For a couple of years, I was jobless, experiencing financial hardship, and having marital problems. I believed all of this was happening because God was punishing me.
I have been a Christian for more than fourteen years. I was also a Sunday school teacher and youth leader in my church. But the message I heard was that God takes people through bad times to teach them lessons. When times got hard, I began to accept the message that God puts people through hardships because they have done wrong or weren’t doing enough good.
I began to live a legalistic Christian life and I pushed those beliefs onto my wife. When my marriage suffered, I turned to pornography for a sense of pleasure that I wasn’t getting in my marriage.
One day, I was at home feeling low and thinking what I could do to please God. That day, I stumbled upon Pastor Joseph Prince’s broadcast.
The first message I heard was of how God loves me and that I should rest in the finished work of Christ. When I learned that I am the righteousness of God in Christ, it felt as though the weight and heaviness on me lifted. Tears began to fall from my eyes. Never in my life have I heard that I am as righteous as God because Christ paid for my righteousness.
As I continued to hear the messages, I developed a love for the Word and seeing Christ in the Word. I declared every day that I am the righteousness of God in Christ even when I was tempted to look at pornography. Soon the addiction to pornography effortlessly left. Now I feel empowered through Christ and not by my own works. God has also blessed me with a job far better than the others I have had. My wife and I are happy again in our marriage as the Holy Spirit guides and helps us love one another.
Thank you, Pastor Prince. I truly enjoy the message on the grace of God through our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. I watch your broadcast on television every day and I have over a hundred recordings of your messages on my DVR.
For someone who grew up in church as a pastor’s kid, I had been running from the call of God. But the gospel of Christ has now been awoken in me, and I now feel compelled to preach the gospel—the gospel that the apostle Paul preached about our Lord Jesus Christ. I am partnering with my father who is a pastor. I have convinced him that people need to hear the love of God and we are establishing a church with a vision for people to see Jesus.
The writer has requested to remain anonymous | Illinois, United States
