My Testimony of Jesus Christ
I honestly had no idea I was going to be writing this today, when I woke up, but right now I feel inspired to write and share what I know to be the truth. Most of my articles are more professionally written and actually thought-out about what I'm going to say in advance. Not this one. I'll probably keep this pretty short too.
Today, July 26th of 2015, I was just baptized Christian officially. I was baptized Mormon when I was 8 years old, but I didn't truly have a deep understanding of the gospel like I do today and I believe Mormonism is a false religion full of lies and deceit, sprinkled with a bit of the truth just to sucker people in. No offense to any Mormons out there, but that is what my experiences and knowledge revealed to me has lead me to believe. Now, the point of this testimony is not about Mormonism or to bash another religion, but I digress.
When I turned 17 years old I began to fall away from the Mormon church. All my life before that, I felt like there was some truth there, but I could sense many lies and things that didn't feel right to me. My hunger for truth began to grow as did my disenchantment with a lukewarm religion that didn't satisfy said hunger. I left the church and began looking into eastern religions such as hinduism, buddhism and even aspects of the occult itself just scouring searching for truth. I found tiny little traces of truth that I still believe in today there, such as the fact God himself is found in the very nature of all existence and all creation. I believe that the world we are experiencing now, as well as every dimension in the spirit world and every bit of existence period is created from God's mind the same way dreams are created from our minds as we sleep. This essentially means that God is IN each and every one of us, living and breathing and experiencing himself subjectively through our eyes, emotions and experience. Now do NOT confuse this with the new age belief that we are God. We are NOT God. We are CHILDREN of God. You wouldn't point at my finger and say "that finger right there is Jared." No, my finger is a part of who I am, but it is not me. Likewise we are a part of God, but we are NOT God himself nor will we ever be. This explains why God loves us so much and why Jesus taught to love each other as we would love ourselves -- because essentially we're all connected as one through God. It also explains why Jesus has said, "As you have done it unto the least of these, my brethren, you have done it unto me." Years later after this deep realization of the nature of reality, I found evidence in quantum physics solidifying my conviction. That was practically the only truth I found in my studies of eastern religion and I continued to search for the truth. The whole time I was searching for spiritual truth, I was uncovering another type of truth which was that of the forces of darkness. I was being lead, by whom in hindsight I believe was God, to bits and pieces of information regarding the Illuminati and their plans for a tyrannical New World Order over the span past 7 years.
Then, one night in late 2011 after I had a very loved pet die, broke up with my girlfriend and quit a super stressful job, at my wit's end, I had my first of many experiences I would soon learn are called 'sleep paralysis' episodes. I remember how terrified I was waking up in the early hours of the morning, in the darkness with barely a bit of moon light shining through the window, to feel and see the presence of a dark humanoid shape with no other features. The creature pounced on me trying to take my life. I thought I was going to die. I eventually woke up when the experience ended. From late 2011 through 2013 I suffered with these experiences 3 to 4 times a week. I literally thought I was eventually going to go to bed one night and simply never wake up. I went to a psychiatrist because I thought I was going insane and needed help. He told me there was nothing he could do for me and that people who have these experiences simply have to learn to live with them. I wasn't satisfied with this answer.
In 2013 I was fed up with dealing with these nightmarish experiences and so I went online to find an answer and a way to get rid of them. I had looked many times for a solution before, but never found one. This time, however, God lead me to a man named Chris White who had helped many other people permanently end their experiences with sleep paralysis.
He claimed that all they had to do was call on the name of Jesus Christ to stop each of the experiences instantly. This didn't make sense to me as I was not Christian at the time. I always believed in a God, but I never knew exactly who he was. This was the quest I was seeking to complete and I thought, maybe Jesus was God, but then I regressed into doubt because the Mormon church which I left in repulsion taught me about their version of Jesus which I assumed was the same Jesus the bible spoke of. It turns out I was wrong in that assumption. The Jesus of the bible contradicts the Jesus of the book of Mormon A LOT and vice versa, but the Mormon church just taught me, "oh well, those passages are where the bible was translated incorrectly." So I was reluctant to call upon the name of Jesus Christ. Instead I assumed that the name of Jesus only worked for people who believed he was God. I figured I would try using the name of the Buddha because at the time, he was the God I suspected was the one who walked the earth. I was also wrong on that count.
As sure as the sun set, I found myself in my next demonic sleep paralysis attack. I angrily called out "Buddha" and that did nothing, so I tried to shower the negative entity with my love. Again, nothing. It seemed amused by this. Then I swallowed my pride and in defeat of my ego, uttered the name "Jesus Christ" in a way that was asking him for help. The experience ended ABRUPTLY. The demon vanished and I was awake in bed. At first my mind was blown it actually worked, but then I talked myself into thinking it was just a coincidence. A few days later another demon attack commenced in my sleep. I didn't waste any time this time in calling out to Jesus and again the experience stopped dead in it's tracks. HOW COULD THIS BE TRUE!? The Jesus I was raised to believe in made absolutely no sense and I was almost certain that he could not be the truth.
The next night before bed, I got down on my knees and prayed the most intense and heartfelt prayer of my life. I said to God that I knew he was there, but I didn't know who he was and what name he was called by or what his teachings were and with a sincere desire and hunger for the truth, whatever it be, I asked him to please show me and lead me to it. I thanked him for never abandoning me in my quest for truth thus far, despite how wayward the roads I traveled had been. I felt an overwhelming sense of love and patience coming from him and a calmness that he was leading me to the truth he wanted me to know. I continued to have sleep paralysis for the rest of the year, 2013, but every time I called on Jesus' name the experiences always ended instantly. Many times I had other more uplifting supernatural experiences in this time frame that I deem too sacred to write about in this post, but rest assure that demons aren't the only army in the universe.
I continued to seek truth in Jesus and by the end of 2013 I had accepted him as my savior and found more than enough evidence, both through my own experience and also through the experiences of others and through amazing signs that God was and still is manifesting to his people on a bigger scale if they knew what to look for.
Yet, even though the name of Jesus Christ would end the experiences abruptly, I continued to have them. That was until I realized that the sin I continued committing in my life was opening the door for these experiences. Now, beware, because sin can be present in your own life without you even realizing it. Sin does not just come in the obvious forms of sexual sin and cursing, but also in more subtle forms such as idolatry, a lack of forgiveness, anger and impatience and coldness of heart. These are the sins I had struggled with the most. Idolatry I had no idea I was guilty of until God revealed it to me in a dream that my obsession with bodybuilding was a form of self worship and therefore vain idolatry. I had to learn to ease up on the obsession with it and not let it violate my Sabbaths or come between me and doing what I knew what God wanted me to do as I had been. Also I had a lot of hurt and hatred in my heart that I had to learn to mend and let go of. How could God ever forgive me of the pain I made him suffer on the cross if I couldn't simply forgive someone for something hurtful they said or did to me? Through faith in Jesus Christ, he has helped me conquer and overcome these stealthy, yet deadly sins.
When I was lead to the conscious decision to start working to cut out ALL of my sin and continued to struggle to live more and more like Jesus Christ every single day, the experiences STOPPED. Instead, I've recently been having an outpouring of other amazing experiences, visions and dreams. By no means am I still sinless. I still struggle with sin each day, but God has helped me to see and eliminate the most deadly ones from my life and I know He is there continuing to sculpt and refine my spiritual life even to this present moment.
Having experienced all of these things and many other which I will not write of here, after inviting Jesus Christ into my life, I can testify 100% that I KNOW Jesus Christ is the only way to heaven and the only way to escape condemnation to hell. Many good people will go to hell simply because no matter how good they are, they are not good enough to be worthy of heaven alone. Fortunately, Jesus Christ IS good enough to be worthy of heaven alone and he has already paid your way! All you have to do is ask God to help you believe in him -- and be sincere about it. He will show you things you never dreamed of as you cultivate your faith in him.
Do not wait till tomorrow. Do it today. Do it now. Time is short. Hard times and crises are coming upon the world very soon and you need to be ready to meet the Lord sooner than you think.
In the name of Jesus Christ,
Amen
