My Testimony

[4him]

Hi Dan,

God bless you for sharing this wonderful testimony of His grace and power in your life !!

I'm sure that God has used and will continue to use this testimony to touch many people's lives and to bring glory to himself.

I found it interesting that there are 2 areas of similarity in your life's story and mine. The first is that in both our lives, God used his servant David Wilkerson to speak into our lives. The second is that for both of us, you could say that God demonstrated his reality and power through the operation of the gift of tongues.

May God bless you richly :-) Thanks for being willing to share so openly, from the heart. Praise God for what he's accomplished in your life !

In Jesus,
John

[4him]

After I read what you shared Dan, this prompted me to meditate upon things that have taken place in my own life. Like you, and like the majority of men I suspect, I’ve battled with temptations to lust. Whether we carry out lusts physically or commit adultery in our minds, it is all sin in God’s eyes, as we know.

I remember feeling at one point in my life, as you did, as if I had exhausted all of God’s grace, as a result of my sin. I am so thankful that God has taken away this state of mind and brought about a confidence in him. I feel like victory in this area comes about in part when God brings us to the place where we hate this sin like He hates it, and so we plead with God, “ Please take it out of my life”. Thank God, he hears desperate cries.

I have found that in my life as well, as I’ve made myself accountable to other Christians, this has played a large part in what God has used to ‘put down the flesh’ in this area of my life. I’ve sometimes heard people say that we should be accountable to God only. I know where they are coming from in this. I don’t believe we should go to our Christian brothers and sisters for absolution. Rather, we should come to God together in prayer, who alone is the source of power and forgiveness. As James 5:16 says, “Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you might be healed.”

The apostle Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 4:15, “For though ye have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet have ye not many fathers.” When I think back to some of the battles I had as a young man, I believe I would have benefitted from having a ‘spiritual father’ in this area of my life (Actually, I was tremendously blessed to have some wonderful youth pastors in my life, as a whole).


For sure, I can not blame the sins I’ve committed on the lack of a spiritual mentor; God forbid, my sins are my own. But I believe it is a great need of this hour for men and women to share on a personal level, the godly principles they have learned throughout their lives. In my opinion, a godly mentor is one who shares with us, both how God has led them into victory, and also about how they too have been plagued with numerous temptations and sins, but God in his faithfulness, ‘delivers us out of it all’. Thank God for men and women who fulfill this vital calling. May he raise up more who will operate in this fashion.

In Jesus,

John