Welcome! Regardless of your beliefs or background!
A lot of people think of religion as a set of ideas that a small or large group of people hope are true. These ideas may be about creation, people’s souls, life after death, spirits, God…
Rather than talk about things like that at this point, let’s hear from reasonable people who are not claiming to have experienced religion, but rather testify that they experienced God helping them and interacting with them during their lives. Jesus promised that this is possible and I hope you are willing to keep an open mind as you read through these incredible accounts.
Francis Chan mentions in this video that he didn’t believe in miraculous healing in the past (even though he is a Christian and said he believes the Bible). Yet, I gather from the video that as time went by and he kept reading the Bible he felt that he had to be honest and acknowledge that according to what God said in the Bible-healing should still be possible. He said, “…it just seems like we should be able to…” even though God had not worked through him to heal anyone until the moment he described in the video. His testimony is funny and I laughed while listening to it. It’s likely that this miracle can be verified especially since Francis Chan is well known.
*Rather than watch the full video now let's move on to the next testimony.
Sue Wynn was diagnosed with a horrible disease of the nervous system which caused her to become severely disabled and forced her into early retirement. She was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS). Her condition deteriorated quickly even though her Neurologist had started treatment because there is no medial cure for this condition. She felt as if her whole life had been taken away from her and said that there was “no helpful branch for me to hold unto.”
She joined a support group for MS where she met a Christian women who invited her and her husband to a Christian Church. Her husband was an atheist and said, “I was agreeing only because it would distract her from the pain and agony of MS.” At the time, Sue was into New Age religious beliefs and other religions that aren’t Christian “mixed together” so she commented “…what are we doing sitting in a pew?” (A Church pew is a long bench people sit on) She herself seemed surprised that her and husband had decided to attend a Christian Church and yet somehow she was there. However, after going to the Church she commented, “they were so nice to us and we just decided we wanted to go back again and we went back every Sunday.” She also commented about her reaction to hearing words from the Bible in Church, “It stirred us. We were being touched by God.”
Both Sue and her husband started to believe in Jesus and she kept learning more about Jesus while among the Christians in her Church and while studying the Bible on her own. The Pastor in her Church boldly told the Church that he had a vision and according to the vision he believed that Sue would be healed.
At the time, Sue didn’t believe healing miracles still happen today. It seems she thought that they only occurred in the distant past when Jesus ministered to people with His apostles (the original 12 men Jesus trained to start the first Church[es]). But as Sue started to study scriptures in the Bible about healing and met with her Pastor (to discuss healing scriptures) her faith grew and she became confident that God would heal her of her of MS.
Soon, afterward she started being bombarded by thoughts of doubt, yet instead of giving into them and losing hope that she would be healed she went to her Bible and started reading. That’s when she felt a powerful sensation in her body and she knew that God was healing her.
Her Neurologist examined her with medical instruments during her next visit and found no evidence of MS whatsoever-which is medically impossible. Even the doctor confessed, “this is God.” Since this time Sue has been testifying that Jesus still heals today.
Jesus Christ died on the cross, but He was raised from the dead and ascended to heaven. He is as alive today as ever and He is still showing His love, compassion and power by healing the sick and by doing so many other things through which we can confirm His existence and identity.
I have heard many testimonies like Sue Wynn’s. In fact, Kathryn Kuhlman was a women God worked through to heal thousands of people-perhaps hundreds of thousands. Her book, “I Believe in Miracles” is full of testimonies of healing which were confirmed by before and after medical records and by doctors who saw the patients who were miraculously healed by God. Over 1 million copies of this book have been sold. You also might want to know that Kathryn Kuhlman taught that having eternal-life and having a relationship with God is more important than being healed by God. She also built a hospital in Vietnam because she knew that God can use medicine to help people and not just miracles. Either way, she wanted God to be honored and people to be helped whether through medical care or healing miracles. A lot of people who could not be healed by medical science were healed through servants of God like Kathryn Kuhlman.
We can read about how Jesus healed people with various diseases in the Bible and how He healed through those who believe in Him. There are many of these accounts in the Bible books entitled Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Acts.
The Bible clearly teaches that anyone who believes in Jesus has a special connection to God the Father. Once they have that connection, God can work through them to heal any disease or injury as long as one has faith. Sometimes they need to repent for their sins first and ask God to forgive them and/or they need to forgive someone else because repenting and forgiving can open the way for God’s spiritual power to work more freely and be less limited. Since we have all said and done things that we know are wrong, we should repent and ask God to forgive us, and since God forgives us we should forgive others. Sometimes, we may not want to admit to other people that we are wrong, but we should at least admit it to God. The only way to be forgiven by God is to admit it.
We should not think that God doesn’t want us to be healed or doesn’t want to work through us to heal others. Jesus came healing, sent His apostles out to heal, and said that God would work through those who believe to heal (Mark 16:17-18, John 14:12, 1 Corinthians 1:7). Jesus never said that this healing would stop while His teachings are still being shared (Mark 16:20). Jesus would not have said all these things and done all these things if God did not want people to be healed.
But of course, some Christians have tried to experience this and others focused on other parts of the Bible rather than on miraculous healing. I believe I can respect Christians that came from either kind of background, but I urge you to be someone who wants to see and experience God’s healing power so that you can get help from God or so that God can work through you to help others. And also, to be more sure that the scriptures in the Bible are trustworthy and true.
But as Pastor Francis Chan said that he had never seen miraculous healing before or had God work through him in this way, so we may be reluctant at first. But let’s read about it in the Bible and do it anyway or at least lead sick people to those whom we know are good Pastors that we know God works through to heal (Bible:James 5:14-16). Of course, God doesn’t just heal through Pastors, He can heal through anyone who believes and even through a new believer. But, there are a lot of good Pastors that are sufficiently dedicated to God and well known-enough that taking people to them to be prayed for is a simple way to make sure the sick people are in the hands of someone who is healing according to God’s will. God can heal through anyone who believes, but a Pastor or Church leader that is well-known for healing is simply more likely to know how God wants the sick to be prayed for. When we want God to heal through us, we should have some basic knowledge of how God works and be guided by Him during the process.
We should also never give up. God may heal instantly when someone has great faith and the Holy Spirit is working very powerfully while in other cases it may take months of prayer and a person may gradually improve before being completely healed. Either way, it’s evidence that the words Jesus gave us in the Bible have not been altered over time, but they are real accounts of what Jesus actually said and did and what God did in people’s lives. If the miracles are true, then the rest of it is true as well.
Let God also work in our lives to help us; not just by healing, but by answering prayers, forgiving our sins, preparing us for heaven, helping us have good relationships with others, helping us with our finances, helping us prosper in all things, helping us know how He loves us and helping us love Him, and by empowering us to make the world a better place.
The next testimony is about a man from Ghana (in Africa) who had a hard time making a living because he had become deaf. He had missed his train and had to wait a long time for another train so he decided to sleep outside at a place called Independence Square-a place where large meetings could be held. There was a large Christian meeting taking place near him, but he had no intention of being a part of it. He just wanted to sleep there for a while and catch his train later. But as he was sleeping, Christians nearby were praying for the disabled. The man went to sleep deaf, but was awakened by sound because God had miraculously healed his ears. He was so surprised and impressed that he came forward and wanted to tell everyone at the meeting that God had healed his ears even though he didn’t mean to attend the meeting and was not a Christian. He was so excited and moved that he confessed that, “Jesus is the Son of God.” This man from Ghana said he wants to testify to others about what Jesus did for him and said he wants to be a Pastor or just testify in the streets about Jesus.
The name of the preacher God used to lead that large Christian meeting is Daniel Kolenda (though I prefer to focus on God-not the preachers). I suggest you download Daniel Kolenda’s audiobook (or read the paperback version) called, “Unlocking the Miraculous through Faith and Prayer”. It’s filled with testimonies and accounts of their meetings where tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands gather and many are healed. The book explains how to pray powerfully and get your prayers answered.
It doesn’t matter if there is sin in your life or not. Because once you ask God to forgive you and acknowledge Jesus, God will wipe all your sins out and answer you when you pray. You are not excluded.
I also want to say that of course I don’t receive anything from Christian organizations for talking about books. Daniel Kolenda is a sincere man of God and this website is like a little food cart on the corner compared a large food distributing company like Christ for All Nations where Daniel Kolenda works. They don’t have time for deals like that with someone like me and I don’t believe they would make such a deal anyway. Still, although this website is like a small food cart…food is food and soul food is soul food. No matter where you get it. Sometimes God works through the little guy like me. About what I mean by soul food...
Matthew 4:4 Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
*I believe this means ‘mankind’ and applies to women as well. Jesus shared God’s words with a lot of women in the Bible and healed many women. In fact, women usually outnumber men in Churches and College Christian clubs that I have seen.
I admire Christ for All Nations, but Allnationsweb is not a part of their organization. It just has a similiar name like the large Church in Manila (Philippines) and others.
There are quite a few Christian organizations with "All Nations" somewhere in their name, probably because Jesus said to make disciples of all nations about 2,000 years ago (Matthew 28:19). I would imagine that many back then would have scoffed at this teaching of Jesus and said something like, 'There is just a small number of you followers of Jesus in and near Jerusalem and you really think you can spread your teachings throughout the Roman Empire even though many of the commonly held values of the Empire are opposed to yours? (eg, Jesus' values mercy, forgiveness, peace) Not only that, you followers of Jesus actually think you will spread Jesus' teachings throughout the entire world even to the ends of the Earth?'
But look how against all odds Jesus' teachings have now spread to most of the world, just as how against all odds (when people had just seen Him crucified), He was raised from the dead a few days later. In the end, everything Jesus said will happen even if some people are still scoffing now.
And concerning the effect of Jesus' teachings on all nations (or people groups within nations), I'd like to say that in the ancient world before Jesus came, Empires/Governments and individuals did horrendous things and after Jesus came many ignored Jesus's teachings and also did horrendous things. Some of those who did these horrendous things claimed to be acting on Jesus' behalf, but if that had been true they would not have been acting in a way that was totally contrary to the way Jesus lived and to what He taught. This becomes clear when we study both history and the Bible thoroughly. Since Jesus came, there have always been Christians who are sincere and who really experienced God and 'so called Christians' who are not sincere and who never experienced God. They have a totally different kind of fruit in this world. Jesus said you will know a tree by it's fruit. You will know real Christians because they will talk, act, experience power, and do good in this world like Jesus did. How much they are like Jesus will depend upon the individual-that is their level of spiritual maturity. The more we study the Bible the more we should be able to tell who was/is accurately representing God and who isn't. The Bible is not the problem-some of the people who have misrepresented God over the centuries and who are misrepresenting God today are the problem. God knows the difference between the two and He will judge all. Unfortunately, people do not always know the difference or know the Bible well which is part of the reason why some have become anti-Christian and started to pollute some modern literature with anti-Christian ideology. This is from ignorance and it's quite sad because Jesus' teachings are so beautiful and so helpful to humanity in so many ways.
Bible: Matthew 7:7 (Jesus said)
"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.” Notice that according to what Jesus said here, if we want to receive something from God we need to ask, if we want to find God we need to seek Him, if we want to have a good relationship with God we should let Him know we are interested in having a good relationship with Him.
A person might knock on a door because he or she wants to get the attention of the owner of the house and come inside and start some kind of relationship with the owner. I used to ignore God and be uninterested in the Bible, but now I see what I was missing and I am trying to let you know. Even though it takes some time to read through these webpages and watch these videos, I hope you will keep reading and watching because knowing God, getting His help, and going through life with God is a more worthwhile endeavor than any other in life.
People tend to chase what they desire in life whether it’s money, popularity, respect or an ideal boyfriend or girlfriend, ect. But I hope that after reading these testimonies you will have some desire to know and experience God. To verify that the words in the Bible are true through your own experiences. The experiences don’t have to be as dramatic as the ones listed above or those listed below, but they will be special to you because they are yours. Part of your own personal relationship with God. The God who loves you more than anyone else.
The last few testimonies were about God’s healing power, but the next few are about some incredible people that experienced God in other ways.
Lee Stobel is a very rational, intelligent Yale Law school alumni. He’s a highly acclaimed author and a Professor. Formerly, he was an award-winning editor of the Chicago Triune (a famous News Company) and back then he was a staunch atheist.
One day he came home and was shocked and disturbed to find out that his wife had become a Christian. He had some unrealistic view in his mind at the time of how this would change her and he figured this change would be so undesirable to him that it would end their marriage. So he came up with an idea to get her out of what he called, “the Jesus cult.” His idea was to use his skills as a rationalist, a scholar, and a researcher to disprove Christianity. Realizing that the resurrection of Jesus is at the center of Christian faith-he particularly tried to disprove the resurrection of Jesus Christ. He figured it would be easy and only take about one weekend.
He started studying ancient historical documents other than those in the Bible which mentioned Jesus, the beliefs of early Christianity and any relevant facts that he could use to disprove Christian faith. He used his critical thinking skills to contrast historical information with Biblical scripture, but to his surprise he found a lot of evidence in support of the resurrection of Jesus being an actual historical event.
He interviewed professors and various kinds of experts to discuss his counter-Christian ideas with them. He came up with his own ideas as to how explain away historical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus and discussed these ideas with the experts. But although these experts were not Christians, they could not honestly support counter-Christian ideas he had such as ‘mass hypnosis.’ A professor of Psychology basically told him that delusions (if the resurrection were a delusion) are individualized and not shared by large numbers of people (there were more than 500 witnesses to the resurrection). Lee simply could not disprove the resurrection of Jesus Christ or of Christian faith in general.
He got very caught up in this project and just kept investigating and trying to learn the truth about it all for almost two years. He put his training in Law and his expertise in Journalism to use as he went along investigating. Not only did he want to disprove Christian faith in the beginning, but as time went on he wanted to know if there was any credibility to Christian faith or any other belief-system. And during that whole time, his wife was praying for him to believe even as their marriage was uneasy and in turmoil over this issue of faith.
Lee said this about what he thought about his wife back then: “I saw positive changes in her values, in her character, in the way she related to me and the children. It was winsome; and it was attractive; and it made me want to check things out. So I went to church one day…mainly to see if I could get her out of this cult that she had gotten involved in.”
He also talked about his own experience in Church with his wife back then: “I walked out saying—I was still an atheist—but also saying, ‘If this is true, this has huge implications for my life.’”
As Lee continued to study and his wife continued to pray for him, he eventually started to admit to himself that evidence appears to be on the side of the resurrection of Jesus Christ being an actual historical event and that what the Bible says about Jesus is actually true. He thought to himself that every court must reach a verdict sooner or later so he decided to believe in Jesus Christ. That He is the Son of God who died for our sins and was raised from the dead.
Lee commented after having believed: “To be an atheist I would have to swim upstream against this torrent of evidence pointing toward the truth of Jesus Christ. And I couldn’t do that. I was trained in journalism and law to respond to truth.”
“Just like with my wife, my life began to change. Over time my values, my character, the purpose of my life began to be transformed over time in a way that, as I look back, I can’t imagine staying on the path I was on compared to the adventure and the fulfillment and the joy of following Jesus Christ.”
Lee Stobel is like a lot of people today-he has a very rational and realistic mind. We can see that the words in the Bible are rational and reasonable if we take the time to examine them carefully. Most people decide whether or not they believe without much critical-thinking or research and I think that is one of the main reasons why there aren’t more believers (though there are a lot). Most people just focus on friends, family, school, work, fun, and rarely do much thinking about God or what happens after they die unless maybe they somehow become interested in knowing or have some big problem they hope God will help them with. Such explains why there are a lot of believers, but not nearly as many as there could be even though God is actually real and He actually sent Jesus. I’m not saying that we all need to be looking into it as deeply as Lee Strobel did, but we can at least read through the New Testament once from beginning to end and do some research and visit a few Christian Churches. This way, we can be more sure that whatever we believe about Jesus is accurate...and should we get in touch with Jesus-He will help us.
I didn’t believe in Jesus in the past either, but I did my research, experienced God, and now am typing this up. I don’t believe in myself or my denomination or man-made rules, but I believe in what the Bible says about Jesus and in what is says about spiritual life. You don’t have to be from the east or the west to believe, it doesn’t matter what color you are, you don’t have to subscribe to certain political beliefs, and you don’t have to stop doing everything that’s fun. You can still do a lot of fun things, but with God in your life which is so great.
Lee Strobel (like many other Christians today) didn’t come to know God through witnessing dramatic healing miracles, but I firmly believe that God was guiding him and helping him find the truth as he did his research. There are plenty of Churches that don’t talk much about miracles (even though the Bible promises miracles and a lot of other Churches do talk about them often and experience them).
There are plenty of people like Lee Strobel who came to believe in God and to enjoy having God in their lives without healing miracles. I respect the Churches where believers experience a lot of miracles and the ones where they do not. As long as they are not just religious, but truly believe in God, and God truly works in their lives I respect them and I hope you do too. Any good Church that has God’s approval is one that I respect. I've listed specific Churches and College Christian Clubs in another part of this website and I will let you know where they are listed later on this page as well as provide links to free audio Bible videos on Youtube.
I've listed Churches where believers often talk about miracles and Churches where they usually emphasize other things in the Bible.
Please keep reading and watching the videos as a way of doing your own research. You can also watch a movie called. ‘The Case for Christ” which is about Lee Strobel’s story and came out in 2017. I posted related links below:
This is a trailer for the Case for Christ:
This is a link to the full movie, “The Case for Christ” on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1W1Wzqnvdww
This is a video of Lee Strobel speaking about the process of research that led him to faith:
Some people mistakenly believe that Christian faith and science are always against each other. I think Lee Strobel already proved they are not, but let me go on to say that there are a lot of College students all over the world right now who are studying to get bachelor’s degrees, masters degrees, and PhD’s in all different kinds of sciences who are also Bible-believing Christians. Many are already working in important research positions that will hopefully bring about some scientific breakthroughs that could benefit people all over the world. God gave us our ability to reason and think critically and it’s something we should thank Him for, but we should also recognize that sometimes even intelligent, educated people make mistakes as Lee Strobel did in the past when he denied the existence of God. So, some scientists believe in God and others don’t just like the rest of society. But the vast majority of those who don’t believe have not dedicated any (or very little) time or effort to finding out if the testimony about Jesus in the Bible is really true.
I used to attend College Christian clubs and I was surprised to learn that many of those who attended were not raised by Christian parents, but they had come to know God, experience God, and receive God’s help at some point in their lives. Each one had her or his own testimony and some were more dramatic and miraculous than others, but they were all special and important. They did not immediately throw away all their science books when they started to believe in God, but rather many relied on God to boost their creativity, intelligence, and intellectual ability. Which is useful for everyone whether they went to College or not.
I can testify that when I was a College student, I used to pray to be smarter when doing my homework and I literally felt smarter after a while. It didn’t mean that I was the smartest person on campus, but it meant that my intelligence was boosted through prayer and faith. Thank God. I don’t think I would have gotten into College or graduated without God’s help. Although, I am sure many others didn’t need as much help as I did.
We are not educational elitists here at this website. Some of the greatest women and men of God had little education such as Smith Wiggleworth (who didn’t go to high school because he had to drop out of school to support his family and could hardly write until he got older and someone taught him). The apostles of Jesus were also “unschooled ordinary men” (Acts 4:13; For example, Peter was a fishermen). On the other hand, Paul was highly educated and we see how God worked through him so powerfully in the Book of Acts in the Bible. So God appreciates and works through people of various backgrounds.
We should love and welcome those who are highly educated as well as those who are not. This is something the world doesn’t do, but the Church should because heaven will be filled with people who were from all walks of life on earth and we will not be divided or against each other there, we will not be indifferent toward each other, we will not have any greed or financial needs that will not be met, we will not be condescending toward each other, and everything will be so much better in heaven.
But the Bible says that the kingdom of heaven is advancing on the earth through those who (truly) believe in Jesus and it says that God’s will should be done on earth as it is in heaven. So Christians should truly immediate the Bible so as to radiate heaven as a light in this world, this world that is often painful and quite dark. If Christians would live that way, more people would be attracted to the faith and believe.
We as Christians, hide God’s glory when we do not behave the way God told us to behave, but that does not mean the Bible isn’t true. It means that Christians didn’t choose to fully follow God’s will, and this made it harder for people who are not Christian to see-that God’s words in the Bible truly connect us to God. So, as Christians let us repent and adjust our lives to God’s words…and if you are reading this and not sure whether you believe or not yet, please keep reading and keep an open mind and ask God to show you if the contents of these pages are true or not. We should believe things that are true and we should not believe things that are not true-that much is for sure. But the Bible and those who have testimonies because they experienced God cry out, “This is Jesus and through Him people can experience God and do His good will and go to heaven even though people are far from perfect.”
Well, back to what I was saying before about how there are a lot of Christians who are also scientists and many of them were able to do a better job studying and researching because of God’s help. Let me give you an example. Dr. Raymond Damadian started to believe in Jesus during a large Christian meeting where the famous Billy Graham was preaching at Madison Square Garden in New York City in 1957.
Billy Graham’s sermons are excellent and he has preached all over the world and even met with politicians in the Kremlin in Russia as well as politicians in Washington DC in the USA-during the cold war. Billy Graham boldly told people in the United States back then that God loves people in Russia as much as He loves people here in the USA. Because when people are enemies they tend to hate each other and forget that God loves everyone. Billy Graham also embraced racial equality at a time when doing so in the USA was very controversial and would cause him to have enemies-yet he did it publicly anyway because it was God’s will. It doesn’t take nearly as much courage to proclaim racial equality now as it did back then. I believe things like this show that a lot of Christians and preachers are both sincere and also speaking what God wants them to say.
After having an encounter with Jesus at a Billy Graham meeting, Dr. Raymond Damadian later went on to invent the MRI machine which was one of the most important medical inventions of the 20th Century. He became aware of the fact that his in-laws were praying for him throughout his research and he began to realize that their prayers were being answered. Dr. Damadian believes God gave him ideas and he gives all the credit to God.
That doesn’t mean that other scientists didn’t create things without Christians praying for them (although God gave us even our minds and everything good in this world we live in and none of those scientists could live, think or exist without all the things God provided for them), but it does mean that Dr. Damadian’s research and invention specifically came about with this help from God and otherwise would not have. Had his in-laws not been praying for him so earnestly, he would not have invented the MRI machine. Had he not invented the MRI Machine, that would mean that so many people would not have had the benefit of the MRI machine until later or perhaps even until now.
God understands everything about everything. I know there are people that think they understand everything about everything-no one likes them! (haha) But we can respect God and accept that He knows everything because He’s God. We are all small compared to Him. Even those of us that are very smart, attractive, influential, rich, popular, and those of us that are not…God loves us all and we are going to get older and pass away-along with our accomplishments, this world, and this Universe. But our souls can live forever when we believe in Jesus Christ as our Lord and King and believe that He saved us from our sins because He loves us. He is a good King. Unlike typical worldly kings, He suffered and died for His subjects, and spent His life serving them. He died for everyone, in every nation, and that includes you. If you find out for sure that all this is true, how will you feel about that?
1 Peter 1:22-25: Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for each other, love one another deeply, from the heart. For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God. For, “All people are like grass,
and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord endures forever.” And this is the word that was preached to you.
I believe that God our creator made the grass and flowers, not just to feed animals and let us enjoy beautiful things, but to give us a hint that the prime of our lives (and indeed our lives) are temporary and this is part of God’s plan. Yet, God has offered the free gift of eternal life through faith in His words about Jesus Christ and He has offered us a place in heaven where nothing will age or pass away and there is no pain, no crying, no sin, and no sorrow. Everything that will be ours in God’s eternal heaven (Matthew 25:34) will be so much better than the material things we have here and so much better than our lives here.
Revelation 21:4 ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”
Dr. Damadian’s received a number of temporary awards in this world for the scientific contributions he made through his MRI machine. He received a National Medal of Technology in 1988, was admitted into the National Inventors Hall of fame in 1989, he received a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2001, and received an Innovation Award in Bioscience in 2003.
We all have accomplishments that we can thank God for such as being good at certain subjects in school or being good at sports or our jobs. It could also be that we are good at raising children or helping others or serving our communities in some way.
There is so much more that we can accomplish in our lives and there are so many more dreams that we can fulfill if we include God in our lives and pray for His help as we live our lives. As long as God approves of our dreams, He will help us and when our lives in this world are over we can have something eternal that is so much greater than anything we could ever have here.
We should be like adventurers who go on a journey to find God and meet God so that after we confirm we found the way, we can make sure the ones we love can go this way as well. So they can also get God’s help in this world and so we can make sure they will have a better eternal existence in heaven later on. Even imperfect people can go to heaven. Through Jesus-anyone can.
This link goes to a website that lists the awards that Dr. Damadian has received.
https://www.mrimovie.ca/history.html
This is a link to a movie is about Dr. Damadian’s invention of the MRI machine.
https://www.mrimovie.ca/watch.html
Dr. Damadian makes a comment in the video about his certainty that human life could not have possibly come about by statistical chance: “To argue that, life came about, entirely by chance when you know the level of detail of biochemistry and physiology that us physicians know-that’s just an absurdity. I mean there’s no prospect when you look at the details, all the details of physiology that gives us life today came about by accident. It just doesn’t compute and if you look at it in detail you see there’s no evidence for that. There no way to look at the sophisticated physiology and anatomy of a living human being and to argue that it came about by statistical chance, and when you look at the evidence that it proceeded from statistical chance, which I’ve done in detail, it just doesn’t compute.”
Some Christians believe that the world isn’t very old and other Christians believe it is as old as many scientists say. They have different interpretations of scripture in this matter. My standpoint is that I am not sure how old it is, but I am sure that God created it, designed it, sustains it, and will end it someday. I also became sure over time about God’s words and Jesus Christ. I believe that secular scientists don’t really know how old the world is either because they revise their estimates as to how old the world is every so often. If they really knew, they wouldn’t need to revise their estimates. What if one day, secular scientists revise such estimates and decide the earth is younger rather than older? Since they keep revising. However old you believe the world is, I hope you believe that God created it and sent Jesus.
I met several men who scoffed at me and looked down on me because I believe in God. They thought I am a fool and one said something like “no one told you” (that there’s no God). He talked about the theory of the big bang as if to condescendingly talk down to me, thinking that he could easily prove through what he was saying that there is no God. I don’t remember the exact words that I responded to him with, but I said something like “if there was a big bang, where did the energy come from? Where did the matter come from?” He froze for a second and had no answer so he started talking about the theory of the big bang without addressing what I said. Then after he talked for a bit I said something like, “you believe that at some point in history a non-living thing became a living thing, but there hasn’t been a place or time when someone can say ‘look it happened again at the bottom of the ocean in 1968 or in a volcanic crater in 1983 and no one can recreate this in a laboratory.’” My point was that, in the whole wide world and in all human history, there are no proven examples of people having witnessed non-living things becoming living things. Because God created it all.
The guy who laughed at me the most said that I had a point about that and another one who previously laughed seemed interested and wanted to invite me to hang out with them (and talk more about this I guess), but I probably got a little unspiritual at that point and I wanted to work rather than hang out with them. But I prayed for them. Such conversations really shouldn’t be about ego and I prefer that they are not an argument. I think it should rather be an honest search for the truth-the truth which I already have, but which I am still learning more about. It’s totally fine with me if you all come to know more about God’s truths in the Bible than I do and it’s totally fine with me if you use those Biblical truths to find out more about the process by which God created everything.
The next testimony is about a marriage between two loving people who were very happy together until the husband committed an act of betrayal against his wife and they were both extremely upset. Without God’s help, this story would have ended in tragedy as a lot of marriages have. But after David (the husband) prayed to God in desperation, God helped his wife Lisa to forgive him, and helped him not to repeat the same mistake again. Then the marriage was restored and became even happier than it was before. Now he counsels other men about how to have a happy marriage.
Some people mistakenly think Christian faith is 'anti-women' because they are unaware of what the Bible actually teaches or they have been misguided by others. If everyone in the world (including Christians that don't live up to Biblical standards) strictly obeyed everything God commanded in the Bible there would be no rape, no domestic violence, no verbal abuse toward women, no sexual harassment, no sex trafficking, no pimps, no prostitutes, there would be no men to get women pregnant and then desert them, no men that hurt their wives by cheating on them, no men that are lazy and make their wives pay for everything, no men that aren't good father's and burden wives by making them the only rational/dedicated parent and there would be no unwanted stares that make women uncomfortable-it would be a whole a different world for women.
The problem is that people have a sinful nature and need to repent. Some are hurting women while living totally without God and others say they have God, but they didn’t let God change their hearts enough so they are not properly loving their wives in an romantic way and/or they're not loving everyone else (including women) in a Biblical way.
Women outnumber men in most of the Christian groups that I have seen. A lot of Churches ordain women Pastors and place women in other positions of leadership within Churches. Aimee Semple McPherson and Kathryn Kuhlman are two of the most famous preachers of the previous century and are both women. They undoubtedly did a lot not only for Christian women, but for other women as well. God exalted both of them to positions of great honor so that God Himself would be honored through them.
It’s good for God to be honored rather than despised by the way people mistreat others. Humans were made in the likeness of God’s image so to mistreat them is to disrespect God their creator.
At times, it’s the men who are mistreated by women. I met a man who said he was a “disease factory” because he had so many diseases, but he started to believe in Jesus and read the Bible and pray for 10 hours a day. I have met very few people who can pray that much. God healed him and gave him good health, but his wife hated Christians and hated him because of his Christian faith. He said she used to punch him in the face and say, “I want a divorce!” because he had become a Christian and was living as one. But he didn’t hit her back, he just smiled at her and treated her with kindness.
He continued to endure the bad treatment while he prayed earnestly for his wife. God answered his prayers and she started to believe in Jesus and even became a Bible study teacher and so they remained together in their marriage and God worked through them to help other people. God can repair relationships and change people’s hearts when we pray with faith and keep praying until we get an answer. Before we can pray and get an answer, we should get to know Jesus first so we enter into His New Covenant and have access to His promises about prayer. Entering a Church building or labeling yourself as a 'Christian' is not required for this. Only believing in Jesus Christ and then praying.
Any kind of abuse toward anyone is always wrong. We may not be guilty of domestic violence, but we are all guilty of abusing and mistreating other people on some levels. It’s easy to think about other people’s sins, but it may be hard to admit out own sins. God wants us to reflect on this, confess our sins to Him, and know that He is merciful and forgiving. Jesus died on the cross as an atoning sacrifice for the sins of all people in all nations and He died for your sins as well. If we were not sinners, He would not have had to be crucified and endure the pain, shame, and agony of the cross while He was surrounded by enemies. But He had to become an atoning sacrifice for sins so that we might have forgiveness, and so that upon receiving this forgiveness, and having our hearts touched by God again and again, He might change our hearts so that we treat other people much better.
This forgiveness and change in our hearts is tangible and real and we can see the evidence of it in the people’s lives we hear about in the videos posted on this page and in the lives of people who have experienced Jesus throughout the world. Past, and present included, there must be millions of such people-perhaps hundreds of millions. Many of these other millions of testimonies that are not included on this page, and many other testimonies that were never posted on the internet or that were lost in human history (yet, remembered by God) are likely to be even greater than the ones posted on this page. But all these testimonies which must number in the millions are actual accounts of people having experienced Jesus Christ-the One that God the Father told us to listen to and believe in. Jesus Christ who is the atoning sacrifice for our sins and the mediator between humans and God the Father.
I have been meeting people with similar testimonies about God’s forgiveness, His ability to change people’s hearts, His healing power, and His ability to answer prayers for years. They became certain that though Jesus died on the cross, He was raised from the dead and is rightfully Lord of all-though God lets us choose whether to accept Him as Lord or not. I hope you experience God too and are able to confirm all these things for yourself as you keep reading, watching videos and seeking God. On to the next incredible testimony.
Nikki Cruz lacked love as he grew up. He was brutally abused by his parents. When he was a child his father would lock him in a room full of pigeons and when Nikki would startle the pigeons they would fly all over the room and scare him and hurt him. His mother beat him many times and often to the point that she knocked him unconscious.
When Nikki was older he hit the streets of New York City as a hardened man-void of love and full of hate. Nikki spoke with an accent and reflected on those days and said, “I want(ed) to do to other(s) what my mother did to me-period. I want to know how it feels to get hurt (to hurt others). And I used to feel good when I used to hurt some people.” He became the leader of a notorious street gang called the Mau Maus. Nikki was so violent, vicious, and dangerous that even most of the other youths in gangs were afraid of him and he was well known in the area.
A skinny country preacher had come to some of the roughest neighborhoods in New York City to preach about God’s love, forgiveness, and Jesus Christ under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. This preacher’s name was David Wilkerson.
Nikki heard Pastor Wilkerson preaching somewhere down the street from where he was. He went over to see what this country boy was preaching about and what he was doing. It was something that didn’t ordinarily happen in this neighborhood. He heard the preacher saying loudly, “God can change your life right now!” A lot of youths from local gangs were around Pastor Wilkerson on the street listening to him. Nikki got very angry at the preacher and shouted back at him, “You shut up! There’s no God! We are the people! We got the power! And nobody can come and penetrate us! So get out of this neighborhood!” Nikki pushed his way through the crowd and got right in Pastor Wilkerson’s face. He said to him, “You! Skinny! What chu doin here!” Then Nikki slapped him, spit on him, and cursed him with all kinds of bad language. I think that during the course of this interaction between the two of them or perhaps because of 'street fame' Pastor Wilkerson came to know Nikki's name so that he could address him by name.
He thought the country preacher would be too scared to speak because of his threatening actions, but the preacher said to Nikki. “I came over here Nikki to give you a message from heaven. Nikki Jesus loves you.” Nikki looked at him and thought, ‘what’s a matter with this guy?’ He pushed the preacher back and the preacher said, “Kill me if that’s gonna make you feel good. Kill me in front of these people. I know you can do it-do it!” Nikki was really taken back and surprised because no one had ever told him, “kill me.” He thought, ‘this guy’s spooky.’ Nikki recalls what the preacher said, “you go ahead, you can kill me (cut me) in 1,000 pieces and you can put those pieces right there on the street, but remember every piece (is) going to cry out ‘Jesus love you Nikki!”
These words probably sound strange to us at first glance, but Nikki said what happened there really changed the atmosphere and the preacher 'got into his head.' I believe that God had given Pastor Wilkerson the right words to say in order to reach Nikki as well as the boldness to preach there and say those words. Was anyone helping those youths in gangs as well as that preacher in those days? Probably not! I know from studying David Wilkerson’s ministry that he preached to youths in gangs for decades and yet God kept him safe.
After Nikki heard the comment, “you can cut me into a 1,000 pieces and put those pieces right on the street, but remember every piece is going to cry out Jesus loves you” and the meeting dispersed, the thought of Jesus love was in Nikki’s mind for a while even as he fought other gangs and continued living the gangster life.
The preacher continued trying to help youths in gangs. He had invited 12 rival gangs to a place where large meetings could be held and had somehow (through God’s assistance) gotten them to show up since he had already miraculously befriended some members of the gangs. There was about 2,000 people there. Nikki showed up at the meeting with his gang and was disruptive at first. A young girl was singing a Christian song before the crowd and Nikki held a joint up toward her and taunted her, “Here baby! Smoke this! You will able to sing better!” She dropped the microphone and Pastor Wilkerson picked it up.
Nikki said that he was ready to fight the other gangs, but someway somehow God helped David Wilkerson and they didn’t fight. As the meeting went on, Nikki and those around him were somehow influenced by some unseen power as Pastor Wilkerson preached, “Jesus died for you!” Niki was surprised to feel moved by what he heard and he realized that he had never really heard about Jesus. Nikki wasn’t expecting what happened next. He got down on his knees as if some unseen force had influenced him to do it. He saw his friend kneeling and crying then he found himself feeling moved in his heart by God as well. He thought to himself, ‘this is impossible! I don’t believe in this! But I am doing it!?’ He said that night, “Jesus Christ came into my heart and changed me” he said that “Jesus Christ showed me his love, he died for me, I didn’t know who He was.” Nikki said he told God at that time “I don’t know how to love. I’m full of hate. Help me Jesus!” Nikki also said, “If you love me, help me, I don’t know what’s going on.” Then Nikki gave his life to Jesus Christ and repented for his sins.
I think that sometimes God does things in such a manner that we can know He is the one who did it. If people open up to someone, it’s usually to people who are similar to them. The same age, from the same neighborhood, of a similar background, ect. But here is this skinny, country preacher in heart of New York City reaching thousands of youth gangsters. Who else but God could do that?
Nikki exchanged his weapon for a Bible and left his life of violence. He’s spent decades helping violent youths to repent of their ways and to know God’s love. His mother and father accepted Jesus and repented and the three of them were reconciled through the changing power of God’s love. They became a family.
Nikki worked with Pastor David Wilkerson for a while and then went on to start his own ministry. The book, “The Cross and the Switchblade” is full of amazing testimonies of people like Nikki-these testimonies were brought about by God through the ministry of Pastor David Wilkerson and those who worked with him. They started Time Square Church and Teen Challenge.
I hope you download the audiobook and listen to it on your phone or read the paperback version or watch the free movie on Youtube, but the book is better than the movie.
Through this ministry, thousands of youths that were hopelessly addicted to heroin and other hard drugs have been freed from their addictions, people who grew up in abusive and broken homes have been healed of their emotional pain and trauma, violent youths have learned the way of peace, and so many other good works have been done through David Wilkerson, Nikki Cruz, and their coworkers. But none of these things would have been possible without God’s help so let’s give glory to God about these things. You can watch the movie, “The Cross and the Switchblade” for free on Youtube,
www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWA5BNIz7dM&t=3390s
Or you can click that link or just search on Youtube for ‘The Cross and the Switchblade Full Movie’. This book (or movie) and others like them are proof of God’s existence and of His great love-even for sinners.
God knows it was the devil who taught us to behave wickedly, whereas Jesus the Son of God taught us to behave righteously. Jesus also gave us a chance to experience the power of God’s love so that we automatically behave more righteously.
Children will be happier and grow up better and live better when they are loved. And not just children, but also young adults, adults, the middle-aged, and the elderly. Human-beings naturally crave love and tend to become emotionally-withdrawn or mean when they are not loved. There is no love in this world like God’s love. It’s not ordinary human love-it’s God’s devine measureless love. That’s the love that effected Nikki Cruz so deeply. God welcomes each one of us to experience this great love and to love others with this love.
Ephesians 3:16-18 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ,
Jeremiah 31:3 “…I have loved you with an everlasting love…”
Romans 5:8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
The next verse took place as Jesus hung on the cross. Luke 23:34
Jesus said, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing." And they divided up his clothes by casting lots.
John 3:16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
1 John 4:9-12 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
We can experience God’s love by knowing about His love for us (through scripture) to the point that we start to love Him and live our lives with Him. As we live our lives with Him we will be able to see how He is helping us and know that He is doing it because He loves us. Living in this situation more and more deeply over time will enable us to love other people (who really need love) in a way that we would never have been able to love had we not included God in our lives. Let’s choose to include God in our lives by continuing to read through these webpages, watching the videos, meeting together with people who already know God to discuss God’s love, studying the Bible, praying, and seeking God.
Some of you might be wondering if people are really changed by knowing about Jesus or if they just changed themselves. So I’m going to share with you the most extreme example of a man that God changed that I have ever heard of so as to settle the matter and put any doubts to rest. The way he was before he knew Jesus and the way he became after could hardly be more different. If you can’t handle hearing about gory things, skip this testimony and go on to the next one about Reinhard Bonnke. This testimony is a true story, but starts off as though it’s a horror movie. Some people had to live in places where life is like a horror movie (certain parts of certain countries at certain times)...
The next testimony is about Joshua Newton Blahyi. A man who’s story is so incredible that it’s been featured on various mainstream media outlets such as the BBC, PBS, VICE, and others. Who is the most evil person you can think of? A serial killer? Hitler? Vlad the Impaler? A ruthless warlord?
Joshua Blahyi was a ruthless warlord. He was known for leading murderous raids against rival tribes and against innocent people while he used machine guns and other weapons. During these raids, women were raped, people were tortured, brutalized, and murdered. He also became a religious leader in his tribe and according to their religion, they sacrificed children and ate their body parts which they believed pleased their deity and gave them power. He was a well-known warlord who was feared far and wide in Liberia.
The wars in Liberia during those days plunged much of the country into a hellish situation and in response a group of Christian Pastors gathered to pray against the war. As they prayed, they somehow felt moved, not just to pray against the war, but to pray for the infamous Joshua Newton Blahyi to repent. These Pastors were arrested several times for praying for Joshua Blahyi because they were staying in an area that was controlled by a rival tribe that was at odds with Joshua’s tribe. The Pastors were imprisoned because they were praying for an enemy. But God answered their prayers.
Joshua Blahyi testified that one day he had a vision in which he saw Jesus appear to him in light that was so bright that he could not look directly at him. Among the things Jesus said to him in the vision he said, “…repent and live or refuse and die...” Joshua heard this in his own language and he was shocked and confused by the vision. He didn’t know who the man in the vision was at first. A series of miraculous events followed, his gun jammed up in a very strange way while he was trying to use it and he said it was the first time that he was scared. Christians were somehow able to walk up to Joshua’s house right past his guards without being stopped. While at his house, they prayed for him and told him about Jesus. For some reason Joshua didn’t harm them whereas he ordinarily would have.
Eventually, Joshua Blahyi believed in Jesus Christ and repented for his horrendous sins. I’m sure that his repentance was sincere because of the drastic changes that took place in his heart and in his life. He said later before a Church, “At the age of 11 I was initiated as a priest of my tribe. I did a lot of human sacrifices, killed a lot of innocent people. Now I know I was wrong. But thank God He extended His mercy to me in Jesus Christ.” Before he knew Jesus, he made the wrong choices in life. Perhaps it’s important to acknowledge that he was raised in such a manner that he was taught to intimidate, murder, pillage, rape, sacrifice, and do horrible things. But he still had a choice and seemed to choose to be even worse than his predecessors in his tribe. However, that didn’t stop God from changing his heart and causing this man who was previously so evil to change drastically and dedicate his life to helping others.
The TRC is an organization in Liberia that has a special committee that was later set up to investigate the causes of the war. Hundreds of other generals (or former generals; I think the leaders of the violent warring tribes were called generals) refused to admit their crimes and refused to go before the TRC. Joshua Newton Blahyi was the first former general to go before the TRC and confess his crimes. Patrick Dorbor is a counselor to former combatants in Liberia. He commented about Joshua going to the TRC meeting: “I was saying that Joshua would not really go the TRC. Let us see whether this guy will actually take the strength to testify about what he did. I mean it as something amazing you know. And this is what we need because we have a whole lot of people around here who hurt us and they are not willing to say sorry.”
Every camera from every television station in Liberia as well some international stations were on Joshua during the TRC meeting as he was questioned by the counsel that was set up and Joshua responded to their questions (it’s on youtube). An official asked him while he was on camera, “Can you give us maybe an estimate of civilian casualties? How many civilians do you think lost their lives as a direct result of acts committed at the time?” Joshua responded, “If I were to calculate. If you’re talking about April 6th or throughout the war. Every evil act I have done. It should not be less than 20,000” As I watched the video of him admitting this before the TRC, I could hear people in the background responding to what he said by gasping, reacting in shock and with a lot of loud talking to each other. A person comes on the microphone and asks everyone to quiet down.
Gerald Colman TLC commissioner talked about this comment and said, “The fact that he made that statement. I saw it as him expressing his deep responsibility for a process that led to the deaths of these kinds of people.” Joshua said that he was ready for whatever the TRC would decide to do to him. “I could be electrocuted. I could be hanged.” He said.
I’ve heard it suggested that, some in Liberia think that if all the former generals who are guilty of war crimes are prosecuted, there is concern that fighting will erupt in Liberia again and cause more suffering. As it turned out, the TRC recommended amnesty for Joshua Blahyi rather than recommending to turn him over to a war crimes court. It may be because they thought amnesty would be a better choice to prevent another war or it could be because there is so much evidence that Joshua’s character has changed and they thought their country needed that kind of change in people who were previously so violent and terrible. Perhaps they thought that granting him amnesty would encourage others to change rather than to start fighting again among warlords who might fight to prevent being arrested and tried for war crimes. Joshua is now dedicated to doing good in Liberia and has been doing so for years.
Whatever the reason for the TRC’s decision, Joshua faced up to what he had done and has been granted amnesty so far. Joshua Blahyi said, “I went to the TRC because I wanted to reconcile with my country or be free of my conscience…they recommended amnesty for me.”
Outside of the TRC Joshua has been apologizing to people whose lives were harmed because of what he did. He’s taken in adults who were once child soldiers and used to be his enemies and helped feed them and helped them learn to be peaceful. He’s been helping people who were trained in violence all over Liberia to change and become peaceful. He’s been helping Liberians to get an education, get medical care, and get other kinds of much needed help in their lives. He introduces them to Jesus and encourage them to repent and start doing what’s right for themselves and for other Liberians. None of this would have happened had he not been given an opportunity by Jesus to repent and change.
Unfortunately, Liberia has lacked the civility and stability that most other African nations have enjoyed. According to VICE (news): “Liberia is the 4th poorest country in the world, 50% of the people are illiterate, 70% of the women have been raped, 80% of the population is unemployed, and a large percentage of the population has eaten human flesh.” So when a very evil man like Joshua Blahyi repents and leads others to repent it drastically improves things in a place where such improvements are so needed. Joshua Blahyi said, “One thing that I am sure of. I am convinced that I am called of God’s own purpose.” Liberia is a country that is still struggling, but is much better off because of people like Joshua Blahyi. That is, because of people who changed and are like the way he is today. Perhaps Jesus also wanted to show everyone an example of how much He can change a person.
After Joshua renounced the deity (god) of his tribe, renounced his former religion that involved human sacrifice, became a Christian, and went before the TRC, his tribe started trying to kill him. I think this is additional evidence that Joshua’s newfound faith in Jesus and the change in his heart is sincere. Because he was willing to risk his life over and over and die for his new faith.
Joshua later commented that his tribe had been trying to kill him for 14 years, but God protected him. He said they made close to 140 attempts on his life, but God protected him every time. After so many attempts on his life failed, in 2010, his tribe sent elders that came to him and said, “we see that you are protected and we need protection so come back to us as our priest of our deity” (they thought this would enable them to be protected as well as Joshua was protected). Joshua refused because he could never accept their deity or the old evil ways again. So they asked him to bring the new God (Jesus) so they would be protected and Joshua agreed to do so. He didn’t respond to them by saying, ‘You tried to kill me and I hate you so no! Because this once evil man had his heart changed by God.
Almost Joshua’s whole tribe believed in Jesus. Joshua Blahyi explained how Christian faith is different from their previous religion: ‘you don’t have to put a mark on your children, you don’t have to be a cannibal, you don’t have to sacrifice your children for this God (the God of the Bible), He sacrificed Himself for you (Jesus).’ They responded to Joshua, “It’s that simple? That’s all? That’s what’s been protecting you all these years? And we will all be protected?” Joshua said “yes.” Almost the whole tribe renounced their deity (their god) and accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and God.
I believe there are some similarities between what happened to Joshua Blahyi and what happened to the apostle Paul in the Bible. Their lives were different, but the way they met Jesus was similar.
Many of the books in the New Testament in the Bible written by the apostle Paul. Before God guided Paul as to what to write in those books, Paul was persecuting Christians and trying to destroy the Church and on his way to drag Christian men and women off to prison. It was then that Jesus appeared to Paul and spoke to him in a vision.
In Acts 26:13-18 Paul explains what happened when Jesus appeared to one of the regional kings in the Roman Empire while Paul was in court before this king.
Acts 26:13-18:
About noon, King Agrippa, as I was on the road, I saw a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, blazing around me and my companions. We all fell to the ground, and I heard a voice saying to me in Aramaic, ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’
“Then I asked, ‘Who are you, Lord?’
“ ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,’ the Lord replied. ‘Now get up and stand on your feet. I have appeared to you to appoint you as a servant and as a witness of what you have seen and will see of me. I will rescue you from your own people and from the Gentiles. I am sending you to them to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’
Again, that was a passage from the book fo Acts in the Bible.
Notice that Joshua Blahyi said Jesus appeared to him in a light that was so bright that he could not look at him, but that he could hear him in his own language. Both Paul and Joshua went before a court, both were protected, both believed in Jesus and repented and changed. There is quite a difference between who they were attacking before they knew Jesus and their former deeds, but there are a lot of similarities as to their experience with Jesus. There are also a lot of similarities between Christians who testify that they experienced Jesus in their lives. I have been hearing about these similar testimonies for years and experiencing them myself. People who have experienced God testify that the details of their experiences match what's written in Biblical scripture. That’s why I am typing this up for you so you can confirm all this through own experiences with Jesus.
We are almost certainly not like Joshua Blahyi and probably not much like Paul either, but we experience the same Jesus that they did today-in this day and age no matter what country we live in.
Hebrews 13:8 “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.”
Joshua Newton Blahhyi deserved to die for his crimes many times over, but how many less children would be sacrificed because he repented and changed and helped others repent and change? How many less people were murdered? How much less likely was another war to be? Since Joshua accepted Jesus and later almost his whole tribe did; and later a lot of people all over Liberia through him and those he spoke to. The Pastors had prayed for an end to the war and for repentance and this was the result. It’s probably not how we would have wanted Joshua Blahyi to be handled, but it worked out far better than if we had been the ones to decide what should have happened to him.
Throughout history since Jesus came, sincere Christians have been used by God to start movements of repentance that drastically improved people’s living conditions, their deeds toward each other, and their relationship with God.
Surely Joshua Blahyi became a sincere Christian. Some others were not sincere Christians. But God is not to blame for insincere Christians since He told them what to do and they did something else. They have to give an account for their stubbornness when they go before God for judgement after they die.
When Joshua Blahyi went before the TRC, it seemed that whether or not he would be prosecuted and sentenced to death by the courts was not his main concern, but rather that since he came to know Jesus-that he would do what’s right from then on. Part of doing what’s right meant admitting his crimes. The Bible says that God is a righteous judge who punishes every act of unrighteousness (that isn’t forgiven) and rewards every act of righteousness. Yet, on earth He gives people a chance to repent and to believe in Jesus for the forgiveness of all their sins. Joshua said that Jesus told him in the vision, “…repent and live or refuse and die…” so it seems that one way or another God was about to put an end to all of his evil deeds that terrorized innocent people. Those Pastors prayers against the war and about Joshua Blahyi were going to be answered one way or another. It's interesting that even though God is Almighty, He lets individual people decide whether or not to believe in Him. He also lets individual people decide whether or not to allow Him to direct the course of their lives into more righteous paths. Bible/Psalms 23:3"...He leads me in paths of righteousness..."
Some may have mixed feelings about Joshua Blahyi, but letting Joshua repent and live has not been for nothing. People who know Joshua testify that his heart and his character have drastically changed. He has been helping to provide for the needs of people who used to be his enemies and teach them and numerous other former combatants to be peaceful and not violent, to treat people well, and he teaches them about faith in Jesus Christ.
Therefore, because he repented and lived there is so much less violence, so much less poverty, so much less suffering in individual lives. I think if it had been up to most people, he would have been jailed for life or executed for his former war crimes, but God’s ways are better than ours. Joshua Newton Blahyi is determined to spend the rest of his life helping people in Liberia and letting people know what Jesus can do in their lives. If Jesus can forgive him, Jesus can forgive anyone, but God demands we repent and stop our evil deeds. God will never accept things like murder.
Surely, Joshua doesn’t deserve to be forgiven or to go to heaven or to be a servant of God. But what we should know is that God is totally holy, righteous, and without sin so from God’s perspective none of us deserves to be completely forgiven or to go to perfect heaven or to become children of God because none of us are completely without sin. God simply gives us eternal life, our status as His adopted children, and a place in heaven as a gift that we don’t deserve. We tend to think we are righteous because we compare ourselves with other people, but if we really get to know God and compare ourselves with Him it becomes clear that we have all sinned, none of us are worthy, and we all need forgiveness. This is God’s grace and we receive it in humility. We receive this grace by believing in Jesus-the one that God the Father sent. That might sound too simple, but when we understand what it means to believe in Jesus in greater detail it makes sense.
John 6:28-29: Then they asked him, “What must we do to do the works God requires?” Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”
Mark 9:7 Then a cloud appeared and covered them, and a voice came from the cloud: "This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him!"
Luke 18:9-14 To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’ “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”
Ephesians 2:8-9 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.
John 1:12 “Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God“
God gives us His grace as a gift and after receiving it He wants us to be changed and do good works. The natural result of having received God’s grace is a changed heart and doing good works.
Matthew 3:8 “Prove by the way you live that you have repented of your sins and turned to God.”
Peter had denied that he knew Jesus even though he was one of Jesus’ disciples It's because Peter was afraid. Peter was pretending not to know Jesus when Jesus was betrayed and brought to court, and soon to be crucified. But Jesus forgave Peter later, had a calling on Peter’s life, and worked through Peter to reach so many people and help so many people.
Peter preached about Jesus Christ (Christ means messiah in Greek) to people who were probably part of the rowdy mob that shouted that Jesus should be crucified even though the Roman governor who had the legal authority to crucify him said to the crowd and corrupt priests, “why? What crime has he committed?” before the governor was pressured into crucifying Jesus. But Jesus even had mercy on those who crucified Him because Jesus sent Peter out to preach forgiveness to the very ones who sinned against Him-had crucified Him.
Acts 2:36-39 “Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah.” When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.”
Surely God was showing His mercy and love by giving Peter these words to say.
We didn’t do anything nearly as bad as what Joshua Newton Blahyi did, but God still wants us to repent for whatever wrong we did and receive His forgiveness and grace which should change our hearts and cause us to do good works. We receive Jesus and forgiveness by faith alone and not by our good deeds, but if we have really received Him-our hearts should be changed and this should cause us to do good works that God prepared for us to do. That’s how the gospel of Jesus Christ is meant to make the world a better place and to please to God and achieve a greater reward for us in heaven.
The video below is an excerpt from a TV show where the host is discussing whether or not Joshua Blahyi should have a chance at redemption with a professor, an author, and two film makers who made a movie about Joshua Newtwon Blahyi. His nickname before his Christian life was “General Butt Naked” so sometimes he is referred to by that nickname.
The next testimony is quite different than the previous two and is perhaps the strongest testimony in reference to experiencing God in modern times that I have ever heard of.
Reinhard Bonnke started with a small dream that grew and reached over 80,000,000 people. He wanted people to know that God loves them and he teamed up with various Christian organizations, local Churches, and individual Christians to help achieve this dream (mostly in African countries, but in other countries as well). Though he faced great opposition, death threats, overly religious Christians, and trials along the way, he eventually went on to hold large Christian meetings where hundreds of thousands of people gathered-at one such meeting in Lagos, Nigeria there were roughly 1.6 million people attending.
As Reinhard preached about Jesus during these meetings, God healed blind people, deaf people, crippled people, and people with all kinds of health problems by the thousands.
Reinhard also said that he thinks God gave us medical knowledge to help us and he was not against people going to see doctors, but bear in mind that there are still a lot of conditions that medical science can’t heal and there are a lot of people who can’t afford medical care or don’t have access to it.
God can heal the same way that He did in the Bible and He does. God certainly healed thousands through these meetings and perhaps tens of thousands or more. Also, God is glorified through these miraculous healings and many have a stronger relationship with God because of them. However, Reinhard said that telling people about salvation (eternal life) was the main point. God’s healing power was an important part of what went on during these meetings, but was it was not the main point. Even if our bodies get healed, they can never last forever. But if we can be sure that our sins are forgiven and we have a place in heaven-it’s forever.
The ongoing reputation of sick people being healed during these meetings was upheld for decades and continued to draw more and more people to the meetings. This is because the healing miracles are authentic and even though Reinhard passed away at the age of 79 in 2019, God is continuing to move to gather large crowds and heal the sick through the younger man whom Reinhard had take over the ministry years before he passed away. The name of the younger man is Daniel Kolenda whom we can see in a previous video that I posted on this page about the deaf man from Ghana who was healed.
God worked through Reinhard’s life to change Africa and the world so much that when he died, secular media stations covered his death and mentioned how much he had changed Africa. He risked his life over and over again to help people and to preach because he was a very sincere man of God.
The video below features Reinhard Bonnke describing how a President Gnassingbe Eyadema (of Togo) had one of his aids call Reinhard and invited him for lunch. The president invited him because one of his distant relatives (a little girl who was born deaf and dumb) was healed and able to hear and speak after attending one of the large meetings where Reinhard preached about Jesus the night before. There was a discussion there about miraculous healing between Reinhard, the president, and a Catholic Bishop who was attending.
The president invited Reinhard into an adjacent room and told him, “Reverend Bonnke, when I have problems to solve and I cannot solve them, I’m coming into this office. And that’s why I have taken you here.” Reinhard Bonnke answered, “Oh, Mr. President, I don’t know if you noticed, but when I walked through that door I was in the company of the one who solves every problem. And his name is Jesus!” Reinhard Bonnke described what happened there in this video. This account as well as many others are featured in his autobiography which is entitled “Living a Life of Fire” (The book provides more detail; Part 3-Track 38)
Reinhard was friends with a number of African Presidents who had asked him for political advice on certain occasions and some of whom had made sure that he had all the permits necessary for the large meetings. According to an article from the New York Times, President Muhammadu Bahari of Nigeria made a statement on Twitter that Mr. Bonnke’s death was a loss to “Nigeria, Africa and the entire world.” Reinhard Bonnke’s autobiography is one most incredible books I have ever encountered in my life. It contains so many incredible accounts including preaching and helping people in spite of numerous life-threatening situations such as a crowd he was a part of being pelted with stones, assassins targeting him, torrential rain and dangerous lightening, and a lot more. I’m sure he was an authentic servant of God, but he would want us to fix our eyes on Jesus rather than on him because without Jesus he couldn’t have helped anyone at all.
God was always his source of victory and strength. I suggest you listen to his autobiography from about half way through because the latter half is way more interesting than the first. The first half of the book contains info about his childhood and early life which wasn’t as interesting.
Through knowledge of God in the Bible our lives can become very significant and interesting. God will accept any of us if we are willing to accept Him. I strongly suggest you download Reinhard Bonnke’s autobiography which again is called, “Living a Life of Fire” which was written and read by the man himself. You can download it as an audiobook on your phone or read the paperback version. I couldn’t find the second half of the book on Youtube, but I did find this great story you can listen to in the video below. In it, a young man who was only 17 years old showed how eager for God he was by tracking down Reinhard Bonnke on a distant road and asking him to lay hands on him and pray for him to receive the Holy Spirit. God had a calling on the young man’s life and after he received the Holy Spirit he went back to his village and God started using the young man to heal the sick and preach about Jesus. The tribal elder in the area heard about the miracles God was doing through this young man named David and told everyone to listen to him.
On to the next testimony which is about a women who became famous after God saved her from suicide.
Lacy Sturm grew up without a father and experienced a lot of emotional pain during her adolescent life. Her little cousin had been beaten to death by his step father and she went through so many other things that made her angry and depressed. Eventually she decided that she didn’t want to “do life anymore” and planned to commit suicide on a certain day.
On that day, her Christian grandmother sensed that something was wrong and insisted that Lacy go to Church. Lacy hesitated strongly, but the grandmother insisted and Lacy decided to just go and sit in the Church as a way of ending their heated argument. While she was in the Church, God began helping her. The Pastor sensed that “there is a suicidal spirit in the room” and he said so before everyone in the Church. Soon another Church member began to talk to Lacy and Lacy was very surprised during the conversation because he knew things about her that he could not have known (obviously stuff they couldn’t have known through the grandmother). God knows everything and can reveal things to his servants that have certain spiritual gifts and/or God-given spiritual sensitivity for God to work through. Lacy was surprised that people in that Church knew things about her that they could not have known and she allowed a man to pray for her which caused her to have a powerful experience with God at that time (and more followed) through which she decided not to kill herself and she found joy, purpose, strength, and a desire to live. She wrote in a song, “finally she knows how to smile and love life…finally she knows how to believe in Jesus”.
When she got older, she went on to start a family and produced hard rock style Christian music for which she received two Grammy nominations and became the first solo female artist to top the ‘Billboard Hard Rock Albums’. She has a beautiful voice and has produced Christian worship songs as well. She also helps fight against sex trafficking and firmly believes that we can reduce the number of victims.
God can take a broken person and make that person into a vessel of honor. Lacy describes her experience with God in the video below as she talks to a large crowd at a concert.
On to the final testimony which you might be able to identify with more than some of the previous ones. Kirby is very special and capable, but perhaps not so unusual.
Kirby’s father was in New York City during the attacks against the World Trade Center. In the aftermath of this disaster, her father became depressed and this eventually led to Kirby’s parents getting divorced. In addition to all this, Kirby had to uproot and move to a new place with her mother where she was bullied and found out that her father had recently died.
She had insecurities and thought that she wasn’t pretty enough or smart enough and that no one loved her. She blamed God for the tragedies in her life and for taking her father from her and she hated God. Yet, God still loved her. When her anger toward God started to subside to a degree, she decided to continue attending a Christian camp that she had been attending for a while.
While at this camp during the Summer before high school, she was worshiping God and she felt what she said, there was no way to describe except as “euphoria” and she said she felt “like the Holy Spirit took over my body.” While having this experience she felt as if her and God were communicating. She was telling God how deeply upset and in pain she was inside and that she hated her life and built up a barrier in her heart because she doesn’t trust anyone anymore. Then, she felt that God wanted her to give Him all that pain and sorrow, but she hesitated and told God that she doesn’t trust Him. But she felt that God was letting her know that evil is not from Him-evil is at the fault of humanity. He is not the one that has been hurting her and He has been there for her the whole time. He is love. So Kirby opened her heart and deeply accepted Jesus and felt very joyful and happy as a result. God healed her pain and helped her with her depression and she found that the more she served God and spent time with God the happier she was. She realized that part of the reason why Jesus came and suffered was to take her pain and sadness away. She doesn’t claim to have had a perfect life every moment since then, but she insisted that she was broken and now her life is so much better, and she is so happy when she serves God.
You don’t stop having trouble when you believe in Jesus because you are still in the world and in a physical body, but you have ongoing help from God according to your measure of faith in God’s words. Faith comes from seeking to experience God as you study His words. God’s words are not just about knowledge-they are about power. They have the power to connect us to God and do all the things they promise to do. God’s words are powerful. An electric device seems to be dead until you plug it in and turn it on and then ‘Wow! Look at that!’. You may pick up the Bible and feel like there is no power in it, but when you start to believe it by the Holy Spirit-Wow!
These are two comments from Kirby: “I know our finite minds cannot comprehend like an infinite God and it might be scary to trust Him and everything, but-‘best decision of my life’-He won’t keep any good thing from you.” “I just encourage you all to seek Him. He wants you to desire to seek Him to have a relationship with him and then he will reveal Himself to you. I hope through this you realize like that God is not evil; that God is love. We don’t have to be perfect to come to God. We can be a broken mess. He wants the pieces back together and (He) clean(s) us up. And he wants to help us become who He created us to be…”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8uStTjovsY&t=574s
Kirby is a young women that has a vibrant upbeat personality that I think would appeal to a lot of teenagers and young adults. Perhaps her personality might appeal to some of you parents or grandparents as well because you might have kids or grandkids like her. She made a lot of funny Christian videos on her Youtube channel and she has become truly great at preaching sermons. You can go to Youtube and search for “kirbyisaboss”.
God worked through young people in the Bible such as Joseph (in Genesis), Jeremiah, and Mary (also Joash who was only 7 years old when he became king of Judah and he still did a good job as king over the next 40 years). God also worked through the middle-aged people such as Jacob and Mordecai and older people like Moses and Abraham. No one is useless to God or not loved by God. These who are mentioned in the Bible are not imaginary people, but are as real as the historically verified people who are also mentioned in the Bible such King Xerxes, King Cyrus, and King Darius who once ruled over the vast Persian Empire while the Jews were exiled there. In fact, an archeologist used information from the Bible to help him find the ancient city of Troy. But we use the Bible to get in touch with God which is more important than finding ancient cities. That’s what Kirby did and I hope that’s what we can all do. I mean, Kirby did not find an ancient city-she found Jesus (haha).
The world is filled with Christians who have testimonies about how they came to know God and experience Him in their lives. Only a few of these testimonies are listed here. I don’t think that all the libraries in the world (yes, physical libraries still exist for now) could hold all the testimonies of how God revealed Himself in people’s lives.
I’d like to ask you to boldly and sincerely pray this prayer with as much faith as you can:
“God if you are real, and what the Bible says about Jesus is true, please open my eyes and reveal that to me so that I can be sure. If Jesus is really the Son of God, and He really died on the cross for everyone and for me-so that everyone’s sins could be forgiven and so that my sins could be forgiven please let me know so that I can thank Him for what He did for me. It wouldn’t be right to not say thank you. If Jesus was really raised from the dead, and is in heaven now where He has prepared a place for me, please let me know so that I can be sure. If you, God our Father, in your wisdom, made Jesus Lord of all and King of Kings then let me humbly accept the choice you made and accept Jesus as my Lord as well. People have ways of choosing leaders in this world, if you choose Jesus to rightfully be the leader of all people and my leader--my Lord--please let me know. Help me keep growing in my knowledge about Jesus and what He did for me and help me to experience you so that I have my own testimony. Please show me that you love me and please help me to love you. Please forgive me for not believing in you even though you died for me and please forgive me for all the times when I hurt other people and did wrong. Please let me be sure that all my sins are wiped out and that you don’t remember them anymore and please help me to be a better person. You can surely answer this whole prayer. Thank you God.”
If you prayed that and believed in any in what you were saying at all, then I believe your soul has already been touched by God (better if you believed in a lot of it or all of it). You may feel God’s presence already, but if you don’t, you can soon and you can experience Him in other ways.
Well, what now?
Let’s continue seeking God. Let’s not leave a project unfinished. Let’s keep learning more about God and keep experiencing God.
Our body has needs, and our souls also has needs. You are going to keep feeding your body-I hope you will keep feeding your soul as well.
How do I do that (you may ask)?
God our creator made us in such a manner that our bodies benefit from physical food and our souls benefit from God’s words.
Mathew 4:4 Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
As I said earlier, men and women (mankind) live on God’s words. That’s why we read in the Bible that sometimes Jesus focused on sharing God’s words with women and healing them and sometimes he did so with men. Because that’s what Matthew 4:4 means.
So let’s keep studying God’s words and confirm that they are true.
The Holy Spirit is the invisible Spirit of truth and we will need His help to be able see that God’s words are true. We will also need His help to ‘have eyes to see’ (as Jesus said Matthew 13:14-17) what God’s words really mean. This is why some Churches disagree with each other, because they failed to understand God’s words by the Holy Spirit. Yet, a lot of Churches do agree with each other-especially about the most important topics. There are many restaurants, but most of them do either a decent job or an excellent job of serving food. I would like to think that about Christian Churches as well.
You aren’t likely to make it spiritually without help. A soldier that goes off to fight a war alone won’t do as well as one that goes as a part of a group. The better the group he or she goes with, the better his or her chances. There are many examples in life where a group is much better off than just one individual. You can keep your own perspective and question things as much as you want, but don’t go it alone (and shift to God’s perspective as you examine it and confirm it to be true).
Therefore, I urge you to participate regularly in meetings at a good-quality local Church near you (and/or Christian Club on your Campus if you are a College student).
The instructions below guide you to a page on this website that is there to help you find a good-quality local Church (and/or College Christian Club) and to choose wisely. There will probably be more than one for you to choose from depending on where you live. If you click on (or tap on depending on what device you are using) the main navigation bar of this website where it says "Lots of Info" and then click on "How to Find a Local Church" you will see this helpful document. But I strongly recommend that you finish reading this part of this website first because important things that pertain to your spiritual life are written below. These things can greatly contribute to your spiritual survival, spiritual health, and spiritual growth.
I really thank God that you took as much time as you did so far to read through all this and to watch the videos. I also thank God for what He did in the lives of the people mentioned above and for what He can do in your life if you keep seeking Him and check out some good-quality Christian meetings.
I strongly suggest that in addition to joining a local Church (and/or club), that you keep studying the Bible and study some Christian books that I am about to recommend to you.
You can download an audio Bible called “The Bible Experience” on your phone and it should automatically save the place where you left off and start there again the next time you start listening. Your smartphone may already have an app for audiobooks. This version of the Audio Bible is read by celebrities like Samuel L. Jackson and they did an excellent job. You might be surprised how many celebrities were willing to get involved in this Bible project. I have often found this version much easier to listen to than other versions of the audio Bible. It’s only a few US dollars for each Bible book that you can download individually (the Bible contains 66 individual books). I suggest you download John, Acts, and Romans first. If you click on the link below you should be able to listen to the whole book of Acts on on Youtube. Sorry it’s divided up, but it seems that the full version is not available on Youtube right now and neither is John or Romans in this version read by these celebrities with such cool voices.
The link below goes to the Bible book called Acts (Chapters 1-5)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnITHARWm9g
The link below goes to Acts (Chapter 6-10)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wf7wfELaKls
*Sorry I can’t find a video of 11-15, but you can read it online free or listen to other versions like this one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwkVuRc3Sa0
Acts 11 (start at 54:08 and stop at 1:18:26 which is the end of Chapter 15)
The link below is Acts 16-20. The same version as the first two on this list.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtjA5Gtop1Y&t=4s
The link below is Acts 21-28. The same version as the previous one and the first two.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6o3q8P2754
There are plenty of other Audio Bible recordings in the NIV Bible or NJKV Bible for John or Romans or other books...
I also suggest that you buy an actual Bible and read it. You don’t have to plug it in or pay for electricity (haha). You can decorate the cover any respectful way that you want and be proud of your Bible. Even though there are ‘different versions’ of the Bible they are pretty much the same Bible with the same 66 Bible books in it. The vast majority of these versions of the Bible are honest translations. They were translated from ancient copies of scripture that were written in the original languages (Hebrew and Greek), but they were translated by different groups of scholars who sometimes had a different goal in mind for their translation. For example, the King James Version of the Bible is very accurate as far as literally translating the meaning of each verse from the original language, but sometimes the literal meaning is hard for an untrained reader to understand. So, the scholars who translated the New International Version tried to explain the meaning of certain verses in a way that is accurate, but easier for an untrained reader to understand. The New King James Version and English Standard Version are probably somewhere in the middle of those two. If English is not your first language, you can find out which Bibles Christians who call themselves “Baptists” read in your country in your language and get one of those, but the vast majority of the translations are good anyway. *Why Baptists? I'm just picking one among many to make things simple.
I’d also like to say that I’m sorry that English is the only language that I can currently speak fluently though I can speak a little of some other languages and I like meeting people from different cultures. They help me learn to think in different ways and help me gain new perspective on what is happening in this world.
As one who has been reading the Bible for many years, I suggest you start by reading the gospel of John chapter 1, then 2, 3, and so on, then finish the gospel of John and read through the book of Acts (the book after John), and then Romans (the book after Acts) and then 1 Corinthians until you finish the whole New Testament-read in order. Then you can say, ‘wow, I did a good job, I read all that!’ you can also skip around here and there in the Bible sometimes as you mostly read straight through in order. The Bible gives us a complete picture of God and our spiritual lives so we don’t want to miss anything by skipping parts. After you finish the last book in the Bible that tells us about the end of the world, you can go back to Matthew (which is technically the 1st book in the New Testament) and read from Matthew chapter 1, 2, 3….all the way to the end of Revelation again. Why? Well, John has a lot of words that Jesus spoke and a lot of information about God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit and eternal life. It’s also easier to understand what the Bible teaches if you start with John and Acts then it is if you start in some other parts. After reading the whole New Testament 3-5 times (yeah that may take a while, but if you love reading it-not as long) you can go back and start reading the whole Old Testament from Genesis 1 to Malachi 4. The words in the New Testament and the Old Testament are not against each other-they complement each other. The words in Old Testament testify that Jesus the messiah will come-the words in the New Testament show that He did come. The words in the Old Testament are all from God and useful for us. But, the New Covenant (that we read about in the New Testament) that is given to us through Jesus is better than the Old Covenant that was given to us through Moses. The Old Covenant is full of prophesies about Jesus who will come whereas in the New Testament we read about Jesus who already came and is here within us and in heaven. The New Covenant is equally for every nation in the world whereas the Old Covenant was more focused on Israel. We will understand God better if we focus more on the New Testament. When we read the New Testament we will be reading about our relationship with God now and not about the way God related to people before Jesus came. If a person tries to follow the Old Testament without finding Jesus (whom the Old Testament testifies about) their sins will remain unforgiven, For the reasons that I mentioned and for many more, I suggest you do read the whole New Testament 3-5 times before you set out to read the whole Old Testament.
Now some of you might have noticed that I suggested that you start in the gospel of John, and yet I posted links to the book of Acts above. Well, that’s because I really want you to enjoy listening to the Bible and really get into it and I think it will be easier for you to do if you listen to the audioBible called “The Bible Experience”. So, yeah I think reading or listening to John before you listen to Acts is probably a good idea, but listening to the book of Acts first is good too. I posted a link to a full audio version of the gospel of John below, but if you ask me, this guy’s voice is good, but not as good. I couldn't find the audio version of John that I wanted to on Youtube, but I think you can find the audio book on your phone if you search for "The Bible Experience, John", "The Bible Experience, Acts", and so on...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrQH4Hm0WiI&t=2524s
I also recommend that you read good Christian books that are full of testimonies of what God did in people’s lives, full of knowledge about God, and full of encouragement because life in this world can be very tough sometimes. This link goes to a suggested reading list (Please give me some time to construct that part of the site-until then you can read the books I am about to suggest). I recommend you download the following audiobooks on your phone or listen to them on Youtube if they are available or buy the paperback versions and read them. “Living a Life of Fire” an autobiography written and read by Reinhard Bonnke. As I said earlier, I recommend that you listen to (or read) the second half because it’s more interesting and it’s a long book. This book is the single most powerful testimony that I have ever heard of outside of the Bible. I recommend that you listen to “The Cross and the Switchblade” which is about David Wilkerson’s ministry to youth gangs. Though this book may not be appropriate for young children because there are some descriptions of the sinful lives that some of the youth gangsters were living before they knew Jesus-but it is an incredible collection of testimonies. I also recommend that you listen to or read “Unlocking the Miraculous through Faith and Prayer” by Daniel Kolenda and “I believe in Miracles” by Kathryn Kuhlman and “The Secret of His Power” which is about Smith Wiggleworth’s life and His ministry. You can also read, “The Case for Christ” by Lee Strobel in which he explains why faith in Christ is reasonable and logical.
I also recommend that you listen to sermons by preachers who preach accurately and who God works through powerfully.
Among those that are a bit easier for new people to listen to are: Joel Osteen, Joseph Prince, Charles Stanley, and Rick Warren (It doesn't mean that their messages don't challenge people)
Among those whose messages we may enjoy because they are excellent preachers, yet sometimes listening to them can be more like eating food that is good for our health and still might be a bit hard for some of us to swallow: Charles E Blake, Reinhard Bonnke, Steven Furtick, John Osteen, Kirbyisaboss (yeah, I think “isaboss” is a nickname, but that’s how she appears on Youtube), T.L. Osborn, Aimee Semple McPherson (Aimee's sermons are great, but the audio quality is poor since they were recorded around 100 years ago)
Among those whose messages we can enjoy much of the time, but the rest of the time they may be good for us the way a doctor might prescribe a difficult, but necessary life-saving treatment (great preaching, but sometimes some pretty tough love): Billy Graham, Francis Chan, Tim Dilena, and Daniel Kolenda.
You can also listen to a few sermons I preached by clicking on "Sermons" at the top of the page. If you haven't spent much time in Church, I recommend that you listen to my "Japan Sermon" and if you have spent quite a bit of time in Church then I recommend that you listen to my Tagalog English sermon (Tagalog is a common language in the Philippines). There were some new people in the Church in Japan when I preached there and quite a few 'Christian regulars' when I preached in the Church in the Philippines. I lived in both countries for a while. I like the people and their food!
Another suggestion. Everyone likes music. People like to write songs about what they are passionate about and topics that are close to their hearts. I suggest you try listening to some different kinds of Christian songs and integrate them into your musical tastes. You can try the very talented “Lauren Dangle”, “Yolanda Adams”, and Darlene Zschech…and listen to worship songs by “Elevation Worship”, “Time Square Church Choir”, “Crosspoint Church Choir” (In Nashville), and “Hillsong Young and Free”. You can also try the songs from these multi-artist albums some of which are for singing in Churches and some of which are just good faith inspired songs-“Wow Gospel” and “Wow Hits”.
You can also try listening to music that isn’t really for singing worship songs in a Church, but contains Christian content with some musical sounds that resemble secular music more (Some Christians don’t like these kinds of songs, I don’t want to argue, live and let live, keep in mind that I want to make Christian faith more appealing to people who are new to the whole thing. I think that whatever brings a person closer to God and doesn’t push them further away is good-it might vary from one person to another with some things like this). If you like Rap and Hip Hop you might try listening to Kirk Franklin, Lecrea, and R Swift. If you like rock or metal you might try listening to Lacy Sturm, Flyleaf, Pillar, and Scandinavian Metal Praise. They have way more talent than you might think. Also, Sca is kinda dated, but if you like it there is "Supertones".
This is a link to Lauren Dangle’s song, “You Say” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIaT8Jl2zpI
This is a link to Yolanda Adam’s singing, “The Battle is Not Yours" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lN26jw53c0M
Notice that they are not singing about a God that is far away and never helped them, but about God who is with them and helps them because they met the mediator between God the Father and humans-Jesus Christ.
I also want to mention Gina who is extraordinarily talented and who's voice is so amazing that you may have never heard anything quite like it before in your entire life. She has her own Youtube channel (Gina). Collectively, all her videos have had more than 19 millions views. She doesn't seem to have made the recordings of the songs she sings in a professional studio or to have had expert help from highly experienced professionals who know how to promote musicians and the songs they sing in order to make them better known. She just sings with such incredible intensity with her amazing voice as she plays the keyboard that people are drawn to her videos. Yet, she humbly gives all the glory to God. She sings in English, Korean, and German in different videos. The link below goes to a video of her singing in Korean, but there are English subtitles.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKSD9rWu0d4
Before this is concluded, I want to say something else. I remember when I first started to believe in Jesus and started reading the Bible. I agreed with a lot of what I read, but there were a few things in the Bible that I didn’t agree with at first. Don’t give up on reading it and trying to find out if it’s true or not just because there may be a few things here and there in the scriptures you find hard to accept. Rather, keep praying and asking God why those parts of the Bible are there and how they can be right? We would never be able to get along with other people in life if we would not give them a chance to explain themselves during moments of conflict between us and them. Patience and communication has allowed us to maintain relationships with people that we care about and are important to us. God is far more important to us than we may realize at this moment so I urge patience concerning the few BIble verses you may not agree with while enjoying the many Bible verses that you do agree with.
When I was a new Christian I wrote a long list of my own personal objections to Christian faith and toward Christians in general and I shared these with mature Christians to see if they could give me a good answer or not. Some of them gave me some very good answers and I also received very good answers from God over time. You can read more about how my testimony by going to "Lots of Info/About/My Testimony", but I hope you finish reading this page first.
In some parts of the world people think that it’s wrong to eat meat and in other parts of the world people come from cultures where eating meat is part of their cultural tradition so to them-not eating meat is wrong. Their ancestors could not survive without eating meat and some people cannot survive without it today-especially poor people who live in cold or desolate places. So human principals are not universal. But God is the creator. The whole world and every people group exists because of Him. His principals are above human principals, above human cultures, and they are universal when we understand them by the Holy Spirit. He does not favor the west or the east-He favors the person who’s heart is right and does what’s right and loves Him and loves people. The person who puts God’s universal principals above all others including our own personal principals and those of our cultures will please God and be able do what’s right anywhere in the world.
But the process of becoming sure that God’s principals are right and really from God can be challenging and sometimes it may seem to us as if God is wrong and we are right. But, even if you feel that way about a few things as you are seeking God, just set it aside and trust that God has a good answer for you, and keep reading His words and seeking Him while enjoying all the words that you agree with. Even the original apostles of Jesus (also called the disciples of Jesus which he focused on training) didn’t always agree with Jesus at first until Jesus explained things to them so they understood...and some of these explanations took time. When Jesus told his disciple (the apostle) Peter that He (Jesus) would be betrayed, would suffer, and would die Peter wanted to stop Him from going to cross and he said “Never, Lord!...This shall never happen to you!” (Matthew 16:21-23) Because Peter loved Jesus, but Peter should have trusted Jesus rather disagreeing with Him. Jesus responded by saying to Peter strongly “Get behind me…you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.” Jesus did not drive Peter away because of that and Peter did not leave Jesus either. God’s understanding is greater than ours. Peter couldn’t yet understand the whole plan of God that involved Jesus becoming an atoning sacrifice for sins and being raised from the dead. So Peter wanted to stop this plan and oppose it. But later Peter understood why this was necessary and taught other people about it. When Jesus said, “Get behind me…” I think Jesus meant that Peter should follow Him since He knows more than Peter and knows what’s best. Peter should not try to force Jesus to follow him according to his understanding of things. What is our understanding compared with that of the almighty God’s understanding, but of course we want to confirm that it really is God’s understanding first and ask Him for an explanation when it comes to the few things in the Bible that might not seem right to us at first.
Don’t stop seeking God because you may disagree with a few verses in the Bible, give God some time to address your concerns and focus on the majority of the words in the Bible which I assume you will agree with, appreciate and I hope you will enjoy.
For the record, in terms of what the Bible says, people who eat meat can have Christian faith and experience God and do good works and so can those who do not eat meat. You don’t have to eat meat or not eat meat to be a Christian. You can serve God either way. Christian faith is universal and this helps unify the Church by permitting allowable differences (Romans 14). God is not so concerned with what we eat or do not eat, but rather with our heart and actions toward Him and toward our neighbors.
Thank God that you found this site and read all this. What happens next is up to you. If you start building something, it’s good to finish. If you start researching something, it’s good to keep researching until you can reach a sure conclusion. Nothing is more important than life and people will do whatever it takes for their own lives and or for the lives of other people that they care about. With love I want to say, please do whatever it takes to possess the eternal life that Jesus promised. There are many suggestions as to how to do that here in this document and you can review certain parts of it or all of it again if you want. I hope you have already been or will be successful in finding God, experiencing God, and getting help from God.
I hope you email me, tell me what you think, and share your testimony with me.
behappybefree202020@gmail.com
My name is Daniel
You can say anything that you want to say and ask any questions that you want to ask.
Finally, as people often say, “God bless you.”
