testimony

God Reports: Irritating roommate wouldn’t stop talking about Jesus

/ newlifenarrabri / Leave a comment

From God Reports

Irritating roommate wouldn’t stop talking about Jesus

0
6

By Michael Ashcraft –

Tom Payne’s roommate annoyed the Hell out of him.

Quite literally.

“Just shut up!” he said in his mind, frustrated that Jeff would argue with Louie, who had gotten saved, and that he had to listen to it in their one-bedroom apartment.

Tom, then 19, had come from New York to Prescott, Arizona, because it was famous as a college party town. “Getting saved wasn’t part of the plan. We were in a prolonged adolescence with the feigned attempt at getting an education,” Tom says on a Don’t Sell the Farm podcast.”

So when Louie got cornered by a Christian and acceded to go with him to church one day, Tom offered to provide the alibi when the Christian accompanied him to service.

“Just hide in the bathroom, and we’ll tell him you’re not in,” Tom told him.

But Louie was a nominal Catholic and used to showing up every so often to Mass, so he stayed true to his word.

That night, when Tom and Jeff stumbled out of the bar and walked home, Tom remarked sarcastically: “What if Louie got saved.”

They found him in his bed reading his Bible. Suddenly, their fears, however they were treated in jest, now became reality.

Louie told them he had gotten saved and invited them to church. Jeff started to argue with him. Tom rolled his eyes.

For the next days and weeks, the litany was unending. Louie invited them to church, Jeff argued, Tom fumed. “He was in our faces telling us about Jesus,” Tom told him. “Fine, we’ll go to Hell all by ourselves. But just shut up. I don’t want to hear it.”

Jeff was arguing with him nonstop. Louie was just devouring his Bible and was answering him. I couldn’t escape it.”

One evening as he lay on the bed trying to not hear the other two argue in the other room, Tom asked God if he was real. “I was laying on the bed with my hands behind my head, and I said, ‘God, I’m not going to do this just because Louie did this. But if you’re real, I’ll serve you.”

The “presence of the Holy God of the Universe came into that room,” he says. “I thought I was going to die. I couldn’t believe anybody had heard that prayer or would answer that prayer.”

Awestruck, he told God: “Ok, just don’t kill me.”

Tom attended a new convert’s class with Louie. He accepted Jesus. “I had already been confronted by the Holy Spirit,” he says. He was delivered from drugs, alcohol and cigarettes. The next day, he started looking for a job.

Finding a job was no easy matter in Prescott, then a town of 20,000. There weren’t many jobs to be had. He wanted to stay with the Prescott Potter’s House, a booming church. His first job to support himself and continue learning about Jesus as a “disciple” was to water plants at the community college. His last job was working on a trash truck.

Tom and his buddies were used to staying up to 4:00 a.m. partying, so when church let out at 10:00 p.m., he didn’t know what to do with his time. Fortunately, some of the brethren went out for coffee and fellowshipped after service.

He came home buzzed on caffeine, and he and his buddies went home afterward and wrote letters to all their friends back in New York that they were going to Hell and needed to get saved. “We bombarded them with letters,” he recalls. Tom wrote his girlfriend back home with the same unpolished approach.

Janice eventually came out for Tom’s birthday and wound up getting saved. She stayed in Prescott and they got married.

Tom, who threw himself fully into church activities and Bible study, was ordained by the same church to launch at start-up church just three years later. His wife was eight months pregnant, and Tom reassured her that God would take care of them even though they had no health insurance.

As foolhardy as that might have seemed, Tom and Janice have done well. He was one of the early pastors to be sent out of the small-town church that has turned into a worldwide movement. The Potter’s House capitalized on the Jesus Movement to turn former hippies into pastors.

“God went out of his way to touch my life,” Tom says. “I didn’t know all of what was going to happen, but I realized that this was big and I went all in and decided to become a disciple and got sent out.”

If you want to know more about a personal relationship with God, go here

Hadija’s story

/ newlifenarrabri / Leave a comment

‘I hadn’t seen a Bible or heard the gospel, but God worked a miracle in my heart’

 

Return to the Eternity News Homepage

Get Stories In Your Inbox


‘I hadn’t seen a Bible or heard the gospel, but God worked a miracle in my heart’

Hadija’s story | The astounding grace of Jesus in Southern Russia

 

“I grew up in a high mountain village, in Caucasus, Southern Russia. It was a Muslim area. In my heart, I was a devout Muslim, although I didn’t wear head covering. I would fast and pray and listen to Islamic preaching. They said if you don’t follow Islamic teaching, you will go to hell.

I remember thinking I didn’t want to go to hell. I wanted the path leading to heaven. I asked old ladies to teach me and I wrote down Arabic prayers. But it never took away the fear of hell. I would try to comfort myself with reasons why I might go to heaven, but I wasn’t peaceful or free. Islamic teaching doesn’t assure heaven.

After school, I went to university and studied linguistics. There was a mix of people. I met a girl from Ukraine who was a Christian. She would be walking around listening to worship songs in Russian on a little tape. I really liked them. But the words of the songs mentioned Jesus, which didn’t feel right. I said, “Can you give me some of those nice songs, without the name Jesus?”

She did and I really enjoyed them. But I felt bad inside because I was listening to songs about Jesus. I prayed to Allah and said sorry. One day, as I was praying, the presence came. The whole room was filled with his presence, and my insides too. I couldn’t see anyone but I knew someone was there. It shook me. I said, “Who is there?”

Then a voice said, “Jesus” in Russian. There is no way I would make up that word. It wasn’t even my language. So I prayed an Arabic prayer to get rid of the demons. But as I prayed the prayer, I knew that it wouldn’t work on him, on Jesus. Even as I said the prayer, I also knew in my heart that I didn’t want Jesus to go. I kept praying on my rug, and the presence was there, as strong as before.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. I sat up on the bed and said, “I need my peace back. Allah, if you are the real one, please stop this. Jesus, if you are the real one, do something.” Then I fell asleep, straight away.

I woke up at 6am, at Islamic prayer time, but I didn’t want to pray to Allah. I knew I wanted to talk to a Christian, so I went to a small house church. I spoke to a man and his wife about what had happened. Years later, they told me I actually spoke to them from the Bible. I told them about Jesus dying on the cross for me, and that I wanted to repent and believe. I don’t remember saying that. I didn’t even know that then! I hadn’t seen a Bible or heard the gospel. God worked a miracle in my heart. It’s God who is amazing. From that moment on, I became a Christian. The couple gave me a Bible and I began to read it.

At the time, I was living with my sister. I hadn’t realised the consequences. I had found the truth! I told my sisters I’d found something amazing. One of them said, “You realise what that means if I tell our parents. People like you need to be killed.”

I started to read my Bible and pray, hiding in the toilet. I loved the toilet. It’s funny, because as a Muslim, the toilet is an unclean place, but as a Christian, it became my safe place. They couldn’t find me there. I finished uni, and my sister told my parents. They were so angry. They planned to put me on house arrest and arrange a Muslim marriage.

I kept asking God what to do. It was so intense. Then I read Matthew 19:29: “Everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life.”

I had a choice. It was a big step, but God was showing me the way. I wrote a letter to my family telling them the truth. I believed in Jesus. Then I asked the church members for help. They contacted people in Russia working at a theological college. I said to God, “If this is your plan, please show me.” That evening, a student knocked on my door. He shyly gave me some cash for the trip. It was enough for a ticket. It was amazing!

I went to Russia and I studied at the theological college! Many miracles have happened since then. But the main thing is God is doing it. He works the miracles. Even though I was stubbornly fixed in an ideology, Jesus rose above it. He spoke to me and delivered me. I wasn’t the sort of person who could compare the Bible and the Quran. I didn’t have the intelligence or the interest. But he broke through to my heart. Jesus does that. He snatched me out of it. I remember the day I suddenly realised that Jesus was Lord. He was God! He wasn’t just a prophet or a historical figure. I understood grace. It was miraculous and instantaneous! I was on my knees, sobbing, remembering how dark and hopeless I had felt before, but now knowing grace, and feeling it in my body. Jesus came. He died for me. He took my sin. The burden and fear of hell was gone. I still feel it! I can’t put it in words. But I have been given grace.”

Hadija’s story is part of Eternity’s Faith Stories series, compiled by Naomi Reed. Click here for more Faith Stories.

My Story

/ newlifenarrabri / Leave a comment

2016-07-08-07-32-08

Last night at the Christian Life and Witness Course, which we are running as preparation for Come Together next month, it was suggested that we write down the story of our faith journey. “You can blog it,”  the presenter, Rodney Trinidad said amongst other options.

Unexpectedly finding myself with a spare half hour, I thought that might be a good idea. I have talked about my conversion experience on many occasions, but it has been a long time since I wrote it down.

The story starts with my birth in 1958, in Wolverhampton, England, to a working class couple. My school years were at a Catholic school, and Mum used to take my brother and me to Mass most Sundays.

I guess that time of my childhood would be like that of most children in England at the time. My parents rented an ordinary Council house and made sure we had enough to eat and were dressed warmly.

In the late 1960’s the UK began a long process of transition from the unionised industrial era to a much more modern economy, and as companies were trying to become more competitive there were increasing strikes in all parts of the country. As a result Mum and Dad saw some brochures about how wonderful life in Australia was- backed up by letters from my Aunt who had moved to Sydney years before.

So it was that in February 1969, the Bates family became 10 pound poms and moved to Sydney.

As I grew through my teen years, I became a bit of an atheist. I loved to bait the christians in my year. But I was also very depressed.

In May 1976, during the first year of my degree in Chemical Engineering, I was staying at my friend’s place. His family had gone on holidays, and the plan was that after we had finished our end of term exams we would join them.

As I was lying in bed one night just before going to sleep, I had a vision as clear as if it were real life. In this vision I saw myself climbing a mountain. It was so steep that I was literally dragging myself up the side of the mountain. As I climbed I could see that there was an intense light shining from behind the mountain, but I couldn’t see the source. As I climbed the light got brighter.

Finally, I reached the top and saw that the source of the light was Jesus. As I saw Him I felt love, joy and peace such as I had never experienced before.

So what do you do with an experience like that? God literally dropped on a self-proclaimed atheist and said “Here I am.”

I said to the God who only minutes before I would have said I didn’t believe in, “I will go to church next Sunday and if it’s good I will follow you.”

The following Sunday, I didn’t go to church because I was away with my friend’s family. But the Sunday after, I went to the night service at Wesley Methodist Church Castle Hill. The service, although it was a traditional 4 hymn service, was so full of the presence of God.

Since that time, I have obviously grown in my knowledge of who God is. There have been times when  life has been very challenging. There have even been times when the old depression has threatened to come back and overwhelm me.

But God has given me such purpose in my life, and that initial feeling of love, joy and peace has always remained with me.

Walking with Jesus is just the best life there is.