Christs' Testimony in My Life

Dan Dickerson

My Testimony, or anyone else's for that matter, is really the testimony of the Mercy, Grace, and Power of the Lord Jesus Christ. Without His intervention and watchful eye our lives would surely be as a wandering ship without a lighthouse ultimately ending in shipwreck. I intend to share my/His testimony through audio clips and add some more text as I go. My prayer is that the testimony of Christ in and through my history will bring others to faith in Christ and hopefully to avoid some of the mistakes that I've made before and after becoming a believer. This is the extremely short version for now. I was born in Chicago, IL. to a great mother and a great father - when he was sober. My father and mother divorced when I was around 4 years old but the effect on my personal life as I grew older was quite devastating. I'm not blaming my parents for the choices I've made in my life, because sooner or later we all have to face the issue of forgiveness, and choose to do so for our own growth and happiness. And I have done so, by the power of the Lord Jesus. I've also had to take responsibility for some of the beliefs and choices I've made and how it has affected my life, sometimes through painful and tragic events, and I've done that through the grace and power of the Lord. It also makes for a better witness in our lives if we learn to forgive seeing that we are representing the One who has forgiven us of all our trespasses against Him and others.  I'll save the younger years of growing with an alcoholic parent for audio and skip to my teenage years. The one thing I will mention at this time is something my mother did when I was 8 years old that had a profound and positive affect on my life that continues to this day. She took my younger brother and I to see The Greatest Story Ever Told a movie about the life of Christ. I remember the last scene of the movie about Christ's ascension and hearing the words " I will never leave you or forsake you - I am with you always". I accepted Christ in my life, as best as a 8 year old boy could do without any spiritual guidance, and also remember praying to the Lord quite often. But because I had no one to guide me ( my father never attended church, read the bible, or prayed although he did give his life to Christ when He died) I eventually drifted away from praying to the Lord but I believe He saw the heart of that little boy who was scared, lonely and insecure and He never left me. I'll upload more on my childhood later. I was a fairly smart person in middle school and early high school, I had college level grade average and qualified to go to Lane Tech vocational school in 1970 in Chicago. But because of my insecurities and poor self image, on the first day of the school year, when my dad took me to Lane Tech I started seeing myself getting lost in the halls and being humiliated. And even though I qualified to go to this " brainy" school I never saw myself as smart. I saw myself the way my father, grandmother, and stepmother had spoken to me most of my life i.e. You no-good-for-nothing heathen or you g-d son of a b---h etc. While I don't recall ever being called stupid I constantly heard “ If I told you once I've told you a thousand times” which essentially had the same affect as being called stupid. ( Parents your words and attitudes towards your children can promote spiritual and emotional life or death in your child. What may seem harmless today can have devastating affects later on in their life). I eventually dropped out of school and started hanging around people who were into smoking pot or dope. I started following the crowd because I wanted desperately to feel accepted by someone and feel a part of a family. Eventually I got involved with a small gang ( we mainly hung out together for protection against other gangs ) and was shot and almost died at the age of seventeen. This was not the first brush with death in my life. Because of my fathers alcoholism at times he put us in dangerous situations. Three days before I was shot I had a dream that I was going to get shot and everything in the dream came to pass! In fact the Lord has given me many dreams since then and many of them have come to pass. You may not believe that God can or does speak to us through dreams but I've experienced them personally and have since learned that they are part of Gods gifting to people.

	Joel 2:28 And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions: Acts 2:16 But this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel; Acts 2:17 And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams:

In fact the Lord used a dream 5 years later to bring me to salvation. After I was shot I went back to drinking, drugs, etc.. not learning or discerning the Lords voice of love and care in the warning in the dream of being shot. I married my first wife when I was 19 but I was much like my father. When I wasn't drinking or drugging I was a half-way decent person but when I was partying my poor wife suffered. I was extremely unhappy about my life and in 1977 or 78 I decided to leave Chicago and move to Spruce Pine Alabama. I say I decided but the reality was that the Lord was directing my steps towards an encounter with Him !! While in Alabama my wife gave her life to the Lord and began playing Elvis Presley gospel music around the house. If it would have been any other gospel singer I probably would have shut the stereo off or thrown out the record. But because my dad was a big fan of Elvis as I was growing up he would take us to see all his movies and listen to his music. As a consequence I actually grew up liking Elvis and tried to sing like him. ( I kept my liking of Elvis a secret from my teenage buddies while we listened to Led Zepplin, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, etc ) !! :) The Lord knows how to set up our lives in order to reach us at the right place and the right time ! As she played the music the Holy Spirit was convicting me of my sin and also of the love of my Heavenly Father who had promised a scared and lonely eight year old boy that He would never leave him or forsake him. In the course of time my in-laws were visiting relatives in Spruce Pine on their way to Phoenix Arizona. I told my wife to go with them and check out the job situation in Arizona and let me know if it was better than Alabama.

While she was gone the Holy Spirit was still bearing witness of Jesus Christ and one night I had a dream that forever changed my life. I dreamed that I was in a place of judgment somewhere in heaven. There were dark rolling clouds all around and while I was afraid I knew it was a place of reckoning and a place of truth. As I stood looking at the clouds I sensed someone standing next to me and I also sensed the Presence of Jehovah. I looked to see who was standing next to me and somehow knew that it was Noah from Noah's ark. Then the Lord spoke to Noah and asked him “ Noah who do you love”? Without hesitation Noah answered “ I love you Lord”. Then the Lord asked me who did I love. For some reason the dollar figure of $50,000 flashed in front of me. I knew I was being asked to decide if I loved the world or the Lord. I was speechless because I knew the Lord knew the answer and I could not answer Him. Then I awoke from the dream. It was so real that I couldn't stop thinking about that dream and the Lord's question to me for about 3 days. After 3 days I was flipping the channels ( no remote in those days !!!! ) and came across the PTL club program. I don't remember all that was spoken but I remember Hal Lindsay explaining the way of salvation and the purpose of Christ coming to earth to take away our sins. The Holy Spirit was really witnessing of Christ big time through the dream and spoken word of faith all the next day. When I left work I drove home as fast as I could and threw open the curtains in our bedroom knelt down and surrendered my life to Jesus. I didn't know that I could have prayed at work or in the car or anywhere else and still receive salvation! At last I finally felt loved and accepted as a human being. For the next week I sat out in the front yard and just stared up at the sky worshiping the Lord according to my limited knowledge. I've been a Christian for 30 years now and in all honesty it has been both a time of tremendous joy because of the Lords presence, love, word, blessings and grace. It has also been a time of pain and sorrow because of my own shortcomings and the unexpected reality of other Christians being less than perfect. For example my first wife, who was such a key part in my coming to faith in Christ, left me because I was a Christian !! But I would not change anything about my Christian life because the Lord has used every blessing and every pain to drive me to seek him and learn of Him to love, forgive, and bless others in His name. Jesus told us to count the cost of being a disciple, because while there is tremendous blessing in being one, there is also persecution and suffering. Well there is the short version of my/His testimony. I encourage you to check back and ( as Paul Harvey might say ) catch the rest of the story.

If you are a Christian and struggle with sin or issues of unforgiveness towards other Christians,                            or anyone else, ask the Lord to fulfill His promise in you from Ezekiel 36:26,27  A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh.  And I will put my spirit within you, and I will cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them. This covenant promise will transform your life and thinking if you will surrender, by faith, your whole life to Him.   Will it be easy?   No.  But the Lord has put an obligation on Himself to fulfill His word to anyone who will believe in His faithfulness to His covenant and have the patience to wait for its' fulfillment. Heb 10:35, 36 Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompense of reward.             For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive thepromise.

If you have read this and are not a Christian I would ask you to consider all the times over your life that the Lord has spoken to you either in a movie, a word, a song, an act of kindness, or through your life being spared for reasons that are hard to explain. Jesus said that our father in heaven causes the rain ( that is His blessings ) to fall on the just and on the unjust. As you examine your life consider the love of the Father in keeping you alive so that He could reveal Himself to you and impart eternal life to you through Jesus Christ. You can surrender to Him right now ( best option ) and begin your journey of faith and blessing or you can begin to search out the truth of who is Christ and what did He come to do ( the option of greater risk because: what if you wait to long and pass away, for whatever reason, without having become a believer? ).