Testimonies
Carmen's Testimony
Dear reader, it is a privilege to share my testimony with you. This testimony is the work of the Lord in me – the Lord who is the author of my faith and of the faith of all those that are in Christ. Please consider these things and rejoice if you are in Christ. And if you are not in Christ, I plead with you that you would seek the LORD. Those who seek diligently will find Him Like many people in the world, I grew up with no faith and no knowledge of God. I walked with no regard for God who created me and I was comfortable with the things of this world. I regarded the things of the Bible foolishness and vain imaginations of people desperate for something to comfort them. I am sure that I would have remained in this state of ignorance without God’s intervention. God opened my eyes to spiritual realities during my last year in Finland before I moved to the UK to study economics. It was at this time that I found myself asking questions that I had never asked before.
Providently God brought into my life a christian classmate who spoke of the things of the Lord to me. I was curious about the things that she shared with me, but I could not just take her word for it.
As I started reading the Bible, I read about things that I had never heard before. I thought maybe these words are true, yet I struggled to accept that this really is so. I remember asking God for supernatural signs to prove that He exists. He never gave me one, but instead He gave me faith to believe what I was reading. This Word – the inspired Scriptures, truly is God’s Word and Truth. In it we hear the very voice of God. As I was reading the Scriptures I saw that this God of the Bible, the God who created Heaven and Earth, is totally different from the distant deity that I had imagined. He is majestic, merciful and patient. He is full of love and perfect in its manifestation. His love is pure and hates evil. God is holy and perfect.
Rosie's Testimony
I grew up on the Isle of Man in a non-Christian home. If the things of God were spoken of at all, it would be dismissively and, sometimes, in a hostile way. Over time, God providentially placed a Beach Mission right down the road from my house! It was run every summer for two weeks by a group of Christians from the Wirral. From an early age, I began to regularly attend the Mission. Here, the Bible was taught, and God was talked about openly and positively – which was not something that I had experienced before; it was new to me. Later, through this Mission, and despite only being around Christians for 2 weeks a year, I would come to believe that God exists, and that Jesus had died for my sins, but I really had no idea what that meant.
God graciously worked in my parents’ hearts to the point that they would eventually drop me off regularly at Sunday School from around ages 10-12. Once I got too old, I stopped going to church and continued to live my life as if I didn’t know God, thinking that if I believed that he existed, that’s all I needed. I just didn’t know that there was anything more to the Christian life than that.
Femi's Testimony
Femi's Testimony I was born to parents who raised me up to believe in the traditional religions, and to follow ancestral worship and false gods. But during my childhood the gospel of God concerning His Son (Lord Jesus Christ), started reaching remote areas where we lived. Eventually, an aunt became a Christian, renounced traditional religions, worship of idols and started trusting in and following the Christ. And the Lord used her to witness to us, telling us about how God sent His son to save and redeem sinners. This greatly disrupted everything parents believed and taught us. Nevertheless, they did not prevent her taking us to church and hear the preaching of God’s word.
By the time I had become a young adult, the more I went to hear God’s word, the more I became convinced of the true God and His gospel. I kept remembering about God’s judgement to come, heaven or hell questions, and that God wills to save and redeem sinners through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. I was a sinner through and through and in need of God’s salvation. The word of God had taken hold of my heart, and I believed the gospel. By grace and mercies, God granted me repentance and faith to believe in Christ Jesus my own Lord and eternal Saviour. I started trusting in the Lord, calling on his name and seeking him. I found peace with God and I wanted to know more about Him and to grow in the Christian faith.
Jake's Testimony
I was born and raised in Manchester and I grew up in a loving family with 3 other siblings and a single Mum. Growing up I often had feelings of longing for something more and feeling that something was missing in my life but I could never really figure out what it was. When I reached my teenage years and went to High School my sin really started to become manifest. I began to despise authority and in many ways rebelled. The Apostle Paul said to Titus a fellow believer “For we ourselves were also once foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another” Titus 3:3; this reminds me of myself during those times, I was truly wallowing in the mire of my sin.
Once I left High School I went to college in order to study Music Technology as I desired to go into the music industry, possibly to become a sound engineer. Around this time I started to visit the clubs where the music scene was and this was where I began to build my idols. I was totally deceived and spent the next few years chasing one idol to the next. My hedonistic and sinful lifestyle soon caught up with me, my empire of sin began crashing down on me and I felt as though I was being crushed. I was in pain and wracked with fear and anxiety. It felt as though my mind was broken and there was no turning back.
In many ways I knew my soul was in trouble and I felt the guilt of my sin so I began to visit a Roman Catholic church on Sundays and often times during week day afternoons. I remember I would go without telling anyone and sit at the back of the church building in despair. During my visits to the Roman Catholic church I felt a desire to read the Bible and I remember asking for a Bible a few times but there was none to be found. Eventually I stopped going and tried in some way to live what I thought was sensibly but I was still in utter sin and ruin.
Christine's Testimony
As children, my dad used to bring me and my brother and sister to church and Sunday school every week and we were brought up in a Christian family. As a teenager, I often got a little bored and remember wondering how much longer the service would go on for so that I could go home and do the things I wanted to do. Eventually, somewhere between the ages of 18 and 21, I thought I am an adult now and can do what I want, and I do not have to go to church if I do not want to. As a result of this, I had been away from church for over thirty years!! I have always believed in God and the sacrifice the Lord Jesus Christ made for sinners, but I did not live my life as though this was personal to me. I made a mess of my life whilst doing my own thing and this included a marriage breakdown and subsequent divorce.
However, I told myself that I would go back to church in my 70s or 80s before I died – what a ridiculous notion!! What if I had died in my sins and not in Christ before I reached my old age? Indeed, what if the Lord Jesus Christ had returned before my twilight years?
The story I am going to tell now is about my journey back to God.