Psalm 53:2 Says; “The fool says in his heart: There is no God.”

That was me; a fool. Until I was almost forty years old I did not believe that God existed. I would make fun of people who went to church. I made fun of street preachers. In my youth, I attended a church but only because I wanted to be in the youth group with some of my friends. We would stay for about half the meeting and then walk down the street to “our” pub and drink until closing time.

Many years later I was arguing with my wife, who was a believer, and I said “it’s okay for you, you got somebody to talk to” and I pointed up to the sky.

It shocked me. I was thinking; how could I say that if I don’t believe a God exists and for about two weeks a battle was going on inside of me.

Part of me was thinking maybe I was wrong, maybe there is a God after all. The other part of me – my ego – was thinking; I’m not going to admit that I was wrong.

My pride was fighting against my conscience.

Not only was I fighting against my conscience, I was fighting against God – that was a waste of my time.

God won. I just sensed on the inside of me He was saying; Gotcha!

I started going to church (in England where I am from) which was very traditional. Not long after, the company I worked for moved me to North America. I still went to a traditional (religious) church. When we moved to New Jersey some friends invited us to an Assembly of God church.

Being used to very traditional liturgy, when the Pastor of the AoG church said let’s pray I thought everyone had gone crazy. In my formerly atheistic mind I was thinking; how is He going to hear these prayers if they all talk to Him at the same time. And I kept wondering where all these people were from because they were all speaking different languages.

I did not want to go back to that crazy church. However, God had other ideas and He led my friends to persuade me to go back. I enjoyed the worship. There were certainly a lot of very talented young singers in that congregation.

At the end of his sermon (which I cannot remember) the pastor invited people to go forward for prayer to accept Jesus or accept the Holy Spirit.

Some went forward and the Pastor said nothing for a while and then said “There is one more person whom God is calling to come forward.”

I had my eyes closed but I sensed my wife on one side and my friends on my other side were looking at me but I was thinking; I’m not going up there, I’m not going to make a fool of myself.

I opened my eyes and found myself half way down the aisle. I got to the alter and I wept liked a baby and gave my life to Jesus, my Savior and my Lord (Romans: 9-13)

My life has never been the same from that day. My sins have been forgiven and I am a son of God (Romans 8:14). Allelujah!

For many year’s I had suffered from an extremely painful form of arthritis. Doctors had told me it was an unusual form of the disease and was incurable.

Shortly after I had accepted Jesus as my Savior and Lord, I was attending a Sunday Evening service enjoying the ministry of a guest speaker. At the end of the service he invited anyone who suffered from any form of Rheumatism or arthritis to receive prayer for healing. I was one of the last of a lot of people who had gone forward. I was not very patient and thought to myself; he’s not going to heal me, God is, and I sat down again. (not only impatient but also disobedient)

One of the peculiarities of the disease I had was that it would get much worse when it was about to rain. I can’t explain why but it did.

About two weeks after the church service I had to run to the grocery store for something. I drove there, jumped out of my car and had to run into the store because it was raining.

As I walked down the aisle I suddenly realized it was raining and I was not in pain and I had no swelling of my joints.

I stopped and shouted “Allelujah it’s raining Praise be to God I’m healed.” Other people in the store looked at me as if I had gone crazy and when I said “isn’t it wonderful it’s raining,” the girl at the check-out couldn’t get me out quick enough.

When I got back to my car, I just sat and cried and said “why did you do that God? After all the awful things I have said in the past, why would you do that for me?” In a voice as clear as could be I heard God say; “Because I love you, I have always loved you and I have forgiven and forgotten all those things.

God is Love so He cannot do anything but love us. If He can do that for me, He will do it for anyone. He is a healing God.