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[ Testimony ] Do you have a testimony? Want to share it with the world?

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I grew up in church. I professed Jesus as my savior at five years old. I can remember praying the sinner's prayer with the pastor of our indepentent fundamental baptist church.
What I hope to talk about is how I have encountered and been influenced by God at different points in my life. There's not much to talk about from when I was a kid. My mom says after I got "saved" that she saw an increased interest in Bible stories from me, but I don't really remember that. Once when I was 11, I remember sitting in my room listening to hymns on my computer. Most of the time I felt that hymns were rather boring, but this time I felt something stir inside me. I felt like it was a beautiful experience. I guess I was worshipping.

A few years later, I was a big internet user. Probably rather an internet junkie, as I spent almost all of my free time outside of school online. When I was 14 going on 15, I joined a particular forum that piqued my interest. This forum was about dogs, my childhood obsession, but there was a section there for general debate. Driven by youthful defensiveness of what my parents had taught me, I threw myself into theological debates. Mostly with the site's atheists. I felt like I was finally doing what I was supposed to do, witness to others. However, this led to me questioning instead. The things the atheists said, made a lot of sense. How could I be sure God existed at all, much less the version of Him that I had been taught to believe in?
I felt lost, and desparately searched the Bible for answers. I did this for at least a few nights, before, finally, God made His move and revealed Himself to me. I felt His prescence, and He spoke to my heart, basically telling me He did exist and that I was on the right path. I finally had my proof. Maybe not good enough for the atheists I debated with, but good enough for me. I went back to the debates with renewed vigor and passion.
Later, I discovered some allegorical books that made me draw closer to God, and I became excited to learn about the scriptures daily. Probably the best, most spiritual year of my life was the year I turned 16. I felt close to God most of the time, and would talk to Him in my head a lot. I would eagerly talk with my stepdad about God--my stepdad was also a strong believer.
God would teach me things, and I was eager to learn. The Bible says to ask for wisdom, so at one point I did just that. God granted it to me, and what that wisdom was, was to change the way I interacted with others online. Be the bigger person in heated discussions, and be kind.

The next year, my faith was tested to the limit. My mom showed me a cute clip of a cartoon. I wanted to see more, so I looked it up, and soon found multiple episodes to watch. I became obsessed with this cartoon, and it filled me with incredible excitement. Those emotional highs became addictive. About January that year is when I first felt something off. Something wasn't right. I didn't know what, though. It only got worse as the months went on. I noticed that when I watched the cartoon, I felt happy and peaceful, not a care in the world. When I wasn't watching the cartoon, I felt incredibly depressed. I likened my experience to that of a drug addict--how they described their drug addiction sounded like what was going on with me. Except I wasn't on drugs.
I would imagine scenarios with the cartoon characters in order to boost my mood. I would imagine what the characters would say and do, the interactions and conversations they would have, in whatever envinronment I was in. It made me feel happy. It was the only way to boost my mood.
I knew I had a problem, and that I couldn't serve God and let this cartoon rule my life at the same time. I knew it. I tried all kinds of things. Reading the Bible, but that only made me feel even more deeply depressed since it reminded me of my predicament. I only found comfort in the psalms, since it wasn't hard to find psalms about feeling depressed. It made me feel less alone.
My depression grew worse, out of control. I began sleeping in as much as I could, because being awake was simply too painful. I cried myself to sleep every night, and wanted to ask God to take my life away. Only I was afraid to, because maybe He actually would. I was clearly suicidal, but not to the point of actually acting on it. I would imagine the least painful ways to die, and would wish with all I had that I was brave enough to actually go through with it.

Finally, though I had tried and failed to break my addiction hundreds of times already, I tried one last time. The most painful, darkest, misberable two weeks of my life. At that time, going to church, reading the Bible, anything that reminded me of God, was a painful reminder of my sin and made my mood drop like a rock. But after those two weeks, things began to improve. I didn't snap back into the relationship I had had with God before, but I began to gradually feel better.
I still dealt with depression for another year and a half. I remember being in a constantly low mood. But gradually, I began to find God once again. And He provided comfort, even in my sadness. He told me wounds take time to heal, and I had had been inflicted with a bad one. Eventually, I had one last depressive episode where things felt as bad as they had during my addiction. I was irate at God, why did He make me go through this again. But an online friend messaged me, and they said that they felt like God told them to reach out to me. This person supported me during the next few months.
Two or three months later, and my depression suddenly disappeared. It was gone. I was very joyful and happy, thankful to be alive.
 
I remember a very cool testimony. God changed one of my bibles from an NIV version into a NKJV and I have witnesses.

My buddy in Colorado liked to bible study with me, but he was married and worked so couldn't come over as much as he would have liked to. So he went out and bought me a brand new bible. A big one, leather bound I think. It was a NIV version. He bought that on purpose to match his bible that he uses and he wanted us to have the same bible version for when we studied together. Makes sense. The biggest best bible I own now.

So fast forward 6 or 9 months, I forget, but another Brother in Christ came by to visit that I hadn't seen in awhile. SO we were catching up and he sees my new bible sitting there and says, new bible? SO I told him that the other Brother in Christ (Richard, who he also knew) bought it for me to match his version...So he says, AN NIV version? You know that the NIV has a bunch of missing verses in it, right? I had never heard such a thing before so he proceeds to quote scriptures to me and have me look them up, first in one of my KJV bibles, then in the NIV...he was right, many missing verses. WOw, learn something new every day!

So fast forward again, to maybe 6 months later> I signed on the board here, and found that they were discussing a thread on different versions of the bible. SO I chimed in and posted that the NIV version is missing verses here and there...

And one of our respected Brothers here posted back to me, Hey Edward, I've never heard that before. Could you post a few of the scriptures that are missing from the NIV version for me? ..well, yes I can Brother...and I couldn't remember any of the verses that was missing so I called my Brother in Christ who showed me that they were missing because he knew the scriptures off of the top of his head. I got ahold of him and he gave me a half dozen scriptures...so we said our good byes and he went back to work and I set about getting my post together for the Brother in Christ here on this board.

I got out my KJV and my NIV and looked up the first scripture...it was there. Ok, so he mis-remembered the scripture quotation. On to the next one...it was in there too? Huh? Dave usually has an almost photographic memory...on to the next one...it was in there too! I looked up every single scripture quotation that he gave me, and all of them were in the NIV...I didn't know what to think. I remember us looking them all up and they were not there before. So something is up here.

I didn't want to bug him at work again, so I googled missing verses in the NIV and got about a billion hits. Apparently it is well known for scriptures to be missing in that version. So I copied down many more than Brother Dave had ever given me and spent a couple hours looking every single one of them up...long story short...they were all in there. I was bewildered and wondered now what do I do? I have already opened my mouth and said I could post the evidence...Bleh...

So I sat the NIV bible down and pushed it across the table a bit in frustration and sat back to ponder this. I know we looked the scriptures up. Google could not be wrong about ALL of them! What is going on here?! ...Lord, what is going on? I know the scriptures were missing!...

...and my eyes drift across the table to the NIV bible...and on the side panel in plain gold lettering, it jumped out at me...it said NKJV...

I sat up so fast! Say what?! NKJV?! This was an NIV! I called Brother Dave, Dave, wasn't it an NIV bible? Yes, Ed. Don't you remember looking up all those scriptures with me?
Yes I did remember. The problem is...now it is a NKJV! I leafed through it, my highliter was still there, some underlined verses, margin notes...it is all there. But now the bible is a NKJV instead of a NIV...

Now, Brother Richard who gifted me the bible knows it was NIV, to match his. Brother Dave also knows it was an NIV. We spent over an hour looking up scriptures in it. I have no other bible like this one that it could be confused or mixed up with...there is no doubt this bible used to be an NIV but is now a NKJV!

There can only be one explanation for this. The Lord changed my bible from an NIV to a NKJV! I hadn't even prayed about which version should I i use or to not use, nothing like that. The Lord just did it. And there is me, plus two others who can all witness and attest to the fact that this bible was an NIV at first! So I endorse the NKJV now, lol!!

I had to post the story, so many here have heard this before. Someone else eventually posted some NIV verses for the Brother in Christ to see and do his homework with...since I couldn't!

I still have this bible and use it. :)
 
Edward that is an amazing testimony God is Almighty and Powerful.

I know, isn't it?! It was just something that God did. I hadn't been praying about versions of the bible, or stressing about it or anything. It was a fairly big endorsement of the NKJV that the Lord made, huh?! I have to assume that the Lord would rather I be reading the NKJV instead of the NIV, lol. I'm ok with that. :study :confused
 
here is a video of healing testimonies - all really exciting - by one guy - the guy sure had a simple action oriented faith in God - tom schermitzler

 
I remember a very cool testimony. God changed one of my bibles from an NIV version into a NKJV and I have witnesses.

My buddy in Colorado liked to bible study with me, but he was married and worked so couldn't come over as much as he would have liked to. So he went out and bought me a brand new bible. A big one, leather bound I think. It was a NIV version. He bought that on purpose to match his bible that he uses and he wanted us to have the same bible version for when we studied together. Makes sense. The biggest best bible I own now.

So fast forward 6 or 9 months, I forget, but another Brother in Christ came by to visit that I hadn't seen in awhile. SO we were catching up and he sees my new bible sitting there and says, new bible? SO I told him that the other Brother in Christ (Richard, who he also knew) bought it for me to match his version...So he says, AN NIV version? You know that the NIV has a bunch of missing verses in it, right? I had never heard such a thing before so he proceeds to quote scriptures to me and have me look them up, first in one of my KJV bibles, then in the NIV...he was right, many missing verses. WOw, learn something new every day!

So fast forward again, to maybe 6 months later> I signed on the board here, and found that they were discussing a thread on different versions of the bible. SO I chimed in and posted that the NIV version is missing verses here and there...

And one of our respected Brothers here posted back to me, Hey Edward, I've never heard that before. Could you post a few of the scriptures that are missing from the NIV version for me? ..well, yes I can Brother...and I couldn't remember any of the verses that was missing so I called my Brother in Christ who showed me that they were missing because he knew the scriptures off of the top of his head. I got ahold of him and he gave me a half dozen scriptures...so we said our good byes and he went back to work and I set about getting my post together for the Brother in Christ here on this board.

I got out my KJV and my NIV and looked up the first scripture...it was there. Ok, so he mis-remembered the scripture quotation. On to the next one...it was in there too? Huh? Dave usually has an almost photographic memory...on to the next one...it was in there too! I looked up every single scripture quotation that he gave me, and all of them were in the NIV...I didn't know what to think. I remember us looking them all up and they were not there before. So something is up here.

I didn't want to bug him at work again, so I googled missing verses in the NIV and got about a billion hits. Apparently it is well known for scriptures to be missing in that version. So I copied down many more than Brother Dave had ever given me and spent a couple hours looking every single one of them up...long story short...they were all in there. I was bewildered and wondered now what do I do? I have already opened my mouth and said I could post the evidence...Bleh...

So I sat the NIV bible down and pushed it across the table a bit in frustration and sat back to ponder this. I know we looked the scriptures up. Google could not be wrong about ALL of them! What is going on here?! ...Lord, what is going on? I know the scriptures were missing!...

...and my eyes drift across the table to the NIV bible...and on the side panel in plain gold lettering, it jumped out at me...it said NKJV...

I sat up so fast! Say what?! NKJV?! This was an NIV! I called Brother Dave, Dave, wasn't it an NIV bible? Yes, Ed. Don't you remember looking up all those scriptures with me?
Yes I did remember. The problem is...now it is a NKJV! I leafed through it, my highliter was still there, some underlined verses, margin notes...it is all there. But now the bible is a NKJV instead of a NIV...

Now, Brother Richard who gifted me the bible knows it was NIV, to match his. Brother Dave also knows it was an NIV. We spent over an hour looking up scriptures in it. I have no other bible like this one that it could be confused or mixed up with...there is no doubt this bible used to be an NIV but is now a NKJV!

There can only be one explanation for this. The Lord changed my bible from an NIV to a NKJV! I hadn't even prayed about which version should I i use or to not use, nothing like that. The Lord just did it. And there is me, plus two others who can all witness and attest to the fact that this bible was an NIV at first! So I endorse the NKJV now, lol!!

I had to post the story, so many here have heard this before. Someone else eventually posted some NIV verses for the Brother in Christ to see and do his homework with...since I couldn't!

I still have this bible and use it. :)
really cool - one of my friends says there is no high like the Most High
 
here is a video of healing testimonies - all really exciting - by one guy - the guy sure had a simple action oriented faith in God - tom schermitzler


That is amazing video
With God all things are possible.
The vision he had about the dam was incredible. I felt all the tension in my body disappear as I listened. God certainly has a terrific love for mankind.
 
I grew up in church. I professed Jesus as my savior at five years old. I can remember praying the sinner's prayer with the pastor of our indepentent fundamental baptist church.
What I hope to talk about is how I have encountered and been influenced by God at different points in my life. There's not much to talk about from when I was a kid. My mom says after I got "saved" that she saw an increased interest in Bible stories from me, but I don't really remember that. Once when I was 11, I remember sitting in my room listening to hymns on my computer. Most of the time I felt that hymns were rather boring, but this time I felt something stir inside me. I felt like it was a beautiful experience. I guess I was worshipping.

A few years later, I was a big internet user. Probably rather an internet junkie, as I spent almost all of my free time outside of school online. When I was 14 going on 15, I joined a particular forum that piqued my interest. This forum was about dogs, my childhood obsession, but there was a section there for general debate. Driven by youthful defensiveness of what my parents had taught me, I threw myself into theological debates. Mostly with the site's atheists. I felt like I was finally doing what I was supposed to do, witness to others. However, this led to me questioning instead. The things the atheists said, made a lot of sense. How could I be sure God existed at all, much less the version of Him that I had been taught to believe in?
I felt lost, and desparately searched the Bible for answers. I did this for at least a few nights, before, finally, God made His move and revealed Himself to me. I felt His prescence, and He spoke to my heart, basically telling me He did exist and that I was on the right path. I finally had my proof. Maybe not good enough for the atheists I debated with, but good enough for me. I went back to the debates with renewed vigor and passion.
Later, I discovered some allegorical books that made me draw closer to God, and I became excited to learn about the scriptures daily. Probably the best, most spiritual year of my life was the year I turned 16. I felt close to God most of the time, and would talk to Him in my head a lot. I would eagerly talk with my stepdad about God--my stepdad was also a strong believer.
God would teach me things, and I was eager to learn. The Bible says to ask for wisdom, so at one point I did just that. God granted it to me, and what that wisdom was, was to change the way I interacted with others online. Be the bigger person in heated discussions, and be kind.

The next year, my faith was tested to the limit. My mom showed me a cute clip of a cartoon. I wanted to see more, so I looked it up, and soon found multiple episodes to watch. I became obsessed with this cartoon, and it filled me with incredible excitement. Those emotional highs became addictive. About January that year is when I first felt something off. Something wasn't right. I didn't know what, though. It only got worse as the months went on. I noticed that when I watched the cartoon, I felt happy and peaceful, not a care in the world. When I wasn't watching the cartoon, I felt incredibly depressed. I likened my experience to that of a drug addict--how they described their drug addiction sounded like what was going on with me. Except I wasn't on drugs.
I would imagine scenarios with the cartoon characters in order to boost my mood. I would imagine what the characters would say and do, the interactions and conversations they would have, in whatever envinronment I was in. It made me feel happy. It was the only way to boost my mood.
I knew I had a problem, and that I couldn't serve God and let this cartoon rule my life at the same time. I knew it. I tried all kinds of things. Reading the Bible, but that only made me feel even more deeply depressed since it reminded me of my predicament. I only found comfort in the psalms, since it wasn't hard to find psalms about feeling depressed. It made me feel less alone.
My depression grew worse, out of control. I began sleeping in as much as I could, because being awake was simply too painful. I cried myself to sleep every night, and wanted to ask God to take my life away. Only I was afraid to, because maybe He actually would. I was clearly suicidal, but not to the point of actually acting on it. I would imagine the least painful ways to die, and would wish with all I had that I was brave enough to actually go through with it.

Finally, though I had tried and failed to break my addiction hundreds of times already, I tried one last time. The most painful, darkest, misberable two weeks of my life. At that time, going to church, reading the Bible, anything that reminded me of God, was a painful reminder of my sin and made my mood drop like a rock. But after those two weeks, things began to improve. I didn't snap back into the relationship I had had with God before, but I began to gradually feel better.
I still dealt with depression for another year and a half. I remember being in a constantly low mood. But gradually, I began to find God once again. And He provided comfort, even in my sadness. He told me wounds take time to heal, and I had had been inflicted with a bad one. Eventually, I had one last depressive episode where things felt as bad as they had during my addiction. I was irate at God, why did He make me go through this again. But an online friend messaged me, and they said that they felt like God told them to reach out to me. This person supported me during the next few months.
Two or three months later, and my depression suddenly disappeared. It was gone. I was very joyful and happy, thankful to be alive.
praise God -
 
That is amazing video
With God all things are possible.
The vision he had about the dam was incredible. I felt all the tension in my body disappear as I listened. God certainly has a terrific love for mankind.
amen - i am learning a lot from this
 
This thread slowing down on the testimoies eh? Ok, I'll post another one of mine.

God Let me drive my truck on an empty tank of gas!

I think this was in 2012 or 2013? I was living in Colorado Springs and work was slow. The economy was continuing to slide down. When you're self employed, it is either feast or famine. We had plenty of both at times. So during this time period, work was very slow, and I spent a lot of time drawing closer to God, reading His Word, watching good teaching videos and so forth, so in the midst of [poverty, I was growing rich in the Lord and His word!

I had been doing a lot of studying about translation by faith. Both in scripture and on youtube videos by Pastor Bruce Allen. I was excited about translation and the Lord had already been helping me very much through that time period. So anyway, one day I found myself with a very important appointment that I had to go to in the afternoon...and my truck was on fumes! I did not have enough gas to make it to my appointment, and I knew it! It was a real slow period of work for me. Inbetween winter and summer, too warm for furnaces, too cool for A/C...and tax time to boot. It always gets very slow right before the Christmas holiday, and stays slow until tax time is over unless there is a blizzard, lol. There was no blizzard. It was pretty warm. So consequently, I was very used to running out of gas here and there in my truck. Not only was work slow, but my gas gauge did not work either but the odometer did so I was always having to calculate how much gas I got, what my mileage was (around 10 MPG in that old truck). And it didn't take much of a miscalculation of distance or math to leave me walking that day, lol.

So I was pretty certain that I did not have enough gas to make my appointment, but it was prearranged by a couple weeks or so and work was so slow...I had to go. Very verrry important. I could not blow it off or call them and and tell them, I don't have enough gas...How would that sound?! Not very professional!

So I had to try to make it. You bet I prayed before I left. Because I had been studying Translation by faith and that was in my head at the time, I asked God to please give me a demonstration of translation and let me make this appointment! Amen...

So I left. It really wasn't all that far, about 6 or 8 miles. And as I'm driving there...the old familiar sputtering happened and it was obvious I just ran out of gas. So I pull into some kind of business and coasted into a parking space. I put it in park and thought well, the Lord did not answer my prayer. Ok, so what. Praise the Lord anyway. and I checked the time and considered what my plan of action should be at this point...

I don't know why, but without thought I sorta touched the gas pedal with my foot...and, Vroooom! It revved right up! Now there was no doubt that I ran out of gas. I had ran out of gas too many times in that truck to not know how it sounds and acts when I run out. I ran out of gas! But when I heard the engine rev, I instantly knew that the Lord had answered my prayer. So I said aloud watch this faith! and put it in gear and backed out and went on my merry way without another sputter or anything! I made my appointment on time, and drove all the way back home without a sputter. Praising the Lord the whole way! I parked it and went in, and after awhile my son came home and I told him what happened! And that, he better not try to drive it anywhere because it was out of gas. I figured it had to be because I went way past where I knew it was out.

Since I had been learning about translation by faith, and trans-relocation to another spot on earth (like Phillip after he baptized the Ethiopian), and that is what I prayed for...I consider that it was and exactly what I asked for. That the Lord literally trans-relocated me like I asked.

My son said that he had a few dollars and would walk over to the 7-11 with the gas can (which was only two blocks away) and get some gas for it. I said ok. But then my son did not go that night, he procrastinated or whatever but he did go in the morning. But he did not walk with the can. He decided to chance it. 7-11 was only two blocks away! Well he didn't make it. It did start and rolled up the street for him a little but he didn't make two blocks!

I think that was super cool how the Lord let me go do some business with no gas! I think I made it about half way to my appt initially so the Lord wound up trans-relocating me around 10 miles or so. So Praise the Lord!!
There was not any...supernatural blinking in or out like scripture makes it sound like what happened to Phillip but I got what I asked for, He helped me and everything turned out ok! Our God is so good! It felt like favor to me, and that just made me feel soo greatful! I love our Lord! I will praise Him forever! (I just hate walking and running out of gas, and He helped me just cuz' I asked.)
That's about as cool as it gets! Thank you Lord!! :sohappy
 
Oh I just remembered another great testimony! I hid under the shadow of the Lord's feathers just like in Psalm 91. I kid you not. I called upon the Lord and He answered me, just like it says.

15 He shall call upon me, and I will answer him: I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him, and honour him.../

I don't want to go any further right now, I'll give it a couple days so someone else can post a testimony also. and then post it. Have any of you all ever prayed Psalm 91 over your life? The Lord loves it when we do that! And He will and did respond! This testimony was very supernatural.

It is the childlike faith that scripture speaks of that The Lord responds to! I am learning/learned, that it is as easy as simply believing the Bible and what it says. Receive it in trust and faith...act on it by reaching out to Him and with expectation that He will respond. And he will, and He does, and He did! What a faith builder those times are. And it occurs to me that after the Lord responds to our faith, that...new testimonies should come regularly for us as believers. They are for me too! The Lord has helped me recently. Just about a couple weeks ago He...helped me and it was pret-ty dang supernatural in itself! But that one is for another time, after the other one. Lol!
 
The testimony I am about to give will be aired on March 27th on
Redwords lou radio show, Ya Know What I'm Saying. The reason I want you to know this before hand is that I am asking that it be shared with anyone you know who may be contemplating suicide or are going through similar things that I went through so they know there is hope in Christ.

TDC Radio if you want you can read this on one of your shows and if anyone wants to contact me they can PM me here on CF, for_his_glory, or email me at heavenbound72000@yahoo.com and in the subject line just type Need Help.
 
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