I was an athiest. I knew I was going to die and three days before it happened I declared Jesus my Lord and Savior out of fear, afraid of what was going to happen next. This was the start of my spiritual journey with Jesus. You speak about the Spirit and my belief is the Spirit is everything. What we see, the fabric of information that we gather from our 5 senses is nothing but an illusion. It's an illusion into 2 permanent worlds that exist. One that is with God and one that is without God. Understand that God can be extremely selective in certain circumstances. He simply comes from a perspective where he doesn't need anything, but prefers our love and devotion.


Being a Child of God doesn't mean that all of our problems simply go away. In many cases, especially for the Apostles, all of their lives became more complex, they encountered more danger, hardship and faced rejection and persecution that led to their deaths. But, they were connected and obeyed in accordance with what they received from Heaven, remaining digilant and obedient. Possibly there are some people on this forum that have that kind of relationship with Jesus and maybe others don't. But, everyone has an option to declare themselves to be forgiven, saved and renew their relationship.