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God Had a Plan
by Ken Yonish
“For I know the plans I have for you,’” declares the LORD, “‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’” Jeremiah 29:11. I’m amazed that God in all God Had a Plan – A Testimony
God Had a Plan
by Ken Yonish
For I know the plans I have for you,’” declares the LORD, “‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’ Jeremiah 29:11.
I’m amazed that God in all His Greatness has a plan for me and you. It wasn’t enough that He said, “Let there be light” and spun the galaxies into space. He thought of you and me and declared, “I have a plan for you.” Great plans! It also amazes me how God sometimes will allow us to get a glimpse of that plan as our life unfolds. We may not see it as clearly when we are young but as the days pass He allows us to look back through the events of our lives and we can see how “Jesus led me all the way.”
Although His great plans for me began before the foundations of the world were laid, I can see proof of His plan when I was too young to know it or even remember it. There was a speeding car, a head-on collision and a terrible accident. It began when my family was riding through a suburb of Detroit, Michigan in 1960 in a new Ford. I was 3 years old. Life was good: new car, a new home and dad had a good job. We were the typical post WWII family living the American Dream.
Suddenly a speeding car was headed straight head-on into our path. I was standing up in the front seat between mom and dad, my brother Dennis was sitting on my mother’s lap, my oldest brother Johnny was sitting in the back seat. CRASH! The speeding car hit us head-on. God had a plan. On impact I somehow was thrown into the floorboard and didn’t get a scratch on me. Dennis went through the windshield and was severely injured but God was merciful and spared his life. Although last rites were admitted to him by a Catholic priest at the hospital he survived. Everyone in the car (except me) was injured in some way, broken legs, black-eyes, cuts and bruises but all survived. God had a plan.
Because of the accident my father was unable to work for 2 years. With no steady work, we lost the home and thus began an economic spiral downward. We found a house in a new neighborhood to rent. As I recall we stayed there a couple of years while I was in Kindergarten and the first grade but we had to move for some reason that is still unclear to me. We looked at several homes. I remember the stress my parents were going through trying to find another home.
It seemed like forever but then we finally looked at a house in the suburb of Westland. The rent was affordable, the neighborhood was decent, the schools were nearby and the house was big enough for our family. We moved into it the summer before I was to start the second grade in 1964. After we moved in we were greeted by our new neighbors who welcomed us to the neighborhood. They were Warren and Jane Cousins and their three children, Warren, Jr., David, and Shelly. God had a plan. We spent time together cooking out, swimming in the Cousins’ pool and doing things that neighbors do but then God began to do His work.
Warren and Jane had been attending a local church but dropped out and began having devotions in their home on Sunday morning. They had a hunger for more than they were getting in their church. For my family Sunday was just another day. We believed in God, but didn’t serve Him and we sure weren’t seeking Him. But I believe He was seeking us. God had a plan.
For months the Cousins were faithful to meet each Sunday morning and have prayer and devotions in their home. One Sunday morning my brother Dennis was invited to attend the Cousins’ morning devotional. He was good friends with David and Warren, Jr. so it was really an extension of their friendship and a time to be together. This continued for several weeks and finally Warren, Sr. invited our whole family to meet with them on Sunday. So began a life changing event as both families were now searching for more than just neighborly friendship. God was forging something much greater.
Something eternal.
Jane would play the piano, Warren, Sr. would sing some great old hymns like, “Sitting at the Feet of Jesus,” and “Constantly Abiding,” “Jesus Saves,” and many more. Warren sang from his heart. We began to have regular singing time every Sunday and then we would read from the Bible. Each of us would read a verse aloud and then the person next to us would read the next verse. At the end we ended with prayer and then shared a meal together.
The news of our family gatherings spread throughout the neighborhood and beyond. Soon we had more people than we could hold in either of our living rooms. Our house had a large finished basement that would allow more space so we began meeting there. Looking back I estimate we had around 40 people at one point meeting on Sunday mornings in our home. It was an exciting time. We didn’t know what we were doing. We didn’t have an agenda. We just went with it. Then one Sunday we had some visitors that brought with them a reel to reel tape recording of a church service from the Bible Tabernacle in Southern Pines NC. God had a plan.
I was 10-years old when our two families and friends made our first caravan trip to Southern Pines from Detroit. It was October 1968. There were at least 15 of us packed into 3 cars. The church people opened their homes to us. My family stayed with Alice and Dewey Edmisten. What an experience for a 10-year old boy from the city. They had land and horses.
I remember all the good things I experienced that weekend but nothing prepared me for what I witnessed and experienced when we walked into that old block building on US 1. We were a little late getting there and the song service had already begun. As Brother John B. Campbell was leading the singing I can remember very vividly how I felt when I walked up the aisle and followed my parents to an open pew and sat down. It felt surreal. I felt like I was home. I remember how I felt the presence of the Lord in such a way that night that I knew this was where God wanted our family to be. Everyone felt the same as me. After another visit in November of that same year, our family and the Cousins family left Detroit together in May 1969 packed in 2 big U-Haul trucks headed south to Southern Pines to become a part of His Body.
“Aren’t you glad that Jesus remembered you? Aren’t you glad that Jesus brought you to the truth? Brought you to the Body where He is the Head, brought you to the living out from among the dead.” I didn’t know it but I was dead in my sin. He brought me to the living. God knew that even as a young child I needed an encounter with Him. He knew I needed a Savior to save me from my sin. Without Jesus I had nothing at all and although I didn’t know it I was now a part of His plan. Ephesians 2:21 says that “We are carefully joined together in him, becoming a holy temple for the Lord.” Isn’t it wonderful to know we are carefully joined together? We are His masterpiece. “We are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do,” Ephesians 2:10.
Great is His faithfulness! I’m glad that God isn’t making this up as He goes; it is prepared in advance!
God has a plan for each and every one of His children. What I’ve shared with you is just part of His plan for me. It’s not over yet! Thank God! “But now, O LORD, thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand.” Isaiah 64:8 (KJV). “All the way my Savior leads me, Oh, the fullness of His love! Perfect rest to me is promised, In my Father’s house above. When my spirit, clothed immortal, Wings its flight to realms of day. This my song through endless ages: Jesus led me all the way.”
His Greatness has a plan for me and you. It wasn’t enough that He said, “Let there be light” and spun the galaxies into space. He thought of you and me and declared, “I have a plan for you.” Great plans! It also amazes me how God sometimes will allow us to get a glimpse of that plan as our life unfolds. We may not see it as clearly when we are young but as the days pass He allows us to look back through the events of our lives and we can see how “Jesus led me all the way.”
Although His great plans for me began before the foundations of the world were laid, I can see proof of His plan when I was too young to know it or even remember it. There was a speeding car, a head-on collision and a terrible accident. It began when my family was riding through a suburb of Detroit, Michigan in 1960 in a new Ford. I was 3 years old. Life was good: new car, a new home and dad had a good job. We were the typical post WWII family living the American Dream.
Suddenly a speeding car was headed straight head-on into our path. I was standing up in the front seat between mom and dad, my brother Dennis was sitting on my mother’s lap, my oldest brother Johnny was sitting in the back seat. CRASH! The speeding car hit us head-on. God had a plan. On impact I somehow was thrown into the floorboard and didn’t get a scratch on me. Dennis went through the windshield and was severely injured but God was merciful and spared his life. Although last rites were admitted to him by a Catholic priest at the hospital he survived. Everyone in the car (except me) was injured in some way, broken legs, black-eyes, cuts and bruises but all survived. God had a plan.
Because of the accident my father was unable to work for 2 years. With no steady work, we lost the home and thus began an economic spiral downward. We found a house in a new neighborhood to rent. As I recall we stayed there a couple of years while I was in Kindergarten and the first grade but we had to move for some reason that is still unclear to me. We looked at several homes. I remember the stress my parents were going through trying to find another home.
It seemed like forever but then we finally looked at a house in the suburb of Westland. The rent was affordable, the neighborhood was decent, the schools were nearby and the house was big enough for our family. We moved into it the summer before I was to start the second grade in 1964. After we moved in we were greeted by our new neighbors who welcomed us to the neighborhood. They were Warren and Jane Cousins and their three children, Warren, Jr., David, and Shelly. God had a plan. We spent time together cooking out, swimming in the Cousins’ pool and doing things that neighbors do but then God began to do His work.
Warren and Jane had been attending a local church but dropped out and began having devotions in their home on Sunday morning. They had a hunger for more than they were getting in their church. For my family Sunday was just another day. We believed in God, but didn’t serve Him and we sure weren’t seeking Him. But I believe He was seeking us. God had a plan.
For months the Cousins were faithful to meet each Sunday morning and have prayer and devotions in their home. One Sunday morning my brother Dennis was invited to attend the Cousins’ morning devotional. He was good friends with David and Warren, Jr. so it was really an extension of their friendship and a time to be together. This continued for several weeks and finally Warren, Sr. invited our whole family to meet with them on Sunday. So began a life changing event as both families were now searching for more than just neighborly friendship. God was forging something much greater.
Something eternal.
Jane would play the piano, Warren, Sr. would sing some great old hymns like, “Sitting at the Feet of Jesus,” and “Constantly Abiding,” “Jesus Saves,” and many more. Warren sang from his heart. We began to have regular singing time every Sunday and then we would read from the Bible. Each of us would read a verse aloud and then the person next to us would read the next verse. At the end we ended with prayer and then shared a meal together.
The news of our family gatherings spread throughout the neighborhood and beyond. Soon we had more people than we could hold in either of our living rooms. Our house had a large finished basement that would allow more space so we began meeting there. Looking back I estimate we had around 40 people at one point meeting on Sunday mornings in our home. It was an exciting time. We didn’t know what we were doing. We didn’t have an agenda. We just went with it. Then one Sunday we had some visitors that brought with them a reel to reel tape recording of a church service from the Bible Tabernacle in Southern Pines NC. God had a plan.
I was 10-years old when our two families and friends made our first caravan trip to Southern Pines from Detroit. It was October 1968. There were at least 15 of us packed into 3 cars. The church people opened their homes to us. My family stayed with Alice and Dewey Edmisten. What an experience for a 10-year old boy from the city. They had land and horses.
I remember all the good things I experienced that weekend but nothing prepared me for what I witnessed and experienced when we walked into that old block building on US 1. We were a little late getting there and the song service had already begun. As Brother John B. Campbell was leading the singing I can remember very vividly how I felt when I walked up the aisle and followed my parents to an open pew and sat down. It felt surreal. I felt like I was home. I remember how I felt the presence of the Lord in such a way that night that I knew this was where God wanted our family to be. Everyone felt the same as me. After another visit in November of that same year, our family and the Cousins family left Detroit together in May 1969 packed in 2 big U-Haul trucks headed south to Southern Pines to become a part of His Body.
“Aren’t you glad that Jesus remembered you? Aren’t you glad that Jesus brought you to the truth? Brought you to the Body where He is the Head, brought you to the living out from among the dead.” I didn’t know it but I was dead in my sin. He brought me to the living. God knew that even as a young child I needed an encounter with Him. He knew I needed a Savior to save me from my sin. Without Jesus I had nothing at all and although I didn’t know it I was now a part of His plan. Ephesians 2:21 says that “We are carefully joined together in him, becoming a holy temple for the Lord.” Isn’t it wonderful to know we are carefully joined together? We are His masterpiece. “We are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do,” Ephesians 2:10.
Great is His faithfulness! I’m glad that God isn’t making this up as He goes; it is prepared in advance!
God has a plan for each and every one of His children. What I’ve shared with you is just part of His plan for me. It’s not over yet! Thank God! “But now, O LORD, thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand.” Isaiah 64:8 (KJV). “All the way my Savior leads me, Oh, the fullness of His love! Perfect rest to me is promised, In my Father’s house above. When my spirit, clothed immortal, Wings its flight to realms of day. This my song through endless ages: Jesus led me all the way.”
Close
Awakened and Delivered
by Danny Downing
My name is Danny Downing. Greetings in our Lord Jesus Christ. I’m writing this because I believe the Lord put this on my heart quite some time ago and I’ve been praying the Lord would help me write this. I know I can’t do this in myself.
Awakened and Delivered
by Danny Downing
My name is Danny Downing. Greetings in our Lord Jesus Christ. I’m writing this because I believe the Lord put this on my heart quite some time ago and I’ve been praying the Lord would help me write this. I know I can’t do this in myself.
I believe the Lord put His Almighty finger on a great need in my life a few years ago — by the way, one of many needs over many years and surely of many more to come. And I believe that need was that God has shown me that I have a responsibility to be the spiritual head of my home.
I believed in my thinking that if I worked hard, had a roof over our heads, paid the bills, spent a little time with the family, and took them to Sunday Church, I was doing my part as the head of my home. And that’s part of it but as the Lord started dealing with my heart, only part of it.
Around 5 years ago the Lord gave a call to our church for a need of prayer. I was a father of two, a one-year-old girl and an eleven-year-old boy at the time with a wonderful wife. One evening we had prayer meeting and me and my wife decided to go. They had been having these prayer meetings at church for awhile and we didn’t go to hardly any of them. When we walked in the door a brother named Chip King — who by the way had married us 16 years earlier and that we love dearly — said, “Hey, you all, I’m glad you could make it.” Well, that sounded good, and it was, but somehow in my spirit I was offended. Why was I offended?
What happened then was I believe God started working in a need in my life. We didn’t go back to the prayer meetings for awhile. Not only that we were practically missing all the Wednesday night services. So basically we were going to Sunday morning services.
Being a brick mason and being married and having children, I found the enemy and my own natural man always faithful to remind me how tired I was and how I needed rest, and how I needed to do other things than to go to church. One thing I began to notice was when I was at home and didn’t go to church my family didn’t go either. Not only was my self will and the enemy robbing me, but my family also. The Lord has taught me not to go by my feelings and that the enemy is a liar and not to listen to him. And how blessed we are every time we come together. This is a dry world but how faithful He is to fill my cup!
But as time went by God was working and is working in my heart. He started showing me what a great responsibility I had for my family and how I had been failing them. Praise God for Romans 8, verse 1. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. But God does want to teach us and grow us in grace and knowledge.
If you read Eph. 5, verses 23 and 23 it talks about, wife submit to your husband as unto the Lord, for the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church. Verse 25 says, “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.” Eph. 6:1-2 says, “Children, obey your parents in the Lord for this is right. ‘Honor your father and mother’ — which is the first commandment with a promise.”
I believe God has a wonderful order for the home and by the scriptures God was showing me my responsibilities in the place He has put me in. The Lord is showing me in His mercy that I need to lead my family by example.
That probably sounds great and it is, but God started tearing down a lot of self will and what I liked to do. Naturally speaking I like going out with my family to eat, movies, ball games, hunting, fishing, and pretty much what everyone else is doing. And nothing is wrong with these things in their place, but God is showing me in my heart what was more important to Him. And that for me was being where God was for me and my family.
The scripture in Matt. 6:33 says, But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” See, God is so wonderful! All He wants is to be Number One in our lives, period. I believe what it boils down to for me is, where is my heart at? What do I want? or what does the Lord want for me and my family?
One scripture that comes to mind is Psalm 133:1 — “Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity.” This scripture has shown me when the saints of God are together, whether it be church conventions, services, prayer meetings, church sings, choir practices, get-togethers, etc., that this is where my help and blessing is for me and my family. Do I make all these? No. But God knows my heart and the desire He has placed there to learn His ways and be with His people.
We had a convention meeting in Florida a few years ago and in the Thursday night service the Lord began dealing in a need in my life that affected my whole family. The service was on bondages in our lives and how the Lord wanted to deliver us from them. The Lord specifically spoke to me in this service. I had an addiction to chewing tobacco. I had chewed tobacco for several years. After the service I knew God had spoken to me and that with God’s help I was quitting.
I would hide this from my son the best I could but he knew what was going on. I was addicted so bad I would leave him home most of the time so I could do my habit. He would ask me, “Daddy, why can’t I go with you?” It saddens me to think of it but thank God for His deliverance.
Well, when we got home that Sunday from the meeting around 3:00 I got Hunter and took him in my truck to the store to get some gas. When we got to the store I had 2 or 3 tobacco cans in my truck, some not even opened. I opened the center console up and pulled them out in front of him. His eyes were big and he said, “Daddy, what are you going to do with those.” “I’m going to throw these away.” The Lord delivered me and I’m not going to do this anymore. He had a big smile on his face.
When we got home Wendy was sitting on her chair when we got there. Hunter told his Mama, “You’re not going to believe it, Daddy threw his tobacco away. He is not going to do it anymore. The Lord answered our prayers.” Come to find out, Hunter and Wendy had been praying together for quite some time that I would be delivered from chewing tobacco. I can’t express how humbled I was by this. My 11 year old son and his mother were praying for my deliverance and the Lord answered their prayers. Praise God!
That was four years ago. The Lord has totally changed our family since all this started. The Lord has brought us so much closer to Him and to each other. Whether we admit it or not everything we do as the heads of our families affects one another. Our children see what goes on in our family lives. They see Christ in us, or self will. My desire for my family is that they see Christ in me.
Through this God has caused me to have a greater relationship with my family, God, and the body of Christ. I now look forward to my time with Him, whether it be in prayer, scripture, or the people of God. Thank God the Lord is taking a heart that is full of self will and turning it into a heart that has a desire that He has put there to love and serve Him. I’m so thankful that He is the potter and I am the clay. I know the Lord has a lot more to do with me but I am glad He started it and He will finish it.
God bless,
Danny Downing
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Raised in the Church - But Lost
by Lauren Easterly
GOD loves me and Jesus was crucified because of me. He redeemed me and rescued me from myself and my ways. I am so amazed of HIS love for me, even when I was lost. HE was always there and HE never gave up on me, in spite of my shortcomings.
Raised in the Church, But Lost
by Lauren Easterly
GOD loves me and Jesus was crucified because of me. He redeemed me and rescued me from myself and my ways. I am so amazed of HIS love for me, even when I was lost. HE was always there and HE never gave up on me, in spite of my shortcomings. I was born and raised in the Bible Tabernacle. I guess you would say that I had a normal “Christian childhood”; God was in my home, I knew all about him, we read the bible and went to church. I knew that God loved me. I sang Jesus Loves Me in Sunday school. I said my prayers before bed and before meals; in my mind that was a prayer life, right? I was wrong.
When the teenage years came, I changed. Well, I didn’t really change. I never actually knew GOD. There was never a personal, one-on-one relationship with HIM. My teenage years merely brought to light that my flesh was on the throne and that I was blind to GOD. All I cared about was my standing in this world. I wanted the friends, nice clothes, and I wanted to be the “life of the party.” I had no conscience of GOD. I drank alcohol, using it to be FREE; I didn’t realize that it was only holding me down. I couldn’t see that by gratifying my flesh, I had turned my attention to the things of the world and was turning away from GOD. On Friday night I was normally busy drinking or doing something that made me feel “happy” and by Sunday morning I had my Church Face on. I sat at the front of the church. I sang in the choir. I would lift my hands and worship the LORD. The reproach that I was never crossed my mind. It was like I was two different people; one person at church and another one as soon as I walked out the church door. Only I wasn’t two different people. I didn’t have split personalities. I was me pretending to be a Christian, I wasn’t a follower of GOD. I was a sinner following my wants. At church I would just try to cover up the real me and hide things in my life. I always thought that living this way was okay as long as nobody knew and I didn’t get caught.
I tried to hide everything from my parents, the elders and anyone else that would confront me. I wanted everyone to view me as a good girl who loved GOD. I never thought about the simple fact that GOD knew, HE knows everything, HE is always there. I remember so many times an Elder would get up and express a concern or burden for the young people; my stomach would drop and my heart would beat so fast that I thought it was going to beat out of my chest. This panic would come over me, OH NO, what did someone see me doing, was I caught? Most of the time the concern would actually be about another situation completely. Looking back I see that during those times of panic, GOD was speaking to me, trying to get my attention, only I rejected it. In the back of my mind I would always think, sin now and repent later. I was so blind.
Then it happened: HE got my attention. HE reached down and my eyes began to open. That was one of the best nights of my life. It’s crazy, according to this world what happened to open my eyes was a tragedy, but in GOD it was awesome. HE allowed me to get so low and when I thought this is it, the worst of the worst, HE put his arms around me, in spite of me, my failures and my past, HE saved me. GOD singled me out, HE dealt with me, had been trying to all along, but I was too blind to see – then BAM, it hit me. I remember the counseling session my parents and I had with the Elders from church. I had to confess what had happened, this was definitely something that needed to be addressed in a serious way, not something to be shared around the dinner table. I pretty much cried the entire time. I distinctly remember one of the Elders hugging me at the end and telling me, “I love you, but most importantly GOD loves you.” All I could do was cry harder. Thoughts raced through my mind, how could HE love me? Look at my past, all that I’ve done, why would GOD love me? But HE did, and HE does, HE allowed me to go through things to show HIS love for me. “FOR WHOM THE LORD LOVETH HE CHASTENTH, AND SCOURGETH, EVERY SON WHOM HE RECEIVETH.” Hebrews 12:6.
I know that I am not worthy of HIS love, but I know that because of HIM I am saved. HE washed all my sins away. I am forgiven, regardless of me. There was a change that began to take place, not something over night. One song we sing, “Little by Little, HE’s changing me…” explains it all. I began to feel convicted when I messed up. I know that part of serving the Lord is to die daily. We will continue to mess up; but the LORD will continue to redeem us. When I think back on who I was before the LORD saved me, it’s like I have done a 180 that is only because of HIM. I also know that GOD used prayer warriors to help me come to know HIM, and I know without GOD using them and their prayers I would not be here today. I thank GOD so much for HIS faithfulness to me. I don’t choose to define myself as a “Christian.” I believe that word is a little abused, after all, I abused it, instead now confident in my GOD, I choose to declare that I AM A CHILD OF GOD, I CHOOSE TO LIVE MY LIFE TO SERVE HIM.
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All Things Work Together
by Cathy Yonish
Romans 8:28 says. “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them that are the called according to his purpose.” The scripture doesn’t say only pleasant things work together for our good; it says ALL things work for good.
All Things Work Together
by Cathy Yonish
Romans 8:28 says. “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them that are the called according to his purpose.” The scripture doesn’t say only pleasant things work together for our good; it says ALL things work for good. I am amazed when I reflect on how He orchestrates situations, all the while He gets glory, but we reap the blessings.
My family consisted of my mother, my step dad, 2 older sisters and 1 younger sister. By all outward appearance everything was great. Mom and dad loved each other, kids were somewhat well behaved and everyone was happy.
I was just a small child when my family was invited by Andrew and Mary Williamson to come to church. I do not remember much about the first few times there but I do remember how real His Spirit was to me. We quickly became involved in church activities by going to services and weekly prayer meetings as well as any work we could contribute our time and effort to. Our dad jumped right in and became what you might consider a pillar by answering the call to pray with the laying on of hands and other activities which would usually fall to an elder or deacon. Our mother, being a good country cook, enjoyed preparing meals for church outings and loved the fellowship of the other ladies. Everyone was happy and healthy and all was well with the world, or at least it would appear so.
No one could have guessed the horrible secrets at home. Oh sure, from time to time his true nature would reveal itself around others in the harsh and cruel way he would rebuke and punish us severely for even the smallest misbehavior. But when there were no prying eyes and while our mother was away from home, our step dad was committing horrible acts to us that no child should have to endure. All the while, we suffered in silent terror.
In those days abuse was not discussed and there was no Oprah show to publicize either the cruelty or the avenues by which families could get help. My 2 older sisters received most of the abuse but it had already started to happen to me by the age of 8. No one ever talked back nor resisted in any way. If we did our punishment was severe and delivered in anger. We feared every day that we would be left in his care but never realized that this is not normal behavior so for years we did not speak up. I can remember hiding under blankets in the back of the closet in fear when I could hear him come home, waiting quietly when he would enter the bedroom looking for one of us. He never thought to look there.
Finally my sisters had the courage to reveal the situation to our mother who turned to truly loving and God-fearing people at church for help. By today’s standards, this man would have spent time in prison for his crimes, but we were so naive and innocent this was just not pursued. The Lord delivered us from the situation and because of His hand on our lives we have prospered and have been truly blessed all through the years.
It wasn’t an easy road to travel being raised in a single parent home, but we always had every need met and the people of God have been more like family than words can describe. It would be wrong to be angry at the situation or people involved because our heavenly Father allowed our lives to follow that path for reasons that only He is aware of. He does ALL things out of His perfect love for us and that is why we can say that “all things work together for our good.”
All Things Work Together
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The Lord is My Shepherd
by Amanda Clark
If someone were to ask me for my testimony, my response would have to be, “Which one?” The Lord has done so much for me, has proven Himself faithful to me so many times, that I feel the need to write them all down so I won’t forget! But I will start with the one which makes all others pale in comparison.
The Lord is My Shepherd
by Amanda Clark
Foreword
(The following is a portion of Amanda’s testimony, leaving out some personal parts relating to other people. We hope it will be a blessing to many.) I write this mainly because I want to leave a legacy for my children, so they will know that the Lord is real, and hopefully run to Him. However, the Lord may have other plans, and so I commit this into His hands, for His glory. Come, let’s see what the Lord will do this time!
My Testimony
If someone were to ask me for my testimony, my response would have to be, “Which one?” The Lord has done so much for me, has proven Himself faithful to me so many times, that I feel the need to write them all down so I won’t forget! But I will start with the one which makes all others pale in comparison. It is the one in which the Lord saved me. It is not, however, the one that happened first. Let me start when I was 11 years old. I had an experience at the altar in which I assumed was the Lord saving me. However, over the next 15 or more years, I loved the Lord “from a distance.” I called myself a Christian, but there was no evidence of that in my life. It wasn’t until I was in my late 20’s that the Lord took what I knew in my head and inscribed it in my heart. That’s when the real difference was made, and my life took a 180 [a complete turnaround].
Looking back, I can really see how the Lord started the process, started wooing me, right around the time my marriage to __ ended. Divorce is a terrible thing. It hurts and it kills. But my Lord was there, beginning a work in my heart that would consume the rest of my life.
It was a process for me to see what I was. I had been told all my life that I was a sinner at birth, and that Jesus died on a cruel cross for me. I was brought up in a God-fearing church, and I understood that all I had to do was believe that Jesus died for me, and that was all that was required of me, and all that I could do. God did the rest. I sometimes wonder how much of that story we Americans take for granted. When you’re told all your life that someone died for you, you grow up accepting that fact. But what if we lived in a village in India and had never before heard the name Jesus, and along came someone who told us that a man died on a cross to save us from our slavery to sin? Well, it came down to that moment where the old story became just like new to me. Like I was hearing it for the first time. Yet at that moment, no one was speaking. I was all alone in my apartment.
The Lord used a set of circumstances and allowed me to fall in the mud over and over again until one morning I woke up and realized for the first time what I was. I was a sinner, in desperate need of a savior. I was like Isaiah when he said, “Woe is me! For I am undone.” It was as if I suddenly woke up and found that I could not blame my condition on anyone or anything else. It was as if the Lord said to me like he said through the prophet to David, “Thou art the man.” I saw, for the first time, that every thought and intent of my heart was evil. I knew there was nothing I could do for myself. I had tried and tried to do right and not wrong, yet I kept finding myself in slavery to my sin. I had felt guilty before, but this was different. No longer could I brush it off and say, “Well, Jesus died for all us sinners,” and go about my business. No longer was Jesus’ death a free ticket to live as I pleased as long as I believed that my sins were paid for. If you had asked me if that’s how I had felt before I would have denied it, but looking at my life the evidence was clear: I was living as if I had the right to do as I pleased and just ask for forgiveness later. God, in His lovingkindness, arrested my heart. It was miserable! My heart was so heavy, and tears streamed down my cheeks as I cried out to the Lord and said, “Oh, God! Please don’t give up on me! Please don’t leave me now! Please don’t take your Spirit away! Please don’t let me go! Please don’t leave me like this! I don’t know what to do! I’ve tried everything. I’ve tried to live according to your law, and I am a miserable failure, and I can’t do a thing for myself. What am I to do?” The realization of what I was is impossible to relate. But for those of you who’ve been there, know. For those of you who don’t, I pray that God will convict your heart. It was not a pleasant thing. I thought for sure I might as well give up. I thought for sure it’s over now. God will not contend with us forever. I was sure He was even more sick of me than I was. But, oh, what happened next. It was like my mind cleared of all that sinfulness and shame, and clear as day, the words came to me, “Are you going to believe that Jesus paid it all for you? Are you going to believe that He really did die for YOU, Amanda?” And I realized that this shame I felt was what He went to the cross for. And if I were the only sinner who ever lived, the story would have been the same. It was as if I were the only sinner who ever lived, and His death was just for me. And He was the ONLY thing that stood between me and hell. At that moment, I knew that even if I get cast into hell, I will go clinging to the cross. He applied His blood to my heart, and I was clean. One minute I was in agonizing disbelief and shame, and the next, I was overwhelmed by an unspeakable peace, and I could do nothing else but praise Him right there in my apartment all alone.
From then on, there was a newfound power over sin, and not just blatant sin. But even things I never realized were sin before. I was so grateful for what the Lord had done for me, I couldn’t do the things and go to the places and fellowship with the people I once did. My heart wouldn’t let me. Not only that, I had no desire to. Not that I never sinned again, but it was totally different now. Now when I found myself doing something that displeased my Lord, I would be filled with sorrow over the knowledge that I had disappointed him. All I would be able to think was, “How could I? After what he’s done for me? How could I?” and it would drive me to true repentance. And each time I went to Him with a repentant heart, it was much more genuine. I would run to Him because I knew I had disappointed Him. And oh how I didn’t want to disappoint Him! I love Him, and better than that, He loves me, even though I am unlovely. He has captured my heart and I am totally His.
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A Testimony of God's Love
by Wendy McMillan Downing
One of my earliest memories as a child is being wakened in the middle of the night by my daddy and momma fussing and fighting. I remember my sister (Candy Phillips) and my brother (Jack McMillan, “Jackie”) trying to get us all out of the house.
A Testimony of God's Love
by Wendy McMillan Downing
One of my earliest memories as a child is being wakened in the middle of the night by my daddy and momma fussing and fighting. I remember my sister (Candy Phillips) and my brother (Jack McMillan, “Jackie”) trying to get us all out of the house. We would run to a neighbor’s house, sometimes barefooted across a field or down the road. Seems like we would take turns going to different houses. Both of my parents were alcoholics.
I remember the fear I felt as a child, being in another room and hearing something break or a thud and knowing they were fighting again. To this day I can hear those sounds and I go back to when I was a child and I would find myself waiting for a scream or argument to break out.
As we were driving down the road one night, my daddy was driving drunk. He zig-zagged all over the road, barely missing cars. At 4 years old I remember asking God to be with us. Many things we saw as children that no one should ever have to see or go through. I know now the Lord had us wrapped in His arms. To me, this life was normal and I thought all parents and children were the same.
When I was 5 years old my momma passed away. I couldn’t understand why God took her (why me?). I think then the bitterness started to grow. Candy and I went to live with our Aunt Margaret, and later on I went to live with our grandmother (Nanny). Jackie went to live with our Aunt Melva Dean and our little brother (John), who was 4 months old, was adopted by a lady in Southern Pines. We were being “auctioned off to the highest bidder.” I hated being split up and I couldn’t understand why we weren’t all kept together.
After I went to live with my nanny, my grandfather, John, passed away. We had to move from a peach farm in Raeford, where I had open range to run and play wherever I wanted to, anytime I wanted to, to the projects in Southern Pines. I couldn’t go outside in fear of being kidnapped or shot. It was the only place my Nanny could afford, $17.00 a month. I was picked on for being the only white child in the neighborhood and on the bus. We had no car. I wasn’t worried about hell because I was already living there.
Many times I would overhear grown-ups talking about me, not knowing I was paying any attention to what they were saying. They would always say negative things, like I was going to end up like my parents, I would never finish high school, “Oh, she will be pregnant as a teenager.” I believed what they would say. It was easy to believe the bad stuff. When someone would say something good I thought they were lying and just saying it to make me feel good. I never could believe the positive things. I knew I was “less than” everyone else, and, in their words, I was going to amount to nothing.
I carried those things with me all my life until recently. The Lord showed me that I am a child of the King that made everything, even me, a sinner saved by Amazing Grace.
My daddy was in and out of prison several times. He passed away when I was 11 years old, and with the help of his social security check we got every month we were able to move back to the country. It was heaven to me.
My teenage years were spent in rebellion. No one could tell me anything. I thought I knew it all and I just wanted to live my life the way I wanted to. My Nanny did the best she could and she did teach me many wonderful things. I thank God for giving me the chance to go to her years later and let her know how much I appreciated all she did do for me and how sorry I was for all the hell I had put her through. I remember her wrapping her arms around me and saying, “Oh, honey, you don’t have to ask for my forgiveness. I always loved you just the way you were. I knew you would turn out all right.”
One of the few times I remember feeling really special was one night I spent the night with my cousin, Billie Sue Clippard. As we lay down to go to sleep she came in the room with us and prayed. I remember her calling my name out to the Lord and asking Him to have His hands upon me. I couldn’t believe someone was actually praying to God for me. I felt so special at that moment to hear someone calling out to the Lord for me. I know the Lord used her in a special way to help me through a very difficult time in my life.
I finally graduated high school in June 1988 after dropping out for a year. Just hearing everyone tell me, “I knew you couldn’t do it and would drop out,” was enough to make me go back and prove everyone wrong. I was sick of all the negative things.
I was 19 years old and had just ended a string of bad relationships. My sister invited me to a church convention at Bible Tabernacle. I sat with my cousin, Melody Clippard, on the second row. I will never forget the service Brother Thomas ministered that night. He was speaking straight to me! I thought that someone must have gotten to him before the service and told him everything I was going through.
God was there and He was speaking to me face to face. The things He said were hard to hear, things I knew were true but didn’t want to hear. When the service was over I left with my tail between my legs and so heavy-hearted. That night I couldn’t sleep; all I could think about was what was said. Brother Thomas said God loves me. How could this be true, everything I had done? There was no way He would have anything to do with me. I finished going to the rest of the convention, 3 more services, one the following morning, that evening, and the next morning.
Thinking I could ignore what was said to me, I went back out in this world and tried to do the things I was used to. I couldn’t. Something was going on in my heart that wouldn’t allow me to continue on like I was. Thank God, that seed was planted and had started to grow.
The authority Brother Thomas spoke with was something I had never experienced. I was drawn to it and the anointing that was upon him when he ministered, it was paralyzing to me. All I could do was just sit in my seat and drink in God’s precious word that was coming forward. I finally had a home. Thank God, He changes us little by little and day by day. The days that followed were long and hard, many things to overcome. Bitterness was finally being chipped away and replaced with healing and love. I experienced a peace and joy I had never known.
Later that year I met a young man, Danny Downing, that later became my husband in 1991. Dating was so different now. There is something awesome about dating someone that loves the Lord compared to someone that doesn’t even know Him. The trust and love I had for him was something I had never experienced. I wasn’t dating someone that in time I thought I could change. I didn’t have to change him; he was already more than I could have ever hoped for. I sure didn’t deserve him. He is a husband that truly loves the Lord and I thank God for him every day and for helping me to wait on the one He had for me.
With marriage came a whole new set of trials. You have to remember I never had had a head over me before. I don’t even think I truly honored God as my Head, much less my husband. I was still trying to do things on my own. I didn’t want to submit to him or do what he told me to do (whether he was right or not). The rebellion was still there at work. I know many times Danny must have said to the Lord, “Lord, you said you wouldn’t put more on me than I can handle,” with me in mind. But, praise God, he hung in there with me. God’s love is patient and kind — never-ending.
You don’t realize how selfish you are until you get married and then again when you have children, and I am very selfish. I realize I took my childhood into my marriage with me. The insecurities were still there. I just couldn’t let them go. It wasn’t until I almost destroyed our marriage that I realized I had to let them go. I saw how strong God’s love was in Danny’s heart and the true love the Lord gave him for me. (She that findeth a husband findeth a good thing.) I was able to lay difficult things at the Lord’s feet and forget them and move on with the rest of my life.
Our young people sing a song that says, “He never said you’d only see sunshine, and He never said there’d be no rain. He only promised a heart full of singing, about the very things that once brought pain.” How awesome that is, singing about the things that once brought pain!
The Lord has given me a new love for my Aunt Melva Dean West and Aunt Margaret Pope. The bitterness that was there is gone and I am very appreciative for all they have done for us. They both are like mothers to me now.
I have a heavenly Father, the father I have always longed for now. I can go to Him with anything, talk to Him anytime, and He meets me right where I am at. The Lord has blessed me with so much more than I ever deserve. I have a husband that loves the Lord and me and two healthy beautiful children, which are gifts that God gave us. My prayer is that the Lord will continue to help me be the wife and the mother He wants me to be. I desire with God’s help that He can show Danny and me how to raise our children for Him. Thank you, Lord, for setting my feet on that solid rock and for finally giving me a home. Continue to mold and make me to what you would have me to be.
Wendy McMillan Downing
October 2007
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My Experience With Depression
by Merilea Bigham
I wanted to tell about an experience I had several years ago in an effort to help some who may be having problems with depression or similar trials. I have learned and am still learning about these two verses in II Corinthians.
My Experience With Depression
by Merilea Bigham
“For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through GOD to the pulling down of strong holds. Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of GOD, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.” II Cor. 10:4-5.
I wanted to tell about an experience I had several years ago in an effort to help some who may be having problems with depression or similar trials. I have learned and am still learning about these two verses in II Corinthians.
I have always been a shy person with a tendency to remain quiet in a group, but this tendency went to an extreme several years ago. It did not happen overnight but over a period of time as I listened more and more to the devil I began to feel sorry for myself. All the other ladies were married and conversations usually centered around husbands and children. The devil told me that since I was single I didn’t have anything important to say so I should keep quiet. I became more and more introverted as I listened to thoughts such as “you’re not important to anyone,” “no one loves you,” “you can’t even love anyone.”
I was so convinced that no one loved me and that I couldn’t love anyone until I was so bound I couldn’t communicate at all. I was so negative and so depressed that I would spend my free time out walking around crying out to GOD for help, yet never seemed to touch GOD. Many nights were almost entirely spent in weeping. I began to miss mealtimes so that I wouldn’t be required to talk. I would leave home without telling anyone where I was going.
It was obvious to those around me that something was wrong. Yet when they tried to help me I wouldn’t listen. I would simply say that nothing was wrong. The Campbells (who I lived with at the time) tried to counsel me and also Brother Thomas tried. I just would not listen.
Finally, one night God had mercy on me and gave me a dream. I saw myself walking down a road looking up into the sky. In the sky I saw a little lamb being led by a dark man. The man led the lamb up to an arched doorway and forced him through the door. At the other side of the door there were two parallel lines of animals and as the lamb walked between the lines, the animals would beat him with sticks. Yet he walked meekly on to the end. The man was waiting for him there and led him back around to the front of the doorway to force him back through the lines. This happened several times and as I watched I became angry that the lamb would meekly follow the man. He did not have to; he could resist and fight back. The man could not make him go through the door. Then I saw myself turn around and go back home to talk with Brother Thomas.
The next morning I went to talk with Brother Thomas and told him of my dream. He told me that he felt GOD had given the dream to show me what I had to do to get out of the depression, that I, like the little lamb, was meekly submitting to the devil and allowing him to keep me in darkness. I did not have to listen and follow meekly; I could resist and fight back; in fact I was going to have to fight back.
Brother Thomas did not try to convince me that I was important or that people loved me. He didn’t have to. When I began to resist the devil and communicate with people, I knew where those thoughts had come from. Satan had been accusing GOD’S people of being unloving toward me and accused me of being unloveable. When I began to listen to the truth I saw GOD. If GOD is in us then love is there for GOD is love.
I had always interpreted the verse in II Cor. 5, “casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God,” as thoughts such as Lucifer had: “I will be like the most high GOD.” I did not realize nor see that any thought (whether we think it is meek or high) that is not in agreement with GOD is in reality exalting itself against the knowledge of GOD. GOD’S word is true and brings peace, rest, and light, not darkness and unrest.
I thank God for this dream, but it did not bring deliverance. There is no dream, or experience, that can bring deliverance. It only comes through obedience to GOD’S word. Regardless of how the word comes you must obey it and deliverance will come.
I had to fight. I had to resist those thoughts, not with earthly carnal weapons, but as in II Cor. 4: “For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through GOD to the pulling down of strong holds.”
The scriptures say, “Resist the devil and he will flee from you.” James 4:7. Remember, if God is in you, “Greater is he that is within you than he that is in the world.”
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How God Delivered Me
by Joann Brady
I tried many times to write this testimony, but I just could not do it. We are overjoyed when the Lord does something for us and I could not figure out why it was so hard to put it into words. I think the answer is that we are proud to wear the new robe, but we hate to be stripped naked first.
How God Delivered Me
by Joann Brady
I tried many times to write this testimony, but I just could not do it. We are overjoyed when the Lord does something for us and I could not figure out why it was so hard to put it into words. I think the answer is that we are proud to wear the new robe, but we hate to be stripped naked first. We would all love to have a testimony in which the Lord sent us a great trial, He counted us faithful, and then He blessed us in a mighty way. My testimony is more like this: The Lord sent me a little trial, He found me lacking, and in spite of myself, He blessed me in a mighty way. We get so hung up on what we did, when the only thing that really matters is what the Lord did.
It seems like we have all been under so much stress lately. Every day becomes a juggling act as we strive to do it all and learn it all out in this busy world. At least this was true for me. I gave up the time I used to spend for fellowship and prayer so I would have more time to study. I was saying plenty of those, “Don’t let me fail this test,” or “Don’t let me run out of gas,” prayers, but I never really met with the Lord anymore. In order to have Fridays off, I took a late Wednesday class, even though I knew that I would miss most of the services. One by one, I laid down the things of the Lord so that I would have more time. I never had more time though, in fact, I had less. For everything in the Lord I laid down, I just picked up more things in the world.
I knew what I was doing was wrong, but I made excuses for myself. The Lord’s people are gracious, and even though they know you are not doing your part, they are not going to beat you up or condemn you. They are still going to love you and pray for you. They are going to do more to make up for what you are not doing.
I coasted for a long time with few problems, until the Lord sent me a wake-up call. I made a mistake and I received some chastisement. It wasn’t bad or hard, but I felt so condemned. The truth is I felt very sorry for myself and the devil was more than willing to attend my “pity party.” I shared with him all of my failures and fears, and he held my hand and agreed with everything that I said. In return for my loyalty, he shared with me. He told me that the Lord’s people knew all these things about me, that there was no way they could ever love or respect me, and that they no longer wanted me to be a part. When I was totally condemned and cut off, he shared with me his ultimate lie — “You were never the Lord’s, you will never be the Lord’s, you have no hope.” He is such a liar!
I was so miserable, but no matter what I tried I just kept falling lower and lower. This was not the first time I had thrown a “pity party” for myself, but it was the first time I could not end it when I wanted to. No matter how many times I called out to the Lord, I felt I could not reach Him. I know now that the Lord had never left me, and that it was I who had turned away from Him. I had invited the enemy into my heart, and when I tried to make him leave I had nothing left with which to fight him. I had taken off my armor and thrown down my weapons along the way to lighten my load out in the world. The Lord never leaves us without a way of escape, and He reminded me of the audio tapes I used to listen to, and how they had always helped me. As I listened to His Word, I began to see my condition and I felt a new hope that I could find my way back. I was able to reach out to the Lord’s people, and of course, they were faithful to me.
I was desperate for anything that the Lord would send me and I really wanted to learn what He was trying to teach me. At school, if I have something important to learn I write it on a note card to carry with me to study, and I decided to write down what the Lord was trying to teach me. I know everyone’s “note card” would be different, and mine contained just some very simple, basic truths that I had been hearing for years. I must confess that even in this I felt a little condemned. After being under the word for fifteen years I was ashamed to have to go back and learn these simple things, but when I needed to know them, they were not in my heart. I know, also, that if we are the Lord’s it does not matter if we have to start over every day, we are going to finish right on time.
THE LORD WILL NEVER LEAVE YOU NOR FORSAKE YOU — do not entertain any thoughts contrary to this.
Be in the services — if you are separated from the body you become easy prey.
Do not allow yourself to be cut off from fellowship — it is just as vital to your life as water or oxygen.
Communicate with the Lord’s people every day, even if it’s only to call someone to say hello. If you don’t know who to call ask the Lord to put someone on your heart. They may need a touch just as much as you.
Guard your tongue — if it is not edifying don’t say it. Use your communication to build up the Lord’s people.
It is better to do all things well and as unto the Lord, than to strive to do one thing perfectly. Don’t let anything, even a good thing, become a false idol.
Stress is the world’s deadliest demon — anything that causes you anxiety is not from the Lord and is harmful to you.
Chastisement is from the Lord — accept it and use it to grow. Let go of any condemnation. It is selfish to dwell on something that the Lord has been gracious enough to deliver you from. Move on and serve the Lord.
If you feel your brother has something against you, go to him. If you are entertaining evil imaginations, talking to him will cast them down. If he does have something against you, talking to him will set you both free.
The Lord’s people, and especially the deacons and elders, love and care for each member of the body. They are charged to watch over our souls. Their only desire is to help and restore us.
You can only be what the Lord makes you. Be content with what He has given you and grateful if He blesses you with more.
I appreciated the Lord helping me and each day that I listened to His word and used what He had given me, I felt better. When the enemy came to me speaking lies, I could hang on and speak the truth back to him. I know the Lord was helping me to put my armor back on and build my arsenal back up.
If my testimony was that the Lord had delivered me from this trial, I could honestly write that He had given me far more than I deserved and I would be eternally grateful to Him. But, my testimony is that the Lord gave me so much, that even if I gave away half, my cup would still be overflowing. He instilled in me a new fear and respect for Him and His power over my life. He gave me a peace in knowing that I am totally dependent on Him, and that He will never leave me nor forsake me. He delivered me from things that I know have followed since I was a child. I am so thankful that every day His mercies really are new. If I ever write another testimony, I hope I will be able to confess that the Lord counted me faithful in whatever He had planned for me, but if not I know it doesn’t matter. For His people, no matter the circumstances, our testimony will always end the same way, with the Lord blessing us in a mighty way.
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Tongues: My Testimony
by C. Parker Thomas
More than 50 years ago when the Lord came into my life this old world lost its beauty, glamour and riches for me. I had to say as Solomon did, “all is vanity and vexation of spirit and there is no profit under the sun.” Ecc. 2:11. The unsearchable riches of Christ became the controlling influence in my life. I began immediately to witness to every soul I met.
Tongues: My Testimony
by C. Parker Thomas
The Question of Tongues
More than 50 years ago when the Lord came into my life this old world lost its beauty, glamour and riches for me. I had to say as Solomon did, “all is vanity and vexation of spirit and there is no profit under the sun.” Ecc. 2:11.
The unsearchable riches of Christ became the controlling influence in my life. I began immediately to witness to every soul I met. The eternal things of God became very real while the transitory things of this life faded into obscurity. With an insatiable hunger and thirst for God, I began to pray and study the Bible. Almost immediately I became aware of the fact that the church world did not have the reality for which my heart hungered. Almost all of them were proud of their doctrinal extremes and considered themselves sound in the faith.
Although I started out in the church system and God blessed me to a degree, I continued to seek God with all my heart. I read some of the historical accounts of men like D. L. Moody, Charles G. Finney and others, which only increased my hunger for God. I was praying for reality in preaching and witnessing to people. I became almost desperate in my desire.
Finally, I asked the Lord if He would just give me five years of a fruitful ministry, I would rather have that than twenty-five years of just marking time in the church system. I believe it could be said that I bombarded heaven with my prayers.
I was pastoring a little church in the country at the time when I attended a union revival at the school house in Lake City, Florida. I got home around midnight and went to bed with my oldest child, Sherry, the elder of two children. Dan, the baby at that time, was sleeping with his mother.
My Experience
I was awakened from a sound sleep around 1:30 AM. All of my senses seemed to be quickened and it seemed a window was opened in heaven. A voice spoke and said, “The Power Is Down Now!” To me this was audible. At the end of those few words God’s power fell on me like thousands of volts of electricity. I cried out, “Lord, it’s going to kill me!” With that statement the great surge of power seemed to be lifted and the power in a much milder form rolled over me from head to toe for a short time, and then it was gone. However, I knew that God had answered my prayers. That anointing has been a very real force to me for these 45 years.
I was just starting a revival meeting in the church that I had just accepted to pastor. The first night of the meeting I could not detect any difference in my preaching. I suppose I was anticipating something different.
Great Conviction
The second night of the meeting I was not thinking of what might happen. However, as I walked to the pulpit to start my message I consciously turned my vessel, my body, and my faculties over to the Holy Spirit. That night the Holy Spirit came upon me in a most unusual way and it seemed I had great power and authority. I walked out from behind the pulpit and began walking up and down the aisles as I observed horrifying expressions on the faces of the people. I could point them out and tell which ones to come. It seemed as though I was walking about two feet off the floor. People began to run forward, church members, choir members, and others who just happened to be there.
One lady who became the post mistress in the little town was so convicted she wept all the way home. She could not sleep and didn’t want anything to eat all the next day. Another man who worked for the State Forestry Division was under great conviction. He started on a trip to Tallahassee that night and thought he may never have another chance. He was so convicted until he turned around and came back to the parsonage where I was staying, to talk to me about his soul. Another man came, whom I had known before my conversion, in fact, I had sold him moonshine liquor by the load, was smitten with such conviction until he asked customers coming into his grocery store the next day if they had been down to that revival where I was preaching. His testimony was that when I would open my mouth some invisible force would hit him in the face like a hammer.
My experience was not attended with tongues. However, I knew God had answered my prayers. This has become evident throughout these many years of ministry.
My Search
It also served to inspire me to make a search of the Bible with regards to the teaching that tongues is the evidence of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. This tongues doctrine has caused multitudes to seek that experience. As a result, no doubt, many do receive genuine experiences and it could be demonic, because they are seeking something as an evidence that they have received or have been filled with the Holy Spirit. However, I was simply seeking God, not specifying any kind of experience. God’s response to my prayers was a genuine supernatural experience to let me know that he had heard the cry of my heart. I could have made a doctrine out of my experience, but I didn’t. I personally believe you can have many genuine experiences that God designs to meet your own personal needs, but it is wrong to try to get everybody to fit into your experiences.
Doctrinal Confusion
Some believe in three works of grace, each one separate and apart from the other. Salvation, sanctification and the baptism of the Holy Spirit (with the evidence of speaking in other tongues), some believe in just two. There are other groups that believe in a second work of grace which is called sanctification but not with tongues. Then of course, you have those who believe you can get all these and then lose it because you don’t measure up to their concept of righteousness. These varied concepts have been used by Satan to bring many divisions to the body of Christ.
Complete In Him
I personally believe we are complete in Him which is the head of all principality and power. Colossians 2:8-10 says, “Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. For in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power.”
These varied experiences are the means used of Satan to spoil many of God’s children. According to 1 Corinthians 1:30 “He (Christ) is made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption.”
Tongues evidence believers are some of the most deluded religious people I know. This is because they have a genuine supernatural experience which they believe is from God. Sometimes they become desperate in their quest for the evidence (tongues). Around and in this spiritual atmosphere as a child I remember many times hearing of some dear old saints referring to someone as seeking the Holy Ghost. Sometimes they would come to the altar every time an invitation was given, seeking tongues as evidence that would convince them they had been filled with the Holy Ghost. It was common to hear someone say, “The Holy Spirit comes in talking,” (tongues).
A Great Principle
This makes void one of the greatest principles in the Bible. Hebrews 11:6 tells us, “But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.”
Paul says, “ O foolish Galatians who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you? This only would I learn of you. Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Are ye so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?” Galatians 3:1-3.
How To Be Filled
Paul the apostle tells us exactly how to be filled with the Spirit in Ephesians 5:18-20. “And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit: Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord; Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” The key to being filled with the spirit is simply worshipping God from your heart.
Saving Faith
Where does faith come from? Saving faith comes from God through anointed preaching. This is what Paul meant when he said in 1 Corinthians 2:4-5 “And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the spirit and of power: That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.”
The message that is called the gospel by today’s apostate church is not the incorruptible word of God. For people to be born again they have to hear the gospel. 1 Peter 1:22-23 “Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently: Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.”
People believe what their religious heritage tells them; whether true or false. The errors, traditions and heresies are all handed down by their particular religion.
Many Names
This conglomeration is called by many names. “So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.” Today’s apostate religion is not the gospel preached by the apostles. A picture of religious Babylon is also found in Genesis 11:1-9.
When you seek any kind of experience or manifestation more than God, you open up your spirit to Demons. Demons can speak in tongues and curse God without you even knowing what is being said. 1 Corinthians 12:3 says, “Wherefore I give you to understand, that no man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed: and that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost.”
Cause Of Divisions
All kinds of divisions exist among the groups who make doctrines out of experiences. The group that believes in two works of grace but no tongues say all tongues-speaking is of the devil. A second work of grace is called sanctification, in which some of them say that the carnal nature is eradicated. Some of these groups don’t believe that Christians sin. They say Christians don’t sin, but they make mistakes.
Whatever they have makes them worship the Holy Ghost more than Christ. I heard some preacher the other day singing, “Oh, that Holy Ghost Power.” I also heard another preacher, whose mother had passed away, refer to his mother as, “his little tongues talking mother.” To them it’s a badge of honor.
Purpose of The Holy Spirit
The Holy Spirit is not given for us to glory in or to puff us up, nor is it given to us as an evidence. The main purpose of the Holy Spirit is to guide us into all truth. In John 14:17 and in John 16:13 the Spirit of God is referred to as the Spirit of truth. The scriptures also say he will glorify Christ. Jesus said in John 16:13-14, “Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come. He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you.”
Schools Teach Division
Every religious movement starts schools to teach their religious doctrines and experiences thus making void the Word of God. This is also responsible for the many divisions. They do this despite the fact that Jesus said, “When he the Spirit of truth is come he will guide you into all truth.” This is also confirmed in 1 John 2:27 which says, “But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him.”
I heard another one of today’s most popular healing and blessings preacher say specifically in his message on the anointing, “The way to have more anointing is to pray more in tongues”. Yet Paul’s instruction to the church is plain, “What is it then? I will pray with the spirit and I will pray with the understanding also; I will sing with the spirit and I will sing with the understanding also.” 1 Corinthians 14:15.
Purpose of Tongues
The tongues evidence doctrine has made tongues a sign to the believer which is just the opposite of the truth. The purpose of tongues is for a sign to the unbeliever. On the day of Pentecost the disciples were waiting in faith, they were not seeking tongues at all. In fact, they were just sitting there waiting as the Lord instructed them. Luke 24:49, “And behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you: but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high.”
The tongues they spoke were languages which told the eighteen or more nationalities supernaturally the things of God. And they marveled because the men were all Galileans and they heard the word of God in their own tongue (language) of which they were born.
In fact, I do not know of a single instance where anyone in the New Testament was seeking tongues or was instructed to seek tongues. Whenever and wherever people spoke in tongues it was a sovereign act of God without any effort on the part of the person speaking in tongues.
Day of Pentecost
Actually, it was an eight year period from the day of Pentecost, Acts 2:1-13, until Peter’s preaching to Cornelius and his household, Acts 10:44-48, before we have another recorded instance of speaking in tongues as they did on the day of Pentecost. This was also God’s way of showing the Jews that God was extending his grace to the Gentiles as well as the Jews.
In fact, the apostles and brethren in Judaea contended with Peter when they heard about him ministering to the Gentiles. In recounting what happened at Cornelius’ household, Peter said, “and as I began to speak, the Holy Ghost fell on them, as on us at the beginning.” Acts 11:15.
No doubt, multitudes were saved and filled with the Spirit between Pentecost and Peter’s experience at the household of Cornelius. Yet, he had to refer back eight years and point out that the Holy Ghost fell on them as it did on the disciples on the day of Pentecost.
Why I Sought Tongues
When I began to learn these things I had a desire to teach God’s people the truth. For that reason I knew it would be good if I had the gift of speaking in other tongues, so no one could say the reason I didn’t believe in tongues was because I had never spoken in tongues.
Motivated by this desire I asked God to give me the gift of tongues, and he did. However, I do not encourage people to seek this gift because of what Paul says in 1 Corinthians chapters 12-14.
Prophecy Greater
1 Corinthians 14:5: “I would that ye all spake with tongues, but rather that ye prophesied: for greater is he that prophesieth than he that speaketh with tongues, except he interpret, that the church may receive edifying.” My desire is to edify God’s people, by and through the gift of prophecy. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 12:28-31, “And God hath set some in the church, first apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, governments, diversities of tongues. Are all apostles? are all prophets? are all teachers? are all workers of miracles? Have all the gifts of healing? do all speak with tongues? do all interpret? But covet earnestly the best gifts: and yet shew I unto you a more excellent way.” And I repeat verse 29 and 30 “Are all apostles? are all prophets? are all teachers? are all workers of miracles? Have all the gifts of healing? do all speak with tongues? do all interpret?” Obviously the answer to all these questions is an emphatic NO!
Sometimes the gift of tongues is given to some believers to strengthen them because they are weak in the faith. For example, Bro. Andrew Bureau was driving back to North Carolina from a car sale in Florida and his wife Jolene was following him in another car. She had a cassette tape of one of our services playing in the car. She was worshipping the Lord when suddenly she began speaking in other tongues. She wasn’t thinking about tongues and certainly wasn’t seeking tongues.
In fact, they were not thinking about tongues or seeking tongues on the day of Pentecost, nor were the people at the household of Cornelius. The same is true of the twelve disciples that Paul ministered to in Acts 19:1-7.
Beyond doubt, demons are responsible for the tongues that many people speak. However, there is a true tongue as well as demonic inspired tongues.
Another great mistake that some make is in teaching that there are two different kinds of tongues, one being the evidence variety and the other the gift of tongues. This is not true. It is simply a way of confirming the false concept of tongues evidence.
Some of the phenomena that are being experienced today — barking like dogs, growling like animals, shaking uncontrollably and uncontrollable laughter breaking out — I question very seriously!
I am not anti-tongues nor anti-healing, but there is such excess in what is going on that it has brought about much confusion. Our Number 1 priority in the ministry should be to preach the gospel in such a way that the elect will hear it and be saved. Paul the apostle says in Romans 1:16, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.”
However, everyone, including the cults, Baptists, Pentecostals, Mormons, etc., says they have the gospel. The only safe thing I can tell you is to will to do the will of God and he will lead you to the truth.
Signs Following
In the ministry God has given me, I have not majored on phenomena, healing or miracles, but certain signs have followed this ministry according to God’s word. Mark 16:15-20. In fact, I was preaching in Greenville, S.C., I believe about thirty years ago. I was praying concerning this desire to do God’s will and God spoke to me and said in my heart, “you be concerned about having my word and I’ll take care of the signs.”
I have cast out as many as five spirits in people who have spoken in tongues. In one case the woman, who had a son just back from Vietnam who understood what she was saying, was cursing God and didn’t know it.
Every time I would cast the spirit out she would start praising the Lord and would begin speaking in tongues. She did this three or four times and I finally told her I was going to cast the spirit out one more time and for her to praise God in English. I told her not to yield herself to speak in tongues, which was obviously a demon. This lady had called on the phone to tell me that she felt strongly that the Lord had a work for her to do. Needless to say, after observing her house and unmade beds and five children with dirty ears, I told her that she had a big job just cleaning her house and washing her kids’ ears and making up her beds. The same demon that gave her tongues also made her believe the lie that she was to do a great work for God. This is also the inspiration responsible for the religious Babylon we have in the world today. Revelations 18:1-5.
God’s Will
I hope this testimony will be a blessing to some people who desire to do God’s will. I challenge God’s people to do His will and they shall know whether what I’m telling you is truth or not. I don’t mean will to do his will according to any church doctrine, I mean just will to do his will. John 7:17 says, “If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself.”
Close
What the Lord Has Done in Me
by Jesse Phillips
I was born and raised in a Christian home, attending nearly every service, prayer meeting, and church function in my childhood and into my teenage years. I remember at an early age hearing the Lord’s voice during alter calls under the ministry of Bro. C. Parker Thomas and Bro. Phil Enlow, but I hardened my heart for several years until I was approximately 15 years old.
What the Lord Has Done in Me
by Jesse Phillips
Psalm 107
2. Let the redeemed of the Lord tell their story—
those he redeemed from the hand of the foe.
4 Some wandered in desert wastelands,
finding no way to a city where they could settle.
6 Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble,
and he delivered them from their distress.
7 He led them by a straight way,
to a city where they could settle.
10 Some sat in darkness, in utter darkness,
prisoners suffering in iron chains,
11 because they rebelled against God’s commands.
and despised the plans of the Most High.
12 So he subjected them to bitter labor;
they stumbled, and there was no one to help.
13 Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble,
and he saved them from their distress.
14 He brought them out of darkness, the utter darkness,
and broke away their chains.
15 Let them give thanks to the Lord for his unfailing love
and his wonderful deeds for mankind,
16 for he breaks down gates of bronze
and cuts through bars of iron. (NIV 2011)
The Bible says, let the redeemed of the Lord say so, so that is why I feel the Lord would have me share my testimony of how He delivered me out of darkness, destroyed the devil’s stronghold in my life, and broke the chains of bondage. Jesus Christ is the only hero in this story. I can do nothing without Him, but I can do all things through Christ. Phil. 4:13. ”Amazing grace shall always be my song of praise, for it was grace that brought my liberty.”
I was born and raised in a Christian home, attending nearly every service, prayer meeting, and church function in my childhood and into my teenage years. I remember at an early age hearing the Lord’s voice during alter calls under the ministry of Bro. C. Parker Thomas and Bro. Phil Enlow, but I hardened my heart for several years until I was approximately 15 years old.
I remember the Lord’s presence was so strong one morning at the Bible Tabernacle that I couldn’t do anything but stand up out of my seat and walk down to the altar as if a magnet was pulling me down to bow the knee to Christ. I remember going home that afternoon and thinking: This is it; I have salvation and a ticket to heaven. I thought that’s all there was to the Christian life, a onetime surrender, and a ticket to heaven.
I vividly remember that Sunday morning: Bro. Ron Peters met me at the altar where I had knelt, placed his hand on my shoulder and said, this is just the first step, keep looking to the Lord. I thought, just the first step? My, how right he was when he said that to me and I will remember those words forever. The next 15 years of my life was a roller coaster ride, but the Lord has seen me through each step of the way and has never left my side.
Shortly after I bowed the knee to Christ and accepted him as my Savior, the devil started searching for weak areas in my life where he could enter in and distract me from the plans the Lord had for me. The devil found a weak area in my life that opened the door to nearly 15 years of bondage and addiction. I felt like I was in chains and like there was no hope.
Praise God, this story doesn’t end here. There is hope for anyone, and that hope is Jesus Christ and what He did for us on the cross. Christ will reach to the lowest pit, remove the chains, and set you free.
As I entered the later part of my teenage years, the devil really began to work. I had none, or very little desire to be at church. The devil lied to me and said, You’re saved; you went to the alter call that one day and you have a ticket to heaven; why continue going to church? The devil is a liar, but I took the bait and ran with it. The Thief (Satan) comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I (Christ) have come that they may have life and have it to the full. John 10:10.
I remember my parents struggling to wake me up to attend church on Sunday mornings during this time in my life. Some days I didn’t go, and looking back I most certainly regret that time in my life. The word is clear in Hebrews 10:25 that we should not forsake the assembling of ourselves together, but Satan had me blinded to the point I couldn’t spiritually see any longer.
For the next few years, I began to live just like the world. I still attended church occasionally, I still lifted my hands in worship, possibly fooling those around me, but the stronghold Satan had kept getting stronger and the chains around me kept getting tighter. I was living the lukewarm lifestyle that the Bible warns about in Revelation 3:16. I had one foot in the world and one foot in the church. I was walking like the world, talking like the world, and doing the immoral things that the world does. Satan had me in a prison cell, spiritually blinded, yet I thought I was ok.
I, regretfully, spent several years in immoral relationships outside of the church and God’s will, that directly contradicted the word of God, during those years of wandering. I most certainly regret that time in my life and would warn the young people against having relationships outside of the Lord’s will. Those immoral relationships, led to regret and hurt which followed into my married life with the wife that God had prepared for me. I’m thankful, the Lord has, and still is healing those wounds over time and has strengthened our marriage in only a way that He can do.
The devil loves to trick the body of Christ, as he did with me, that we can engage in the activities of the world and play with sin like the rest of the world does. Immoral relationships are just one example, but there are certainly more areas than that, where the devil will try to convince us that contradicting God’s word is ok. The devil will trick people into believing that it’s ok to engage in willful sin because: “Everyone else does it; it must be ok; it feels good.”
Those are all lies from the devil. The Bible says to flee from such things. We need, by the power Christ has given us at the cross, to resist the devil as stated in James 4:7-8. We need the Lord to guide and lead us in all aspects of life and to seek His will for our lives. Do not conform to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing, and perfect will. Romans 12:2.
In 2013 the Lord brought Kendall Bryant and me together. I thank the Lord every day for sending a God-fearing woman into my life. We had known each other our whole lives and grew up in the church together, but we never thought the Lord would join us together. In June of 2015 we got married; all things work together for the good in God’s time.
Early in our marriage, and even after having our first child I remember Kendall asking me on many occasions on Saturday evenings, if I planned to attend church the next morning. I would say, yes, but then I would oversleep and barely make it out the door on time, sometimes not even attending at all.
It hurts me to reflect back on these things, time I could have spent serving the Lord, but I’m including this information in here so people can know the power of Christ and what He can do to set the captive free. I didn’t have it in my heart to serve the Lord, or to offer Him my life, a living sacrifice.
When I would attend the church services, I remember Kendall asking me on many occasions what I heard in the sermon, and I couldn’t relay much to her. It’s as if the devil spiritually had my ears plugged and my eyes blinded to the point I couldn’t really hear from the Lord. I once was blind, but now I see. Praise God!
In the summer of 2019, the Lord began to work in my heart in a new way. I had more of a desire to be free from bondage like never before. I would watch various sermons on YouTube. I spent more time reading the Bible. I spent more time in prayer. I wanted to listen at church and hear the voice of the Lord. I was able to worship more freely, and I got baptized in August of 2019.
Looking back though, I was trying in myself to check all the religious boxes and be delivered by my own works. I was able to overcome the stronghold for a short time, but slowly I backslid into it again and the cycle started all over. I found myself in the chains once again. I believe the reason this happened is because I was trying to do the work myself. I did seek God somewhat, but I was relying on my own strength. I thought, I can do this; I can be free from this addiction. I found out that I was wrong. I needed the Lord to come down in delivering power and set me free. We can do nothing in ourselves, but in Christ we can do all things.
In the summer of 2022, I was still in the devil’s prison, in chains, and in bondage. We had three children at that point and the devil had been attacking my whole family. I didn’t understand why. My eyes weren’t open to the spiritual realm at that point, but now, by God’s grace they are open. Kendall, told me recently that she was praying daily that the Lord would reveal what was happening in our home and why there was so much strife, arguing, marriage problems, and disobedience from our children. The attacks were happening daily and there was very little peace in our home.
Looking back, I believe the reason these attacks were so obvious at this point is that the devil knew his time of tormenting my family was short. The Lord, in a way only He could do, answered my wife’s prayers in a very powerful way over the next year.
Our oldest son Ryder was being tormented by demonic nightmares almost every night in the summer of 2022. He would wake up saying he was seeing scary figures in his room. He would scream, and yell and we couldn’t wake him up out of it. He was also very fearful of being left alone in his room even for a moment. I also suffered from the same type of demonic dreams and fear as a child, and even into adulthood.
With the Lord’s help, we recognized this was a spiritual battle. We came against it several times with prayer, but things didn’t change. Our son kept experiencing the demonic dreams and fear. Once, in the middle of the night after my son had fallen back to sleep from a tormenting dream, I tried to tell the unclean spirit to leave and when I did, he sat up out of his sleep and smirked/laughed at me as if saying, what authority do you have? I could tell that this wasn’t my son, but rather the spirit that was attacking him and I was frightened at that point. I’m reminded of when the sons of Sceva tried to cast the demon out in Acts and the spirit responded: Jesus I know, and Paul I know, but who are you? then attacked them all. Acts 19:15.
Finally, I called a close friend and brother in Christ and explained what was happening. He said he felt that the Holy Spirit spoke to him as we were talking and said that I needed to repent/renounce and stop the willful sin in my life because I had opened the door to the devil and given him legal access, so to speak, for him to torment my children. My friend even gave testimony that he, too had dealt with a similar situation earlier in his life. Without me telling him what I was in bondage to, he said that he, earlier in his life, had struggled with the same sin that held me captive.
I knew that was the Lord speaking to me, and I knew I needed to change but I didn’t know how. I felt as though I had tried everything I could in myself. That was the problem, I was trying in myself. Thank God we have a Savior! Thank God for the blood of the Lamb that frees and cleanses us from all unrighteousness. 1 John 1:9.
Kendall and I watched a sermon around that same time about demonic oppression and how to be delivered from it. At the end of the live video the minister prayed over everyone, some for specific needs one on one, but then for everyone in general and explained we should renounce areas where we willingly or unknowingly (generational or bloodline curses) opened the door to the devil. What I appreciated most in the sermon was that Christ was the center and that He was the only One who could do the work even though He was using an anointed vessel to do so.
We both renounced areas where the door had been opened to the devil. We prayed and trusted that the Lord would deliver us. Kendall prayed for shoulder healing, as her shoulder had hurt for years due to a ski accident that happened when she was a teenager. In the weeks to follow she realized she was healed, and still has no pain to this day after having shoulder pain daily for many years.
I went to bed trusting the Lord could do what I asked. In the middle of the night, I felt the Lord’s presence come into my room and I felt like literal chains were being broken off of me one by one. I knew that the Lord was there in my room, and He was freeing me. Even though my body was asleep, I felt a peace and freedom like never before. I woke up feeling made new and cleansed, praising the Lord.
It was explained to us in the sermon we watched that though we try in ourselves (as I did for many years) and even ask God to be delivered, it sometimes takes an anointed vessel carrying God’s power to break the yoke/bondage. Isaiah 10:27. The process of renouncing was a strange new thing for us, but the Lord used this to deliver me. I’m thankful every day to the Lord and He gets all the glory and praise.
Several days went by, and I was finally able to share with Kendall for the first time, that I had been in bondage for nearly 15 years and had had an addiction that started from playing with sin when I was a teenager. Even though I believe I was saved at approximately age 15, I was still in a bondage that I couldn’t get out of. I would fall into the sin repeatedly.
After this went on for years and I realized I couldn’t stop, I would just say: well, this is just who I am. I’m sorry, Lord. Please forgive me. This must be my thorn in the flesh. Then I would turn around and fall right back into the devil’s trap again.
After the Lord’s presence met with me that night, I no longer have a desire to engage in the sin and addiction that held me captive for so many years. That was August 13, 2022, a day I will never forget. I knew, and still know, the Lord set me free, He cut those chains. He forgave me for the sins I had committed. They are washed in Jesus’ blood, and they will never be remembered any more. Hebrews 8:12. Nor will they be counted against me because of what Christ did on the cross. Thank God for the cross!
I still have thoughts and temptations occasionally, but I’m able to point the devil to the cross and know that I’ve overcome by what Christ did for us. The sinful desires and addiction I had for so long are completely gone and nothing could have done this except God’s power that is mighty to the pulling down of strongholds. 2 Cor. 10:4.
After confessing my sin to Kendall (James 5:16), we were both able to come against the spirit that was tormenting our son through the demonic dreams and fear of being alone and command it to leave in Jesus’ name. The spirit did leave him and ever since that night he has been set free from those demonic dreams and is no longer afraid of the dark. Praise the Lord!
The Lord has equipped the body of Christ with spiritual weapons. These weapons can take down strongholds, set the captive free, and heal the sick, but first we may need to, by the Lords power, renounce and shut the door that we or someone in our blood line opened allowing the devil to have access to us, before we can properly use the power the Lord has equipped us with.
I don’t think we can ever be fully sin free while we are in these earthly bodies, as 1 John 1:8 says: If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. But don’t let the devil lie to you and make you think that living in and playing with sin is normal for Christians. If you’re not sure if it’s something you shouldn’t do, ask yourself: Would I do this if Jesus were here with me?
Thank God for the cross, and that we can come boldly to him, and our sins will be forgiven, but don’t let the devil trick you as he did me for many years into thinking its ok to willfully engage in sin and it will all be covered by the blood. The Lord does cover all our sins, thank God, but may He give us a heart to live an obedient life toward Him, a heart that desires to be on fire for him, and to please him, not a lukewarm lifestyle.
The Lord has given me a burden and a desire to see other people in the body of Christ set free from all oppression, strongholds, addictions, bondages, spiritual chains, anxieties, fears, panic attacks, trauma, depression, Insomnia, lust, immorality, idolatry, unforgiveness, pornography, alcoholism, drugs, tobacco as well as areas of disease and pain. I believe that some physical pain/trials we go through temporally cause us to see our need for the Lord. I know nothing can happen without Him willing it to happen, but I believe often we need more faith and more of the Lord’s power to see these yokes broken off people.
I’m certainly not in a ditch to where I feel that the Lord doesn’t want us to go through any trials or sickness. I believe the Lord does help us to grow spiritually, through trials, sickness. I had to endure back surgery and months of pain in 2016, but the Lord helped me see my need for Him while I was in the trial, and I believe His hand was in it for that reason. These types of trials cause us to look to Him for our help in time of need. Dear friends, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come on you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. 1 Peter 4:12.
The word says in Matt 10:7-8, Go, proclaim this message: The kingdom of heaven has come near, heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received; freely give. The kingdom of heaven is still near, that’s why He sent the helper, the Holy Spirit, to us. Jesus Christ holds the keys to our freedom by way of the Holy Spirit. Look to Him, trust Him, and take whatever steps of faith He wants from you in order to be set free from the devil’s prison.
In Joshua 3 the Israelites crossed over the Jordan river on dry ground, but they had to first take a step of faith into the river before the waters split and the dry ground appeared. The Lord wants us to take the first step of faith. We can sit in a pew, sit at home, or anywhere else and say, Lord, deliver me, and He may do that for some, but I believe it’s often the case, as it was with me, He is looking for faith and surrender to His will.
It may look different than anything we’ve seen before but if, with discernment, we come to believe it’s from the Lord and lines up with His word, let’s not dismiss it. I believe the Lord may have us exercise gifts of the Spirit in our midst, not to uplift people, or to see signs, but to see the power of God flow through a vessel, to see the sick healed and the captive delivered. As we look to Him, I know He will guide and lead us, He will never leave us nor forsake us. Deut. 31:6.
I remember at a youth camp meeting over 12 years ago, Bro. Jimmy Robbins said, “When the Lord creates a new heart in you and you are born again the grass will look greener, the sky will look bluer, when the veil is taken away.” I thought, that is something I want. Although it didn’t happen right away, and the Lord took me through many trials along the way, I am so glad the Lord through his grace and mercy has given me a new heart that wants to serve Him.
Once the veil is removed, and the demonic oppression is cleansed from our lives, we can see the spiritual battle that we are in more clearly and recognize the importance of putting on the armor daily. Eph. 6:11. The Lord has shown me that we should figuratively apply His blood to our homes, our hearts, our bodies, and our children.
The Lord reminded me of how the Israelites applied the blood to their homes in Egypt in Exodus 12:13. Where the blood was applied, the plague of death passed over them. The Lord has reminded me to practice this daily in prayer. Where the blood has been applied, the doors are shut to the devil, and we are filled with Christ. The unclean spirits that try to torment and keep us in bondage will not be able to enter in. Thank you, Jesus, for the blood applied!
I believe the Lord would also have me write about the many spiritual and physical attacks that came to our family shortly after I was delivered. The devil brought doubt, confusion, and he tried all he could to reverse what the Lord had done in our lives. Praise God, Satan is defeated because of the cross! By God’s grace, we were able to recognize we were spiritually under attack and the Lord saw us through this trying time we were in.
During this testing period, Bro. Phil Enlow ministered a sermon titled, “Tested Stones.” I remember Kendall and I looking at each other during the service and thinking, he’s ministering directly to us. Within 30 days, our AC unit stopped working, our dishwasher broke, our well pump broke, a deer ran into our family vehicle totaling it, we were very low on funds, and we had a lot of sickness going through our family. It felt like we were taking hit after hit from the devil.
During the midst of all of this, I remember having a very vivid dream one night. I was in an interview setting with the devil, and he gave me this offer: I can make all these bad things go away, things will stop breaking, sickness will leave, all you need to do is go back to living the lifestyle you were before and stop following Christ. After hearing this, in the dream, and as I was waking up, I was singing, “God is still on his throne!” as loud as I could. Kendall heard me from the other room and asked in the morning why I was singing so loudly.
The devil knew he had lost the battle, the stronghold he had in my life, and the oppression my son was under, and he wasn’t going to give up easily. I believe the devil realized at that point, I have decided to follow Jesus and I’m not turning back. We, of course, are still tried and tempted, as Jesus said, In this world you will have trouble but take heart! I have overcome the world. John 16:33. The Lord is faithful to see us through the fire and gives His peace in the storm.
The Lord is calling us out of darkness. It’s time to wake up from our slumber. 1 Peter 2:9. The hour is late. For yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry. Heb. 10:37. With the Lord’s help we can be a people set apart from the world, not having one foot in the world and one foot in the church as I did for so long.
How can we help others, how can we be instruments of God, if we are bound up in chains? It’s not possible, but with God all things are possible. Matthew 19:26. He longs to set his people free from the devil’s prison, so that we can be a light to the rest of the world, we can share the gospel, and share our testimony of the Lord’s goodness so that it will help others see that they too, can receive his salvation and freedom from bondages.
I tried many times to be set free on my own and to stop the addiction I had but I needed an encounter with God’s power through an anointed vessel. I know that not everyone has or will have the same deliverance testimony, but the Lord works in mysterious ways, and His ways are not our ways. Isaiah 55:8. May the Lord help us all, starting with me, to examine ourselves and ask him to remove what is not from him, ask him to prune the areas that need to be pruned. He, and He alone can and will do this as we look to Him for the answer.
I know what it’s like to be in bondage, I know what it’s like for God’s power to set me free and I know He will set others free too. I thank the Lord for all His promises, for all He’s done for my family, and for all He will continue to do for the body of Christ as we look to Him.
I’ll end my testimony with how I started it, Jesus Christ is the only hero in this story. May the Lord get all the glory and praise for this testimony. I’m just an unworthy vessel that He has chosen to share His goodness through. I desire to be in God’s will, to share the hope and freedom he’s given me through Christ.
I Love you all in Christ, and I’m so glad to be a part of the family of God.
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