Prophets Testimony
Many years ago, 22 to be exact, my friend and I were out driving along, and he asked me to describe hell to him. Hell, now that was a word that never crossed my mind very often.
At the age of 21, I was not a Christian, nor did I have much to do with anyone called a Christian. I was never really in a church, except for weddings and funerals. Up to this point in my life, I never even heard the salvation message. And my friend asks me about hell, Oh boy, what a question.
Well, neither one of us knew the answer about hell. But what that little question did was to open up a door, that allowed God to start working on our hearts. It haunted us. It was a constant nagging at our hearts to find out some answers.
Something started changing on the inside of us. Here we were, living a free and wild life, never before caring what may happen to us, or to anyone else. And believe me, our life style showed it. WILD would be the word to describe it. I never knew any thing, what so ever about God, Jesus, or the Holy Spirit, but for some reason, unknown to me at that time, I wanted to know about God.
I never preached before in my life, and I never knew how to preach, but I would go to parties with my friend and start to tell people they needed God in their lives. Here I was, drunk as a skunk, telling people they needed God. Wow, now don't that sound crazy. Our other friends even stopped telling us where the parties were going to be at, they did not want the two crazy guys to show up. Not only did this conviction affect us, but we were spreading it through out the places we would go.
This went on for about a year. Then one night as my friend and I were out driving along a dark rock road, drinking ourselves in to a stupor, we stopped the car, got out on that old, dark, rock road. We both knelt down in the rocks, and looked up to heaven, and said, " God, if you really do exsist, show yourself to us, and make yourself real to the both lf us.
That my friend was an open invitation for the almighty God to do something in us. From that point on, I started going to a church every Sunday with my wife. Now, every Sunday, the preacher would ask, " Is there anyone here that would like to join the church, and every Sunday, I would look at my wife and say, " Not now, next week." I still was not ready to commit.
After a couple of months of this stuff, I could no longer hold back, we went forward, sat in the front, the preacher asked me what did we want, , , Let's take a pause here.....
After all this time, after going to this church for months, I still did not know the salvation plan. It was never taught in this church. And it would amaze you what church I was going to, for it was a denomination, that mostly everyone would think that they would teach such a thing, but, not while I was there, it never got taught.
So, doing the only thing that I knew at that time, I said to the preacher, " I guess we want to join the church. So, we became members. Still going every Sunday, getting more excited about God, Yet still not ever hearing about Jesus, and the things that I needed to do to get saved. By the way, that friend of mine that I was talking about, started going to church to, but not the same one I was going to. I did not know this, but he was saved at the age of 12.
Here I was. Full of something that I could not explain to anyone, but not knowing what to do. One night my friend asked me to go to a store front church that was having a revival. Well, ok, let's do it. This was the first time that I ever went anywhere else to hear about God. And in this little store front church, the real Word of God was being preached. Wow, something that I never had the experience to hear up to this point.
Something was going on inside of me. I could not sit still, I was like a little child, squirmming all over the place. I was hungry, thirsty, moved on the inside. Then finally, at the end of this meeting, the speaker gave an invitation to anyone that would like to invite Jesus into thier lives to come forward and get saved. I ran down. Finally, I heard what I was looking for. Salvation, salvation, forgiveness for my sins, cleansing by the blood of Jesus, being a child of God.
That night, my friend and I both gave our lives to Jesus. For him, it was a rededication, for me, it was the begining of a fantastic journey.
For weeks after this experience, I was in hog heaven. I was a changed man. There was so much of a change in me, that after two weeks of this, my mother came up to me one day and said, " Son, I don't know what has happened to you, but what ever it is, I want it to." Oh, what a great day. I finally had the opportunity to tell someone about Jesus, and that I did.
My mother gave her life to Christ, right then and there, my dad followed about two weeks after that. And for the past 22 years, I have seen many of my close relatives and friends do the same.
Here's the deal, in my small town, I was well known. And this was because of the people I hung around with. This crowd of folks were not very good.
We partied and drank all the time. Parents would warn their kids not to hang with us because they knew that they would be in bad shape if they partied with us. Here is the great picture, the town started talking, wow, what is this, these two kids that were a holy terror in our town, look at them now. They are preaching and telling their friends about God and Jesus. What's going on here.
You can guess that I stopped going to that old, cold, dead church and started going to one that was alive for God. Many things have happened to me since then, good and bad, and I can say with assurance, My God has never left me nor forsaken me. He has stuck by my side, through thick and thin. He has watched me make many mistakes, and has helped me up out of all the stinky messes that I have gotten myself into since then.
In 1990, I got a divorce and one year later, married a wonderful woman, named Connie. She has been a big turning point in my life. She has helped me to come to grips with a lot of things in my life that needed to change. She is a God send and a helpmate from heaven. We compliment each others ministry.
I know one thing, that there is not a better life anywhere, that could possibly compare to the life a person has in Christ. I thank my God in heaven, for his Son Jesus. Jesus paid the huge price for my salvation. He came to this earth, and was beat, whipped, and hung on the cross to pay the price for me. Then he was judged for the sins of the world and paid that price too, with his very life. Yes, he died for me and you on that cross. He gave his life for us, so we can be with God, the Father, forever, and ever.
On the third day, Jesus rose from the dead. God said, come up here. And Jesus defeated death and hell that day. Not only that, but Jesus took away the keys of hell and death from satan, the worlds #1 arch enemy. Jesus stripped him of his power, and defeated satan, and crushed his head.
If you are reading this testimony and it has touched your heart, and you do not know Jesus, like I have explained it to you, all you have to do is call out to Him. Ask Jesus to come into your life and make Himself real to you, just like he made Himself real to Prophet. God is knocking at the door of your heart right now. Won't you open it up to Him and allow Him to move in, and change your life for the better. Jesus will bring a peace and joy to your heart, inspite of anything that may be going on now.
Only Jesus Christ can make a difference in you. Not parties, they only make one numb to their problems. When the numb wears off, wow, they still are there. Not money, money can not buy peace and joy. Money can get you things, but things can not bring the great peace of God into your heart.
If you do give your life to Christ here, would you e-mail me. And if you are here and would like to know more about my Jesus, e-mail me. I would gladly send you some more info. about all of this......I thank you for taking the time out to read all of this, I hope and pray, that I did not bore you to tears. I hope that I have touched hearts here. Thank you, Prophet_2000.
|
