I went to bed one man and woke a completly changed and born again man.

by geoff
(australia)

My Testimony,( I should really say Jesus's testimony)

When I was about 7 years of age I can remember looking at the brick wall at the back of our house and thinking " when I die I cant just turn into some inanimate object like a brick. I have to go somewhere. Like even if I did turn into a brick like thing I would be inside the brick looking out! ( you know how little children think) so even though I couldn't explain it I knew I had an eternal soul even then. From as early as I can remember I always just believed in the existence of God, I just knew He was their.

When I was about 12 years of age I had an accident on my bicycle which should have killed me but I came out of it with just a badly bruised knee. It was about 8pm and I was riding down an incredibly steep hill going flat out with no light on. A sports car came up the hill on the wrong side of the road and I hit it head on. I just clipped my knee on the low roof of the sports car and when sailing through the air for what must have been about 20 metres! Just after I hit the car I curled up into a ball and at that moment I thought I was in this really nice place with clouds around me in a warm bed just looking down at myself summersaulting through the air. Just as I hit the road I came back into myself and finished rolling down the hill. I got up off the ground and just limped home. The bicycle was unrecognisable, just a bunch of bits of twisted metal. The driver of the car was pretty shocked as he thought he had killed me and was amazed to see me walk up the hill. I understood from this experience a lot more that I had a soul although I didn't know it was called that.

The years went by and one night when I was in the Navy on my way to Vietnam, I was invited into a coffee shop on a Sunday evening by a Christian group. They told me the Gospel etc and I prayed a sinners prayer along with a couple of mates, but nothing happened, I just returned to my old ways. Another time I saw a Billy Graham program on TV and said the sinners prayer but again nothing happened.
" If anyone is in Christ he is a new creation..." but I definitely wasn't a new creation.

I had been married for a couple of years and we had a son by now. I enjoyed my sin and quiet often got totally stoned from grass and hash with a mate. I didn't care about my young family much. I was working in a factory at that time and in order to get a better job I decided to go to Night School ( we call it TAFE here) and get a basic education we call the School Certificate ( most 16 year olds get this) I had dropped out of school at the age of 15 mainly because of a bully who was always bashing me up and just making life miserable for me. Just as a side note, the Lord graciously overruled all of this and I later finished the school certificate with several A passes and then later the Leaving certificate and I finished a degree at Uni.

So while I was going to Night School I kept on smoking dope with my mate Alan, don't know how I thought I would pass doing this. Towards the end of the year I attended the Science class which was held on a Thursday evening. Our class was made up of students who had dropped out of school or couldn't attend for various reasons. The ages were anywhere from 17 to 57 years of age.
A young girl student asked the science teacher " is it true that we evolved from monkeys"? He answered no it isn't, and went on to give his testimony as he was a Christian. He had been heavily involved in witchcraft and satanic things when he was going through teachers college. He described how through the help of a Minister that he was set free and gave his life to Jesus. The lesson that night really turned into a general religious discussion with students asking all sorts of questions. I put my hand up and said " yes, everyone needs to believe in something"

I went home that night with the question running through my mind, " Well WHO do you believe in?, yourself.? Look where it has gotten you! I didn't know it then but my wife had had enough of me and was planning to pack up and leave me the very next day! (Can you see from all this what an absolutely marvellous and gracious Saviour we have!) That night I fully realised that I had a soul and that it was eternal. That I was a guilty sinner and that I was deserving of every punishment God would rightly throw at me, I deserved to go to Hell.
These thoughts rolled around my head that evening.

I went to bed as normal and about 3am I sort of woke up and had the strangest experience. I literally felt that I was falling into a black bottomless hole, I wasn't dreaming this, I felt it. I could feel the weightlessness of my body, kind of like when an aeroplane drops in an air pocket. I believed that I was dying and going to Hell. I remember crying and saying to God please forgive me for all that I have done and save me. Just then I felt a huge hand surround me and lift me up into this very bright and glorious light. I felt as though something inside me had left and instead this wonderful peace and joy filled and overflowed in my heart. I was so happy I didn't know wether to laugh or cry or shout out. I went back to sleep after a while. When I awoke I knew that I was a totally different person and that Jesus had forgiven me all my sins. If I died that day I knew 100% I was going to be with Him in heaven. Suddenly all those things about God and the Angels and the Bible I knew were all true. My wife said I heard you crying, what happened and I told her.

That morning my friend Alan picked me up for work at the factory as usual and said, " Geoff, I have arranged to by some really good acid (LSD) are you interested. I said " No Alan, that's all finished now. Last night I repented of my sins and gave my life to Christ, I am not doing that anymore." I can still picture it today, His jaw dropped and almost fell off along with a look of total amazement. I can remember walking to Church later that week and walking underneath a beautiful flowering crab apple tree and now seeing it and all creation as Gods amazing creations and work, in a way I never had before.

He has been so faithful to me throughout all these years, even though I have failed Him many times. But He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, indeed I have learned that the Gospel is not just for the repentant sinner but its for the Christian every day of our lives, we are to constantly repent and believe the Gospel that He has paid the full price for all our sins. Knowing the Lord Jesus is the greatest thing and the only important thing that can happen to a person. Indeed I had now become a new creation.