Featured My Testimony... Share Yours

I always welcome the opportunity to share my testimony:

I was saved as a ten year old in the summer of 1992. My church was in Vacation Bible School at the time. The week was nearly done (it was Thursday night). We wrapped up for the night and everyone started going home.

As my Mom drove us home and I said that I needed to go back. Conviction had hit me like a ton of bricks. Without an altar call, without any preaching on that particular night, I was feeling the full drawing power of God. Mom turned us around and we went back, but everyone was already gone. We went over to my grandfather's house. He had a sitting room on a converted back porch. There I knelt beside his recliner and he began to pray. I began to pray. Before he had even finished I was already up hugging my Mom and my grandmother and saying how Jesus had saved me. I called my pastor and told him. The next night the guy who was my best friend (at the time; we've since fallen out of touch) was saved, and the following Sunday morning another friend of mine was saved.

I know some people discount praying at the time of salvation. The prayer is not what saved me. The prayer, and God's response of peace to it, gave a ten year old boy assurance of something he couldn't yet fully comprehend. the older I've gotten the more assured I am of that salvation. Jeremiah writes in one place about setting up waymarks. The Bible is full of examples of people setting up memorials. Well, that night is forever set up in my life as a waymark. I can go back to that night and feel the peace God visited on me. I can recall that as the day the Lord sealed me up until the day of redemption. When he called me to preach ten years later I had another waymark.

 

Mine has to start with Dad, that is the chain of events. Dad a catholic boy growing up, lost his Dad when he was about 13 years old. When he graduated from high school he moved to the big city. Sitting on the porch of his apartment he had a man come visit him one evening who told him about Christ and salvation. Dad was saved out of Catholicism that day. He begin attending several churches settling in on the Baptist faith, married mom who was a Baptist and they had three children. I was the youngest.

When I was 6 years old we were at church a revival and I remember the preacher saying Jesus is knocking on your hearts door. I felt that tugging on my heart and said inside my self come in Jesus. At that age it was so very simple. The Holy Spirit came into my life and filled me with joy that day. He also indwelt me but all those things I learned later. I just wanted to shout it on a mountain top, tell everyone I had Jesus in my life.

Many may say it takes more but Romans 10:13 says this "Whosoever shall call upon the Lord shall be saved." Well saying come in Jesus is calling on the Lord. Paul said to the Philippian jailer when he ask "sirs what must I do to be saved" was told "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ" and my saying come in Jesus was believing and calling which is clearly what is laid out in scripture. When or how doesn't really matter what matters is when you feel the drawing of the Spirit you respond with a positive response. Believe on Christ and Call upon Him for that so great salvation.

One more note in 1963 my dad's brother died, and we were having family over, I had been saved a very short time. I was dressed up in my little suit standing in our living room holding my little new testament. Mom asked me what I was going to do and I said I am going to preach to them, referring to the catholic family coming to the funeral. I just felt God wanted me to preach to them. So I believe God called me at a young age into the ministry although I didn't surrender to the ministry until I was in my 30's.

Dad found a solid bible teaching church when I was 12 and God ensured I received sound solid teaching, for what He was calling me to do. I was lead at a much later time in my 50's to further my Bible education and acquire my Degree's.

I have been saved and in His hands well over 50 years.

 

I accepted Christ at a very young age; somewhere about 7-8 years old. I really don’t remember life before Christ, since I was a part of the Christian community from ‘too young to remember’! I did know at this point, however, that I needed to accept Christ; primarily because my mother had instilled in me a desire to be like Jesus even though I had a very limited concept of just exactly what that meant.
Of course I later learned more about man being a natural sinner, and Jesus being the remedy for that condition. (Rom 3:23, 6:23; John 3:16, 1:12)
I grew slowly as a Christian for many years, being somewhat miserable as a believer simply due to a lack of commitment. In other words, I was too good to enjoy being bad, and I was too bad to enjoy being good. My commitment did blossom later, though, and I found Christ to be a stabilizing factor in everyday life. (John 10:10)
I now have a peace ‘that passes understanding’ that is totally independent of circumstances. I now try (though it is still hard at times) to let Christ be in total control of my daily life.
I guess a parallel of this concept is driving in a strange city, with no maps, & you have no idea which turns, roads etc to take to get to a given destination. If you have a resident with you, all you need do is follow their instructions, and all will be fine. In life, Christ is my ‘resident’, so all I need do is follow his directions. Unfortunately, you & I are still in the driver’s seat, so we can choose to either follow Christ, or do our own thing. It would be easier if He did the driving, but He just doesn’t work that way.
Anyway, as so aptly stated by Zig Zigler; “Christ has forgiven me, that takes care of the past! He has ‘come that I might have a more abundant life’, that takes care of the present! He has assured me of an eternity in heaven, and that takes care of the future. What more can I ask?”

 

I love that you said that, just-want-peace. I wish I had put that in my shared testimony. I had a long family tradition of church-goers, devout men and women of God. My grandfather was a preacher. My great-grandfather was a preacher. His two brothers were preachers. My great-great-grandfather was one of the last circuit-ridin' preachers. They all had devout wives who taught their children fear and admonition of the Lord. I was raised in that tradition.

It makes this scripture leap to mind:

 

I grew up in CofC was baptized at about 10 at 13 we moved from the city to the country lived very close to the east fork of the San Jacinto river, I became what you might call a river rat. started drinking and a hell raising at a very young age, I was married at 20 was still drinking 4 years later twin girls came along that didn't change me either, we moved to Virginia in in 87 had another little girl in 90 still drinking, we moved back to Texas , still drinking. In 1992 I went to work for an electrical contractor who had a contract with Compact computer, I worked there for several years and at this time not even believing God existed. Driving back and forth to work I began to notice signs, church signs with scriptures on them and one business that had two signs, one for advertising one with scripture I began questioning to myself was there a God Not talking to anyone about it. time went on a little while and in 1994 I was at work one night in the back of one of the manufacturing buildings minding my on business when I promise the lights on the loading dock got very bright and in my heart I realized that God did exist and I needed Him in my life. this was Saturday night at 2:05 in the morning I called my wife told her I wanted to go to church the next morning, I was baptized soon after and have been serving Him ever since.

Danny

 

All of these are wonderful. Thanks for sharing!

 

Be careful what you share?

When I first joined the board, I shared my testimony, because, like you, I wanted others to know how awesome the unconditional love of the Father is. I hoped to share a candid look into my life, and how a broken marriage led me from the ministry to adult book stores, lies and shame; and attempted suicide to escape my guilt and inability to right a spiritual shipwreck.

BUT, and hopefully none of you will wish you hadn't been transparent today in sharing what you shared. Still, I will never again be candid because several members, still on this board, have used parts of my testimony to humiliate and attack me numerous times since I shared what He did for me.

That is wrong, and those who chose to abuse my candidness and pick and choose parts of my testimony "against" me at a later time and place on this board will answer for their actions to God. Still, I can no longer trust those in charge of running this board to protect those who, like you and me, believed this was a SAFE place to share their heart and God's work in our life.

I have enjoyed and been blessed to read the above testimonies, and pray the ugly side of some believers on this board do not choose to one day throw your sincerity back in your face to poke fun and humiliate the members who felt safe, like me, years ago; just to make their point in disagreeing with an opinion you may hold on an issue or posted topic.

Shalom!

 

Sadly, I'm afraid that this (bolded) has become very true.
There are a few on here that seem to have NTHER purpose than to vilify the posts/opinions of certain others; generally with little to no comments as to the subject of the OP.
Pitiful, but true!!
It's a shame that it goes unchecked! :sleeping_2:

 

I heard the gospel, and I believed.

 

I too was serving in the USAF when salvation came.
I worked nights running a computer, had a compulsion to read the Bible (out of the blue).

Though I was stationed in upstate new york on the Ballistic Early Warning System (BMEWS) we received the gospel broadcasts at night from Wheeling WV.

I believed when I read the gospel of John the second time around.

Everyone was asking "what happened to Hank?".
The usual answer was "He got religion".

That was over 50 years ago.

HankD

 

I grew up in a Presbyterian Church (PCA) and remained in that denomination until I was 27. At the age of 12, I attended a communicants class of six weeks. We memorized several questions and answers. After the class was over, we went before the elders of the church and repeated the questions and answers back to them. Next Sunday we went before the church and did the same thing. Presto, we are members of the Presbyterian Church. I knew in my head who Christ was, what He did, and had a pretty good grasp on the rest of the Bible. The problem was, to me it was like a history course. I did not pay much attention to salvation, or any other aspect of being a Christian until 24 when I got married. As fate would have it, I married a Baptist. The first time I dated my wife and went to church with her, I almost died of culture shock. The pastor was prancing across the podium, everyone was saying Amen, hands were being held up in the air, and people got up and shook hands in the middle of the service. No Apostles Creed, no quick exit, but something called an invitation. As we left that first day, I told her you guys are a bunch of nuts, and I will not be back. Well, we got married in that church five months later. I continued to go to the Presbyterian Church but found myself visiting more and more. It grew on me, and finally joined at age 27, about three years after I got married. I really had no intention of going to seperate churches forever. At that point, I treated church as I had much of my life, as a Sunday thing to do. We had a revival in 1994 with a pastor named Brother Pelke. I was 42 years old and had two kids about 8 and 10. The first night, I noticed this guy really irritated me. He played Amazing Grace on a saw, and I thought, I will never last this week of revival. His sermon was even more irritating. He talked about Christs work on the cross, and changed lives. I went home that night unable to sleep. My mind went back to the events above, and I asked myself, when were you saved? When did God through the Holy Spirit come and convict you of your sin and lost state? What did the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ really mean to you? Had your life really changed? That second night it hit me like a ton of bricks. I was as lost as Adolf Hitler. I got up to the altar as quick as I could after the sermon, and told the evangelist that Christ had saved me. I was a deacon, Sunday School teacher, and many were shocked. So God saved me Novmeber of that year, and my life took on a radical change. So I was baptised for real this time, and thank the Lord for saving me. My kids are saved, and we are richly blessed.

 

First thing I thought of was the song of the Gaithers about the conversion of JESSE TAYLOR.:godisgood:

 

Thanks for this!!

 

i was a hardcore drug addict before salvation. I am now preparing for full-time gospel ministry.

Here is a link a message I preached on my testimony:

http://jordankurecki.sermon.net/main/main/20270674

 

These testimonies are proof (although we don't need proof) that God is alive and well sitting on the throne saving and sanctifying sinners.

Psalm 113:5 Who is like unto the LORD our God, who dwelleth on high,

HankD

 

Not too many sing that song better than the Gaither Vocal Band.

 

I had a pretty involved porn habit after my wife took the kids and moved in with another man. It ended my ministry, and blaming God for this marital storm, I got involved with porn. Shame and desperation resulted in an attempt to take my life to end my misery of failure to return to God. That's when God stepped in, and provided some extreme supernatural intervention to set me free and put my feet back on the narrow path.

His unconditional love and favor is AWESOME!

 

Grew up in a Christian home and was "saved" at age 7 in Natchez, Mississippi. I went through the motions as was the norm in my family and went to church through high school. Went to college at a tough military school (VMI) in Virginia and took a commission in the Army. I discarded my upbringing in these years and hit rock bottom when my girlfriend who I though was the one decided she couldn't move away from home and broke it off. I was stationed in Hawaii for my first duty station and was really battling loneliness being so far from everything I knew. A guy I went through officer basic course started inviting me over for dinner and eventually a small Southern Baptist church called Milillani Baptist. Around this time my ex-girlfriend called me up and wanted to come visit me. She left with an engagement ring and went back home to finish her degree to become an RN. Six months later I went back stateside to marry her and bring her back to Hawaii. I reaffirmed my faith and was baptised on the north shore with me and the pastor trying to avoid drowning in 10 foot swells. :laugh: It was such a special time recommitting my life to Christ and starting a family. 10 years and two daughters later we are still going strong and still have a love for the islands where it all started. God is good.