REAL LIFE STORIES - I NEVER REALLY FELT LOVED

I grew up poor.
I started hanging around the wrong crowd.
I got into buying weed.
I remember feeling empty.
I needed more.

My name is Gil. I grew up poor, in a shotgun house in the bad end of our town. We didn’t know we were poor as kids, but our dad wanted to make a better life for us. He was a hard worker and taught me to work hard. He got into business building houses when I was a teen. While working on a building at a lumber yard after some tornado damage, he talked to the retiring owner and got into the lumber business in the rural town.

My dad used to talk about and stress business a lot. I never really felt loved; we never did anything together. Mom was good, but she always kept busy with dad running the business. Dad became an alcoholic because of the stress and thought he was better than other people because of his ambition. Dad got to mouthing off at the local tavern one night telling everybody he was the king of the town, so they crowned him and put him in the hospital.

I started hanging around the wrong crowd, doing drugs, drinking and stuff to fit in at high school. I got into buying weed to split it up myself for resale and make extra money. After all, I was going into my own business too.

One evening on the way to a party I was picked up hitch hiking and the guy that picked me up talked about Jesus, like he knew him. This left an impression on me. I was raised Catholic and never heard of anything like this.

I fell in love with a young lady and got to fooling around as some kids do. We got married and had our first son at 17. I quit school and started selling lumber for dad. I also liked designing and dreamed of building homes, so I built my own house at eighteen years old. People would knock on our door and ask if our parents were home and we would tell them no, this is our house.

When I was twenty I remember feeling empty and nothing satisfied me. I had a new home, good looking wife, son and promising future at the lumberyard. Something was missing, so I went to my priest and asked him how I can get into heaven. He said go to Mass and keep the Ten Commandments. I said I can’t keep those Commandments. And sometimes Mass was a little boring. He laughed and encouraged me to keep searching. He would come over and we would say the Rosary and I would sit on the front row at church with my Bible. I would visit different churches because I was searching, and I heard a man preach about how the church should be in unity. Then he was on the radio and said if you’re “sick of sin” in your life come to this meeting at Broadbent arena in Louisville, Kentucky. I knew I had to get there!

It was during a workday, so I called in sick at the lumberyard. I’m sick! Dad said you don’t sound sick, what’s wrong with you? I said I’m sick of sin and I hung up the phone. Dad told me later in life that he thought I had gotten into a cult.

I needed more. So, I went to the meeting. James Robison was the preacher and he said if you’re not 100% certain you will go to heaven if you died, come forward and give your life to Jesus. I knew I wanted it, so I went forward. After I prayed a weight lifted off me and I knew my sins were gone. I felt new and clean, I remember going to the restroom and looking in the mirror. I didn’t look any different, but I sure felt different.

On the way home, it was in the fall and the trees were starting to turn colors. It was as if I could see God with a paintbrush painting the trees. I could see God in everything. When I got to work I couldn’t do some of the things that I did before. I had his Holy Spirit living inside of me. We had a deal working with my dad and an insurance adjuster; he was beefing up the prices, so we could make money on insurance repairs. It was a recession and the lumber sales were zilch. I had to tell my dad and the adjuster that I couldn’t do this anymore. I also would put cars together from junkyards and resell them. (Found out later my buddy at the junkyard was stealing the parts). I couldn’t do that anymore either.

All I knew is that I was happy for the first time in my life and I knew that God would take care of me despite business being bad. It really irritated my dad, I had a big smile on my face all the time.

It’s been 33 years since then and Jesus has been the greatest adventure of my life! He always gets better, He teaches you stuff and takes you from level to level with Him. He’s always been there for me and helped me through every trial. And I’m overwhelmed knowing how much He loves me and that I can have a relationship with the Living God. He talks to me and I tell people about Him. You know I have never been able to stop. I learned how to do this by going along working with some friends in a Mobile Truckers Chapel. This happened a year after I gave my life to Jesus. I learned how to live by faith in a home bible study group with my pastor. He had a pastor’s heart and would cry with people and cry with us when we lost our four last babies. His name was Elvis and the church was Graceland Baptist, funny huh. Sandra and I had two sons that we brought up in the church, they really love God. They had a Christian band and would lead kids to Jesus, and most are in ministry today.

Twenty years ago, my oldest son Jake, who served God with all his heart got paranoid schizophrenia. I got a knot in my stomach for ten years because of the way he suffered, and it was really hard on his little brother Ben. In the last ten years my older son drowned, I lost my development company and my wife and best friend of over 30 years left me.

I loved her; things just got too hard for her. Just prior to all this tragedy, the Lord told me He was going to reteach me the Bible and that He was putting me in an end time ministry. This was confirmed through many circumstances and local prophetic ministries. I drew close to Him in the suffering and loneliness, but it was really hard. You know the Lord took me through the Bible and retaught me subject after subject. God has given me an understanding heart, which is what Solomon asked for. Don’t let the names over the doors of churches tell you what to believe, ask God. Ephesians 1:17-19 is what I prayed. I had never been alone in my life. But the Lord has been absolutely amazing. If you draw close to Him, He will draw close to you. His Joy is unspeakable, His love everlasting, and His peace has settled my troubled soul. I’m so thankful for everything He brought me through. I wouldn’t change any of it. Because I know He used it to get me where I’m at today. I feel Jesus with me as I walk along each day. That guy that picked me up hitchhiking when I was fourteen was right, you really can know Him. He can heal an empty life and a broken heart. His love brought me through! He truly has put my feet on higher ground.

Real Life Stories Christian Testimony Books
Jim and Carla Barbarossa
Phone: 219-762-7589
Email: jimbarbarossa7@gmail.com or jim@step-by-step.org
Website: https://www.reallifestoriesbooks.com/

Light a Spiritual Fire with a Full-Time Evangelist in Every Church

When the Apostle Paul wrote these words to Timothy, Paul believed that his days on Earth were coming to an end. Paul wanted to help prepare Timothy to carry on the important work of taking the Good News about Jesus Christ to those who had not yet heard. As long as one person has not heard and understood about Salvation, our work as witnessing Christians isn’t done, despite the challenges we may face to do so. That’s what Paul wanted us to remember. In practice, Paul was simply reaffirming to another generation what all followers of Jesus had been commanded to do by Him: After  being saved through His grace, we must help others receive the same gift. Why was that message important in the early church? Few had heard of Jesus, and many who had heard disputed His Divine nature.Jesus knew how important this task was because it was his last direction to his eleven disciples in the book of Matthew. (See Matthew 28:19-20.) Last messages are remembered best, and our Lord was again perfect in His wisdom in choosing this message.

 

When Paul was still called Saul, he had a hard heart toward Jesus and the early Christians, being a leader in rebuking, punishing, and stoning them. Paul only accepted Jesus as Lord and Savior after He appeared in His blinding glory on the road to Damascus and asked Paul why he was persecuting Him. God’s plan wasn’t to repeat that method of conversion, as was evidenced by Christ sending Paul a vision of Ananias restoring Paul’s sight and then directing Ananias to perform the miracle and to baptize Paul in the Holy Spirit.Despite this clear direction and the hard work of many great pastors, missionaries, evangelists, and witnessing Christians for nearly two thousand years, a global survey today would probably show that the majority of people on Earth either don’t know about God’s promises to us or don’t believe those promises. That’s a sad commentary on how well we are following the Lord’s direction to bring His Good News to everyone. How many lost people are there compared to those who are saved? Only God knows, but the ratio is surely no more than ten to one and may well be as low as six to one. Some would argue that the 30 percent of the world’s population that identify themselves as

Christians are a larger number, but many of those self-proclaimed Christian Testimonies  have not repented of their sins and accepted Jesus as their Lord and Savior. If we equally divided names of the lost into individual lists for each Christian, there would only be six to ten names on each list. If each Christian immediately began making contacts, each lost person would hear the Good News very quickly. Some Christians would be done making first contact in a single day to their share of the lost. If these Christians repeated the contacts daily, most would have succeeded in getting the message across in a convincing way to their share of the lost within a month. As the number of Christians grew and more people joined in witnessing, the number of people for each Christian to contact would become smaller and each lost person would receive more testimonies. The combined effect of such a concentrated effort would be marvelous. Some people undoubtedly have such hard hearts that they wouldn’t receive the blessings of this heavenly information no matter how many Christian Testimony Books they heard. But the task of fulfilling God’s call to help all be saved would be as complete as Christian efforts and prayers can Witnessing Made Easy: Yes, You Can Make a Difference accomplish. Christians could then keep knocking on the hard hearts and eventually many more souls would be saved.What’s our point? If everyone does some witnessing, it’s not a big job. Why then is there so much work to be done? It’s because most Christians don’t share their faith with lost people. Many people estimate that over 90 percent of Christians have never witnessed to anyone, and most of the rest have done little witnessing. Our survey at Jubilee Worship Center (JWC) showed that the majority of church members were either doing nothing or very little before being exposed to the church’s emphasis on witnessing.Here is what one Christian woman told us about her attitudes  toward witnessing before meeting in-congregation evangelists at JWC:

 

I have attended church for most of my adult life and have been involved in many of the ministries of the church. I have taught Sunday School to preschoolers through adults, served as an elder, served as church secretary, served as janitor, etc., just as many other church members have done. To me, this was what church was all about, and I found great satisfaction in what I was doing. The internal workings of the church were my delight. That was all I knew.     The churches I had attended placed little or no emphasis on evangelism …. We were under the impression that anything to do with Evangelism Training was under the job description of the pastors and the missionaries. This was their duty and that’s why we hired them. We all knew that passing out tracts or tapes or whatever was for the overboard fanatics … all this was out of our scope.

 

Change satisfied witnessing inaction into inspired witnessing, and Christians will quickly and easily transform humanity in the ways that God intended. How do you get everyone busy witnessing? You need an in-congregation evangelist to light the fire of desire for witnessing and to fan its flames with teaching how to witness. Why do we say that? Because our survey answers showed that JWC members who responded (almost the whole congregation) became active witnesses after in-congregation evangelists were appointed.

 

Real Life Stories - I Could Not Afford Anything

I could not afford anything. I had only five trays of ice but somehow the money was always there.

Write a testimony? Not me! It’s been two years and four months since I gave my life back to Jesus. Today, while sitting at my desk God said, “Write your testimony on financial needs.” I thought, “Maybe I’m just thinking.” A couple hours later again, I heard, “Write your testimony.” Again, I thought, “Me? No, not me.” On the way home from work, I heard, “Write your testimony on financial needs.”

I am a Christian now and I thank God for that. I left from a bad relationship of three years spent running around a table trying not to get hit or trying to get away from a gun. God had plans for me because I am still here.

One day when he was high on coke and drinking, I told him that if he left with the person who he always got high with, I was not going to be here when he got back.

Several times I wanted to leave but just couldn’t. This time was different. I was not afraid. When he left, I packed just what I needed for a couple of days. He called and threatened to kill me and my kids if that is what it took.

I moved in with my son. His house was empty at the time. His girlfriend moved out with the children, so I had a place to go. I stayed for awhile and then my son and his girlfriend got back together. They needed the space back, and I was asked to move out.

I had just gotten a job and had no money saved up when I moved out. The tires on my car were bad. The boss I worked for at the time told me to take my car and put new tires on all four. I moved into an apartment, and I couldn’t afford that either, but the money was there for me. I thought this must be a test to see if I really trusted God. I moved on faith.

I did a lot of praying, crying, and trusting in God. Every time something came up like rent, a car payment, a Nipsco bill, or a telephone bill, the money was always there. I would get a check in the mail for money I forgot I had loaned out or someone would just stop by and offer me a bag of groceries. When I moved into my apartment, I had five trays of ice and that was all. But I was happy. I didn’t worry because I knew God would not let me starve. What a blessing God has given me. I had never lived by myself, and I thought, “How is this going to work out?” God knew. He wouldn’t give me something I couldn’t handle.

I can say I have never went without anything I needed. God has put people in my life to see that I had what I needed. All the people helping me would find jobs for me to do to help me out. My friend Mary would see that she had painting to do and call up and ask, “Can you paint?”

I’d say, “I’ll do my best,” and off to Mary’s I would go.

I finally realized that my treasures are not here on earth. They are in heaven with Jesus. I have had the love of my family and support from my daughter. She’s been such a blessing to me. Every time I would call her to pray for me, she would never have to ask why, she would just pray. I have had to put all my trust and faith in God. He has pulled me through all the rough times and the low times in my life. I know it was God who pulled me through. What God has helped me with financially and in every aspect of my life, He can do for you. You must have faith in God and trust Him. All things are possible with God.

God has pulled me through with flying colors, but it has been on His time, not mine. Sometimes I would think, “Now, God, now. Why not now?” But God has His hands on everything --- Who? What? When? And Where? Only God knows.

Sundays when the dance team at church would dance so beautifully and gracefully, I would think, “Could I do that for God?” I got such a blessing from watching the dancers, now I’m a member of the dance team. I hope I will be able to bless someone like I was blessed through dance. I know I can do all things through Christ.

Real Life Stories Christian Testimony Books
Jim and Carla Barbarossa
Phone: 219-762-7589
Email: jimbarbarossa7@gmail.com or jim@step-by-step.org
Website: https://www.reallifestoriesbooks.com/

The Evangelist is very important in Christianity

 

A person that preaches Christianity to others by addressing different gospels and testimonies is known as an evangelist. The Evangelist is very important in Christianity because they attract non-believers to start believing in god. Evangelist usually describes the part of their own life that how they start believing Jesus or the story of other people that believe in god and get succeeded. Every church has a leader that is the evangelist of the church. Many new believers that are unfamiliar with god need to attend evangelisms for increasing their faith in god. If you want to preach faith and become an evangelist then you have to do proper training for this. Evangelism training is important because it helps you to decide the best thing to address others and also helps you to manage the time and complete your talk within less time.

 You have to use good communication skills for attracting the audience. For increasing your communication skills and confidence you have to attend different evangelisms. The most influencing evangelism is that in which the evangelist describer his faith by telling the story of a life that what the difficulties were he was facing and how he get closer to Jesus. After describing the problem and failures then an evangelist has to describe the story that how Jesus solves his difficulties and makes his life easy. For becoming a good evangelist you will have to attend evangelism tarring. You can also find the best evangelism training methods on our website, so you can train yourself while sitting in your home.

When someone tells the real story of his life that what difficulties were in his life and how Jesus solve his difficulties and he convert to Christianity then it means that he is describing his testimony. Testimonies are very useful for increasing the faith of new disciples and also attracting non-believers. There are many testimony books are available that are useful for increasing faith.

You can search for these testimony books on our website. We offer some of the best Christians testimony books that contain the real-life stories of many Christian across the globe. Testimony involves the life of a person before converting to a Christian and after becoming a Christian. It compares the difficulties and comfort in life before and after believing god. Jail ministry resources are also the best way to increase faith. In jail ministry resources person that spend some time in jails describe their testimony that how they were feeling in prison and what changes happened in their life after prison. Christian testimony books also contain testimonies of many prisons that how they get closer to Jesus. So if you want to improve your faith or want to preach the faith then describe your testimony and recommend non-believers or new believers to read Christian testimony books.

Real Life Stories - Everything Was Falling Apart

Life was turned upside down.
My home life was very stressful.
I couldn’t catch my breath.
I had the biggest panic attack.
They called 911.
I went home and cried out…..

I was going through a period in my life where everything was turned upside down. I was at a job that required me to work over 55 hours a week, my home life was very stressful, and I had started to distance myself from friends and family.

My job started to become a very hostile environment. Life at home was even more hostile. I started to see everything that I had worked so hard for falling apart. I would cry myself to sleep at night and would cry at work in between breaks. One day at work, I couldn’t catch my breath. I had the biggest panic attack that I had ever had at my desk. They called 911, and I was rushed to the hospital in an ambulance. The doctor came in and told me he was going to put me on medicine that would stop the panic attacks. However, I wouldn’t be able to work or drive a motor vehicle. The medicine would basically keep me sleepy and sedated all day long. I went to the pharmacy to have the prescription filled, and the pharmacy told me the medicine was on backorder. As soon as the shipment came in, they would call me.

I went home and cried out to God. I began to pray Mathew 18:18.

“Verily I say unto you, whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”

I began to use my authority and quote God’s word. I never had another panic attack from that day forward.

Real Life Stories Christian Testimony Books
Jim and Carla Barbarossa
Phone: 219-762-7589
Email: jimbarbarossa7@gmail.com or jim@step-by-step.org
Website: https://www.reallifestoriesbooks.com/

Prison Ministry Book & ideas - REAL LIFE STORIES

 

Prison ministry books are very helpful for increasing the cooperative feeling among Christians of different cultures, scriptural, and denominations. Prison ministry helps to increase our belief in Jesus .Prison is considered the visit to a foreign land in Christianity. It is thought that caring about inmates is a very threatening prospect. According to many prisoners, they are lucky to be an inmate and are happy with this because they are Christians and considered it as blessings .

Prison ministry books are very helpful and encourage many pastors and evangelist to care about prisons and the ministry of prison life. If you want to inspire any prisoners then sharing the real-life stories and gospels and showing them the right path and praying for them is very helpful. Millions of people are prisoned in jails and their lives are changed, they are looking for affection in that prison. Now change your life and bring harmony and affection with Real Life Stories Prison Ministry books.

 

Contact Us :

    Address: 815 S. Babcock Rd, Porter , Indiana , 46304, US
Phone   219-762-7589
Gmail: jim@step-by-step.org

Read more : http://www.reallifestoriesbooks.com

 

Real Life Stories - I Was Not Expected to Live

In college, I took the path of having fun.
The van flipped end-over-end.
I had to hit rock bottom before I realized…

I grew up in a Christian home, attending church and hearing about God all my life. At seven, I became a Christian. I was active in church until my senior year of high school. When I took a job at local go-cart track, I usually worked late hours on Saturday evening, which caused me to start the habit of missing church the next morning. In college, I took a path of having fun rather than living for God. I had all but forgotten my spiritual commitment.

On October 2, 1982, a group of friends and I were coming home from the Winnie Texas Rice Festival, when a drunk driver struck our van, clipping off our left front wheel. The van flipped end-over-end. Two of us were thrown from the van. The other person was not injured, but my injuries were severe. The most serious were two crushed vertebrae. My parents were out of town at the time, and the doctors advised them to get to the hospital quickly as I was not expected to live through the night. When my parents arrived, the doctors told them if I did live, I would never walk again. My parents did the only thing they could do; they prayed, asking their friends to pray too. My condition began to stabilize.

During my hospital stay, I prayed and sang to God around the clock. I had to hit rock bottom before I realized my need for God. I cried out to the Lord for my healing, and He heard my prayer.

After my stay in the hospital, I was sent to the rehabilitation center to learn how to walk again. If the physical therapist asked me to do a certain exercise fifty times, I would do it one hundred times. “If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles.” Matthew 5:41. I wanted to take advantage of the opportunity God had given me to totally depend on Him. Today, even though I walk with a slight limp, I am grateful for my recovery - both physically and spiritually.

Shepherds have an interesting way of handling wayward sheep. It seems there is always one stubborn sheep that wants to wander off. The shepherd will leave the flock to find and bring the one wayward sheep home. If the sheep continues to wander, the shepherd will actually break the sheep’s leg. The shepherd will then carry the sheep on his shoulder until its leg is healed. During this time, he feeds and cares for the sheep. The sheep becomes one hundred percent dependent on the shepherd.

After that, the sheep never leaves the shepherd’s side again. What appeared at first to be a cruel act was actually very loving. If the shepherd had not disciplined the sheep, its wandering could have destroyed it. God lovingly disciplined me to bring me back to Him. I am thankful to my Savior, Jesus, for my salvation.

In talking to others about my faith, I have discovered there are many Christians who do not read God’s Word daily. I made a personal commitment not to leave my house without reading at least one Bible verse. I schedule my time in the Word every day, so I can be equipped for whatever comes my way that day.

For most of my Christian life, reading God’s Word daily was not a habit. Now, I keep the Bible on my kitchen table as a reminder to read it every morning. I like to challenge people to read the Word by asking them, “Would you leave your house without eating breakfast?” Then I follow with, “Why would you leave without feeding yourself spiritually?” Daily Bible reading will equip you to face the day.

How do you live as a Christian? Read God’s Word every day, and then obey what you read.

In conclusion, first, make Jesus once and for all, the Lord of your life: Pray Psalm 51. Read the Gospel of John and check out needGod.com.

Secondly, grow spiritually: Read God’s Word every day, and obey what you read.

Next, ask God to use you to make a difference in His Kingdom: Help others. Volunteer at church. Be a giver not just a taker.

Lastly, pray God will use you to share Christ with others: Give out Gospel tracts. Bring people to church. Study the Bible with others.

Real Life Stories Christian Testimony Books
Jim and Carla Barbarossa
Phone: 219-762-7589
Email: jimbarbarossa7@gmail.com or jim@step-by-step.org
Website: https://www.reallifestoriesbooks.com/

I Didn’t Know What to Do - Real Life Stories of Hope

 

My newborn wasn’t eating or gaining any weight. I knew something was wrong, but I didn’t know what to do. I took my son to the doctor, and they found a hole in his heart. It was a heart murmur. There was nothing they could do but wait until he was older to do the surgery. In the meantime, I was watching my child wither away. My only choice was to turn to God. I thought, “Would He hear me? Would He answer me? Did He even exist?” I didn’t know because I was a devout Buddhist.

I had been a Buddhist for most of my childhood and all of my adulthood in South Korea. I would travel to the mountainous area near my home in order to go to temple, and I lived my life according to Buddha’s teachings. Before I had my son, I prayed to Buddha for 100 days. Every night at 10:00, I would make a bowl of rice and a cup of water as an offering to him. I would light my candles and then pray and meditate to give me a son. So when I birthed my son, I could not understand why he was born with this defect. Why wasn’t Buddha answering me to heal my son? My friends would call and visit to talk to me about Jesus and God. I would always make an excuse not to go to their church because I didn’t believe that this “God” even existed.

My son started to eat less, only finishing a half a bottle a day when babies are supposed to drink 4-6 bottles. He was steadily losing weight and sleeping more than the average newborn. I was in fear for his life, and Buddha was just not fixing the problem. In desperation, I started to seek God. I prayed, weeping to Him saying, “God, if You are real and if You hear me, please heal my son. I will live my life for You if You heal my son. Please show me that You are real. Make my son fat and well.” Not too long after that, I had to take him back to the doctor. They examined him with scans and x-rays. The German doctor finally came back to me and said that he didn’t know how to explain it, but the hole in my son’s heart had completely filled. It was as if the hole had never been there. We were in the doctor’s office amazed. My son is currently 29 years old, and I am praying now that he loses weight! REAL LIFE STORIES inspire to other towards GOD,

I was a changed woman after that. God heard my cry, and He proved to me that He was real. I asked Jesus into my heart and converted to Christianity. When I came to the U.S., I became a member at a local church. I hadn’t found a job yet, so I continued to serve in the church fulltime. As weeks passed, I began to notice that my friends were finding jobs. I wondered when it would be my turn, considering we all put in applications at the same places. My husband had retired from the army reserve and worked security, which was not enough for our growing family. We now had five children. It was hard getting a job, but I still believed in God to provide for my needs. I had little education, only an elementary education. In Korea, families had to pay for education beyond elementary. If your family was poor, usually it was the firstborn who continued their learning while other children worked at home or took up a trade.

God blessed me to work in retail for over 25 years. I fear the Lord. It is a good type of fear, similar to how we love and fear our parents. This job has allowed me to Christian Testimonies and spread the gospel no matter what people say or think about me because I want to please God. I have had the opportunity to speak with drug dealers, ex-cons, pastors, city officials, and many more about God and what He desires of them. He has led me into a life of prayer and fasting. I pray for all those I come in contact with, including praying for the circumstances of the whole world. Each night since I have been saved, I pray into the late hours of the night and early hours of the morning. I am dedicated to serving God because He has shown me how real He is. If you want to know God for yourself, all you have to do is talk to Him and do it with all your heart. He hears us, even those who don’t know Him yet. His desire is for you to know who He is and to be a part of your life.