff, and listeners too many to name and some who have chosen to remain anonymous; Manny Escobedo and Mr. Dennis Mulkey who brought me through one of the darkest times in my entire life, forcing me to write out my experiences; and to my dear friends, Brian and Adele, for their support and care for me these many years. And Mr. Bowens, for all the little things that support.

Finally, I dedicate this book to all those faithful brethren who have gone before us, having left a legacy and heritage through their books and reference works, incredible tools which we now have right at our fingertips: Study Bibles, study works, dictionaries, concordances, lexicons, commentaries, etc., our spiritual family whom we will see in heaven one day, folks I have never met personally but whom I know from their works.

I thank and praise the Lord for these and many others, gifts of relationships that are worth more than all the money or wealth this natural world could muster. I am rich with the eternal treasures of God and all these precious spiritual and natural family members and maybe, Lord willing, you too!

Contents

Foreword

When I first met Steve Price, he made an immediate impression on me. Within one hour of meeting him, he began to recommend many of the practices outlined in this book. But I already fancied myself as something of a Bible student and had developed a personal walk of my own. I had already learned many disjointed doctrines with their uncertain applications, and that was just fine for me, so I thanked him and did not take much of his advice.

As time went on, Steven continued to plant seeds in my heart, and unbeknownst to me, the Holy Spirit was watering and nurturing them. I continued to do things my way, but at times I would try some of Steve’s advice on practical Christian living, if only to prove to myself that my way was better. After a while, I was reluctantly forced to admit that he was right in most of the things on which he had been counseling me, and I realized that I was failing in many of the most fundamental disciplines of the Christian faith. I prayed every day, but my prayers were often mechanical, and I was not always completely honest with God. I studied theology intensely but could not cite Scripture addresses of proof texts, and I had internalized very little of my vast storehouse of biblical trivia. I rarely read my Bible devotionally and had never bothered to memorize verses, and so I frequently struggled with sin and had an inadequate frame of reference for practical applications of God’s word in my life. I condemned people who would not forgive me for my past wrongs, yet I myself was a hatemonger, gripped by a spirit of unforgiveness. I was choked with the external trappings of biblical academia, straining at gnats while swallowing camels, and I was reaping very little fruit for all of my backbreaking religious toil. In sum, I was living a very dangerous carnal Christianity.

However, a metamorphosis took place in my life when I began to apply Steve Price’s Personal Walk with God. I began to pray from the heart, confessing my own fears and weaknesses, and God comforted and strengthened me. The Holy Spirit started to place the right prayers in my heart, and as I prayed them earnestly, God began to bring wonderful blessings into my life because I was praying in accordance with His will and not mine. I began to read my Bible every day, and God used this as a means to sanctify me and draw me nearer to Himself. As God progressively sanctified me and filled me with a greater measure of His spirit, I, in turn, was led to a more comprehensive understanding of theology, because of course, these things are spiritually discerned. As I began to understand more about God theologically, I was able to understand more about who He is in His relation to me, and being overcome by a sense of gratitude for His mercy, I started to forgive others unconditionally. And as I memorized Scriptures, I began to guard my heart against sin and the fiery darts of the devil and had a greater frame of reference for practically applying God’s word in my life. In sum, I went from an impoverished, emaciated Christianity to a robust, fulfilling, personal communion with Almighty God, and I would need to write a book of my own to count the spiritual and temporal blessings that God has given me and my family.

You see Steve’s advice works not because it is Steve’s advice but because it is godly advice that is based on a Christocentric view of the Bible and has been beta-tested in this pit of hell called state prison. Prison is a barren and desolate mission field, and the churches have utterly failed to bring doctrinally sound and practically applicable Christianity to sinners inside these prison walls. We Christian inmates live in an extremely hostile environment where sinning with impunity and actively glorifying Satan are the status quo, where evil is openly rewarded and good violently condemned, and where Christians are physically assaulted and constantly shamed and ostracized for our profession of Jesus Christ as Lord. Inside prison, Christians are literally under siege by all the fury of hell and Satan, so the weapons that we use in our warfare are tried and true, and God has used them as a means to bring us through victoriously. We are veterans of a grisly and hellish campaign, and the pressures that this war exerts on us daily have brought our faith to a diamond hardness. By the power of God, with this faith and these weapons, one of us chases a thousand, and two of us ten thousand, and every inch of ground upon which our feet tread is claimed in the name of our King, Jesus Christ. And now, dear reader, we hand these spiritual weapons to you. We want to equip you with a plan of action that has never failed God’s children and that has never failed to bring God His due and proper glory. So if it is your heart’s desire to be victorious in this Christian life and to glorify the Author of your salvation, then read this book and heed its advice well.

In the blessed name of God I adjure you, friend, read and heed.

Soli Deo Gloria

Joseph M. Zito

Introduction

A Note from the Author

My name is Steven Vincent Price, and I am serving a sentence of eighty-five years to life under the Three Strikes Law here at the California state prison at Blythe in Riverside County. I have been incarcerated now for over thirteen years, and this is my third prison term, also known as a three-time loser. I would not wish this kind of death (separation) upon anyone, but God in His infinite wisdom has used this prison sentence, this separation from my family, freedom, and friends, to produce humility and values in my heart that might not have been realized any other way. I praise and thank Him for His mercy and grace in keeping me alive through so much turmoil resulting from the abuse of drugs and alcohol in my past and bringing the only real good that could ever come from doing prison time, a close relationship with Jesus Christ and a purpose in sharing that relationship with you, my readers. That is the purpose of this book, to share what God has shown me and to help you produce these same spiritual disciplines in your individual lives as God has effectually produced them in mine. This book focuses upon the individual and his or her relationship and walk with God in their daily lives. That is exactly what I have done inside these prison walls with my own daily relationship and walk with our great God.

For Ezra had prepared his heart to seek the law of the Lord, and to do it, and to teach statutes and ordinances in Israel. (Ezra 7:10)

Ezra provides three basic elements stated in this verse: 1) he prepared his heart to seek the law of the Lord; 2) he chose to do it; and 3) he chose to teach it. God is a God of order (1 Corinthians 14:40), magnificently displaying His order in the works of creation as an example for us to follow (Psalm 19:1–6; see also Genesis chapters 1–2; John 1:1–3; Hebrews 11:3; and Revelations 4:11). The orderly progression stated in the verse cited above begins with a personal preparation within our hearts to seek the law—the Bible—the word of the Lord. We are to spend time with God in His word every day, at least three times a day (Daniel 6:10), just like we do with our daily physical diets in eating three meals a day. Our spiritual diet, which consists of ingesting God’s word, which is spirit (John 6:63), and our response through prayer should follow that same pattern as we do with our physical diets or we will become spiritually deficient, just as we would become physically deficient if we stopped eating three meals a day to sustain our physical bodies.

The second element listed is a call for us to do it. We are to be doers of the word and not hearers only (James 1:22). We deceive ourselves into thinking that just because we read the word and know the Bible or we attend church and hear the word on Wednesdays or Sundays that we are somehow holy and righteous before our God. That is only part of the process, for God desires that we put those principles we read, hear, and study into a daily practice in our own individual lives, with our families, schools, recreation, and at the workplace. These principles serve as examples to others of the things God is showing us and producing through us.

Lastly, we are then told to teach the very things we have both learned in the Bible and are living out on a daily basis in our own lives. This demonstrates to the world that God’s word is true (John 7:17; 17:17), that our witness is credible (1 John 1:2), and that God has indeed sent Jesus into this world (John 17:21–23) to save sinners among whom we all are chief (1 Timothy 1:15).

A true belief will always produce good works. If a person really does believe what God commands him to believe, he must also do what God commands him to do, for this is the outworking of that true belief (faith). There is no such thing as true faith unless it results in right practice: Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead . . . For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also (James 2:17, 26). Therefore, Christianity as a doctrine and Christianity as a life cannot be separated. It is never one without the other; it is always both together.

I personally have devoted myself to the word of God all throughout this prison term (Jeremiah 15:16; Job 23:12), to hear, read, study, meditate, and memorize its contents from Genesis to Revelation, to gain spiritual wisdom and understanding, enabling me to interpret the God-given meaning out of my circumstances within natural creation, also known as Natural Revelation: God generally revealing Himself through all of nature. I can now discover my God-given purpose in those circumstances (yes, even in prison), just as Adam did during his life or walk with God before the fall (Genesis 2:19–20). God’s word is also known as Special Revelation: God specifically revealing Himself and His requirements in His word. I have come to realize that a relationship with God through His word is a lifelong journey, beginning in Genesis and progressing through to Revelation (from cover to cover) and back again. The greater degree and extent of this certain knowledge discovered through a vertical relationship with God in His word (God is in heaven and we are on earth) provides a much greater scope and extent of effectual applications in my life here on earth through a horizontal relationship with all my neighbors, with family being the closest of those neighbors. This can be illustrated by the Superman ride at the Six Flags Magic Mountain theme park in Valencia, California, which is an electromagnetic ride that shoots you out horizontally like a dragster launching from a staging area and then turns you ninety degrees straight up to the sky, where you ascend until gravity pulls you back down, and then you travel backward straight down and back to the launch point. My point here is that the closer one gets to God through the knowledge of the Bible in the spiritual realm (vertically), the greater influence and applications one will have here in the natural realm (horizontally); it is the way God designed it to work.

You will notice many Scripture references cited all throughout this book. Please read them from your Bible as you walk through each paragraph, section, and chapter because they come straight from my heart based upon the absolute truth of God’s word as it applies to what I am sharing with you. I do not cite these to impress you or show you that I am a teacher—that is not my intent. I am simply sharing from my heart what God has so graciously given me here on my prison bed after many years of diligent study before Him, to show myself approved to Him (2 Timothy 2:15). These are things that I feel are very important to my own personal life and walk with our Lord. Thank you for understanding and honoring this by looking up the verses and letting God speak to you with what I share with you from His word. Amen.

It should come as no surprise to you, my readers, that prisoners deal with the same things that people in the free world deal with (1 John 2:15–17), just manifested in different ways. We are still human beings in here. We breathe the same air that you do, put on our pants one leg a time, feel lonely, frustrated, and depressed just like any other person. Yes, many inmates are still hardened in their own sins and have not yet repented, even under this extreme punishment and separation, but there are others like myself who are deeply sorry for what we have done to people in our past and having to reap these awful consequences. We have turned in faith to the One who can set us free, even while we are held captive in this prison grave.

It is just such a freedom I describe to you in these disciplines and the outline that follows, a spiritual freedom that I enjoy today like no other I have known outside of these prison walls. Conversely, I also have never before experienced such a struggle as this with the remnant of my own sinful nature (internal struggle), or the cursed nature of this fallen world (external struggle), or the very real and sharp oppression of the devil (2 Corinthians 10:3–4; Ephesians 6:10–13). There