FINDING GOD (My Testimony)
Updated: Apr 14
Many years ago when I was a young man I experienced the awesome and glorious power and presence of Almighty God Who came and performed such incredible works in my life to help me that I am able to be absolutely certain it was the Great Creator Who came and helped me! I had just cried out to God for help from a place of extreme fear and desperation. I was completely "overwhelmed" with fear greater than any fear I had ever experienced, because I had recently become aware in a very powerful and real way that the severe penalty of eternal punishment was placed upon me because of breaking many of God's laws over and over again throughout my entire life!
The reason this became such a powerful reality to me is because not long before this time I experienced discovering "PROOF" of God's reality, which is existing in the world today right before everyone's eyes! This awesome discovery brought a powerful awakening into my life which brought me face to face with the reality of God! When God became very real to me, then so did the reality of how horribly wrong I had been toward the Great Creator, and that because of breaking His Holy laws I was condemned to the horribly frightening place of eternal punishment!
I read in chapter 12 of Genesis how The Almighty God promised a man who was named Abraham that He was going to make a great nation from his descendants and that He would give a certain land to him and his descendants to be their possession throughout all eternity! The great awakening came when I read on in the Bible and made the incredible discovery that the Nation of Israel, a very well-known nation existing in the world today, is the nation God created from Abraham's descendants as He promised He was going to do! The Bible reveals in many ways that the Nation of Israel is the nation God created to fulfill the incredible promises He made to Abraham!
One of these amazing ways is found in Genesis 35:9-13 where the Bible records how Almighty God came and spoke to Abraham’s grandson, whose name was Jacob, and gave him a new name, “God appeared to Jacob again, when he came from Paddan-aram, and blessed him. And God said to him, ‘Your name is Jacob; no longer shall your name be called Jacob, but Israel shall be your name’. So he called his name Israel. And God said to him, "I am God Almighty: be fruitful and multiply. A nation and a company of nations shall come from you, and kings shall come from your own body. The land that I gave to Abraham and Isaac I will give to you, and I will give the land to your offspring after you. Then God went up from him in the place where he had spoken with him.”
What God did on this day is infinitely important because it reveals His reality, and is powerful “PROOF” of His reality! This is because the new name God gave to Abraham’s grandson on this day is the name of the nation He really did create from his descendants as He promised He was going to do, which is the name - ISRAEL!
However, this is only the beginning of the many ways the Bible provides "solid proof" that the Nation of Israel is the nation God created to fulfill the infinitely great promises He made to Abraham! The Bible provides a very detailed account of how Almighty God orchestrated a very amazing series of events to happen by His mighty supernatural powers to make it possible for the family of Israel to relocate into the land of Egypt. This is a very important part of God's awesome plan to create the Nation of Israel! The descendants of Israel remained in the land of Egypt for 400 years during which time God miraculously multiplied their numbers from a family of 70 people into a great nation of around two million people!
The Egyptians were so intimidated by the numbers of the Israelites they forced them into hard slavery. The Egyptians afflicted the people of Israel in such cruel and brutal ways they cried out to the God of their forefathers, the Mighty God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob/Israel! The LORD heard their cries and He sent a man named Moses to deliver His people out of great affliction and the bondage of slavery in the land of Egypt. Almighty God sent ten disastrous plaques upon the land of Egypt, which were awesome miracles greater than anything Mankind has ever witnessed before or since that time, to force the Egyptians to set the Nation of Israel free. All the awesome miracles portrayed in the great old movie "The Ten Commandments" are all recorded in the Bible as real events which took place in real life, which were a very important part of God's incredible plan to bring the Nation of Israel into existence!
Moses led the descendants of Abraham out of Egypt and through the desert and eventually to their "promised land," the same land God had promised to give to Abraham several hundred years before! The LORD helped the Nation of Israel defeat the people living in this land, who were much greater and more numerous, by His mighty supernatural powers. The Nation of Israel took possession of their land about 1450 BC and were established as an independent nation by occupying the land God had promised to Abraham. Their existence in the past is not only documented by the Bible, but also by the written records of world history.
When I made this incredible discovery, I knew I had found much greater "PROOF" of God's reality than what I had ever hoped or expected to find!
I know God made all this happen to help me, but I believe He made it happen also to use me and what He did in my life to help many others make the same awesome discovery and experience the same great awakening I experienced! I hope and pray you are making this great discovery and experiencing this great awakening at this very moment!
When I discovered solid proof of God’s reality I was able to believe that He really is the Mighty Creator Who created the entire universe and all the life in this world as the Bible says! Upon realizing that my very life and existence along with the whole world I exist in is an infinitely great gift from God, I began to see how wrong I had been toward The Great Creator by horribly failing to even have a beginning of the thankfulness and appreciation I should have for all He has given to me! God deserves infinite thankfulness, praise, and worship, for all He has created and given to us, but I realized I had never said, "thank you" even one time to God! I had to face the ugly and frightening reality that instead of giving Him the highest place of honor, respect, and importance He deserves, I had used His Holy name in vain my whole life and had disrespected Him by breaking many of His laws over and over again! This is what brought the frightening reality into view that because I had broken many of God's laws, the severe penalty of eternal punishment was placed upon me! Because God became real to me in a very powerful way, this horribly frightening punishment placed upon me became very real also! I knew Jesus wasn’t kidding around or exaggerating when He warned people about this extremely frightening punishment many times! It was because of becoming aware in a very real way that the infinitely frightening and dangerous penalty of eternal punishment was placed upon me, and that I was actually on my way to stand before Almighty God on the Day Of Judgment and then to experience this severe punishment, that I became completely overwhelmed with fear!
However, the truth is everyone urgently needs to become aware that this same severe punishment is placed upon them also, because the Bible clearly informs us that God has placed this same punishment upon absolutely all people because they have all broken His laws. Revelation 20:14-15 is about what is going to happen on the great Day Of Judgment and it says, “This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.” These two verses clearly inform us that all people are condemned to this horrific eternal punishment because verse 15 states that the only people who are going to escape being thrown into the "lake of fire" on this day are those who have their names written in the Book Of Life! People only get their names written in the Book Of Life when they come to God sometime during their life in this world, fearing the eternal punishment which is placed upon them, and receive Jesus as their Savior so they can be set free from this horribly frightening punishment! When the Day of Judgment comes the only people who are going to experience LIFE after this day comes, are those who have taken the only way to escape the eternal punishment placed upon them by receiving Jesus as their Savior, so their names are written in the Lamb's Book Of LIFE!
The fear I felt at this time was much greater than anything I had ever experienced! The thought that I was on my way to a place of eternal punishment that Jesus warned is a place where people will experience extreme pain forever with no hope of ever escaping, was much more than what I could bear! So, I did the only thing I could think of to do, I lifted my head up to the sky and cried out to the Mighty Creator for help, by simply saying, "God help me!"
I can’t say that I had a lot of faith in believing God really would help me. I guess this is why I was so shocked and surprised when He really did come and help me! I had so much sin and wrongdoing in my life I had a lot of fear that I might have crossed a line somewhere by doing too much wrong where there is no hope! Thank God, there is no line!
When the words "God help me" left my lips Almighty God came immediately and began to help me! God brought a supernatural vision of Jesus as He was suffering and dying on the cross into my life. This was like a very real dream, but I was wide awake! I could see in this vision the blood streaming from where huge nails were driven through His hands and feet, and I could see how Jesus was horribly struggling to endure the extreme pain He was experiencing as His life was very slowly coming to an end!
I knew this vision was coming from Almighty God because when I cried out to Him for help I had absolutely no thoughts about Jesus, or anything else, on my mind! Because I was so overwhelmed with fear, I couldn’t think of anything except the life threatening situation I was facing! However, when God brought this powerful vision of Jesus into my life, all my thoughts and attention became focused upon Him, and the overwhelming fear I was experiencing was pushed aside!
This was God helping me in the greatest way possible, because Jesus made the only way anyone can be set free from the eternal punishment placed upon them, and when God brought this vision of Jesus into my life He was helping me focus all of my thoughts and attention on the only One Who could help me!
As this vision continued, awesome truth about Jesus came flowing into my life that I had never seen or understood before! I could see very clearly that Jesus had done absolutely nothing wrong and deserved no punishment whatsoever, but He had actually done mountains of good things like healing the lame, giving sight to the blind, and even raising people from the dead!
Then, the greatest truth any human being can ever come to see and understand came into view! This is the truth that Jesus suffered and died on a cross to take all the penalty and punishment we deserve upon Himself, and to make a way people in this world can be set free from this horrific punishment! By sacrificing His innocent and perfect life and by taking all the punishment we deserve upon Himself, the Great Savior made the way for people in this world to be set free from the extremely frightening and dangerous penalty of eternal punishment, which God has placed upon all people as a result of breaking His Holy laws! At this point I knew for certain all the incredible things I was experiencing were coming from God, because I knew they could not possibly be coming from me!