Greg, the kindergartner in the school of Christ, graduated with honors

“Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you.

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 an heart of flesh.

And I will put My Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in My statutes, and ye shall keep My judgments, and do them.

And ye shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; and ye shall be My people, and I will be your God.

I will also save you from all your uncleannesses: and I will call for the corn, and will increase it, and lay no famine upon you.

And I will multiply the fruit of the tree, and the increase of the field, that ye shall receive no more reproach of famine among the heathen.

Then shall ye remember your own evil ways, and your doings that were not good, and shall lothe yourselves in your own sight for your iniquities and for your abominations.” (Eze. 36:25-31).

This young fellow is amazed, yet he sees that his new life to be very normal. Greg’s journey in darkness of New Age “light” was long and hard. But in the end, his desperate searching in the dark gave him Olympic power to get his crown of righteousness. And I am just as amazed and grateful to God as Greg is. Yet, why am I amazed when I keep hearing similar stories from so many others who are returning to the God of our fathers, the God who raised up the Protestant Reformation and the Protestant Bible? Greg has fulfilled, to a “t”, the promise Jesus gave Israel and us today. We are His people. Everyone who comes to great need for the God of heaven through Christ and through His Bible, receives the new heart that He promised to create in them. This is what Greg is testifying of. Jesus gave him a new spirit.

“My instinct is to want to do the right thing, to want to be righteous, and want to serve God. That’s my instinct now; that’s my spirit now. A whole new spirit was given me by Jesus Christ, by God.” What he calls “instinct”, and started to call “innate” is the divine nature that Peter spoke of. “Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.” (2Pet. 1:4).

Greg said, “Things that I thought were impossible, things that I had questions, things that I have seen many, many people not be able to overcome, Jesus showed me that its been possible, and I have overcome them myself. And I’m a living testimony. And all of these things were just falling off of me just easily. And every day that goes by I’ve been worshiping Jesus more and more. He’s been providing more and more miracles in my life everyday.”

Greg is obeying—probably without knowing it—what Paul said to the Galatians, “This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.” (Gal. 5:16).

“There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.” (Rom. 8:1,2).

Have you heard of a clearer demonstration of Romans 8 verses 1 and 2 than Greg’s and all the other testimonies on YouTube? This is phenomenal! Even Providential!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDjidaiBg00

“Hey, how are you guys doing today? My name is Greg, and I’m here today because I want to share my personal testimony about how I came to know my Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. And just what He has done for my life, and how He took me from who I used to be to who I am now. And just how this whole thing came about. I just want to glorify His name and share this video to everyone so everyone can give Him a chance who hasn’t gave Him a chance yet.

When I was young, some of my family are Christians, some of my family are not Christians. My mom, she’s a Christian; my dad, he doesn’t really believe in Jesus or the Bible. He’s very skeptical. Both of my grandmothers are very Christian; my grandfathers were kind of Christians. You see why my family is kind of split, half of them Christians, half of them not. Even the ones who are Christians, all of them weren’t really into it. They were just kind of, you know, go to church occasionally, and things of that nature. So, naturally with me growing up I was around my grandparents a lot, I would spend a night over there sometimes, and I would go to church with them. I would go to church with them on some Sundays. I probably say I would go to church like once every month, once every couple months. And I kind of slowed down more as I got older.

So when I used to go to church, I would hear the Word, I would hear the Bible. But I never really paid..., it just kind of went in one ear and out the other. I never really paid attention to it too much. I was just kind of in church. Just kind of listening. It’s hard to explain how I was there all of that time, [and] I never really caught on to too much. I knew about Jesus, I knew about the Bible, but I never really went into it. And I mean this is from all the way when I was from the age I can remember, 5 years old whatever, all the way up until I stopped going to church, I don’t know, middle school or something like that, early high school. But all of those years, I really knew nothing about the Bible, even though I’d been to church so many times. I kind of claimed myself as a Christian if someone would ask me back then, but I didn’t know much about it and I had no personal relationship with God or with Jesus. I just kind of said I was a Christian just because that is what I was born into.

So, as time went by, as I began to mature more, you know, 15, 16, as I got into high school, I started to question reality, and all that stuff. What is reality? What is Jesus? What is God? Is God real? You know, what about all these religions? You know we got Buddhism, Hinduism, you know all kinds of stuff all over the world. We got the Torah, the Bible. I was just trying to figure out what was real and what was what. So, you know, I was just, I kind of left Christianity when I was in high school, like middle high school. So I quit claiming myself as a Christian. I just stopped. I didn’t really believe in the Bible. And what I found was I was drawn more to the New Age movement, which was like, inner peace, meditation. I was even trying stuff like astral projection, stuff like that. I was more on the inner peace stuff, and God is everywhere, God is everybody. You know, all of that stuff, whatever I was thinking. But, mostly focus on my meditation, and inner peace, happiness, all of that stuff comes from the inside. And you can create your own reality, and positive thoughts, positive vibes, I was in all of that stuff. That’s what I believed was real. I no longer believed in Jesus and God, and all of that stuff.

So during the course, and my mind stayed with that stuff was from all the way high school, all the way till like my third year of college. So I was in that mind state for a good few years, probably five to seven years. Yeah, that was my mind state and I was just living that way. And when I had that mind state, how my life was going, I was doing a lot of stuff being young and foolish. I was drinking alcohol, smoking, doing drugs, and stuff. I was cheating on all of my girlfriends. I didn’t care anything about it. All I cared about was getting caught. And I barely cared about getting caught either, honestly. So I was cheating on my girlfriends, I was cheating in school, lying, stealing. Just all kinds of bad stuff, if you could think of it, I was doing it. Obviously I was worshiping false things. Worshiping this inner peace, so whatever. So I was doing all this terrible stuff I shouldn’t have been doing. And I was living my life that way. And I kind of knew, or I assumed, that this stuff wasn’t right. So I would literally try to meditate, because that’s what I thought the truth was. I would try to meditate, I would try to seek this inner peace, I would try my hardest, I mean meditation, hours a day. You know I would try, I would be researching all types of stuff on-line, inner peace, you know people like-minded, like me. Just trying, I’m trying to overcome this stuff. And I couldn’t overcome none of it. I was still cheating, years later, I was still cheating, still drinking, still on drugs, still doing all of that stuff. I couldn’t overcome it on my own. I tried, I tried and I couldn’t overcome it.

So this was my mind state all the way up to my third year of college. So I met a girl my sophomore year of college. Her situation was similar to mine. She used to be a Christian, but she had drifted off from it. We started dating pretty fast. We’re both kind of on a path of life trying to figure out who we were, or whatever. During all this time, I graduated college, and I was in the process of getting a good job, all this stuff. But it’s always something in me that was always searching for the truth. I was still searching for the truth. I was still searching every day. I still didn’t feel fulfilled. I was thinking, ‘OK, I graduated college, I got some good jobs on the way. Is this all there is to life?’ I still felt like there was something missing. It still felt like a little something was missing in my life. I didn’t feel fulfilled; I didn’t feel complete. I felt like I was missing something. And that inner peace was not fulfilling who I was. That inner peace that I thought was real, and meditation, and all of that stuff, did not fulfill me. Even though I was practicing it daily, I was still searching for the truth, searching, searching, searching for the truth.

And one day, something just came over me, something just came over me, and just told me. I just had this urge, I just had this urge to read the Bible. Taking back to what I told you all at the beginning, about how when I was young I used to go to church, I’ve never… I [only] picked up the Bible and read a couple pages here and there my entire life. But I never really read it, especially when I actually grew up, never read it. And if I did read it it went in one ear and out the other. So [now] something came over me and told me, ‘Read the Bible. Read it. Read it. Read it.’ So I just picked up the Bible one day and just started reading. I started reading diligently. Reading and searching it. Reading and reading. I started on the book of Revelation because that’s what interested me. You know the prophecy of what’s going to happen at the end of days, and all of that stuff. So that’s where I personally started. So I just started reading all of stuff and for some reason it just seemed so true. Like it was something different about the Bible from everything else that I’ve read, from everything else that I’ve heard, from everything else that I’ve seen. I was just reading it and it was talking to me like I had a feeling like this was something different. So I just kept on reading it.

I went to the book of Genesis about the creation of all things. I started reading the book of Genesis. I was getting more and more into the Bible. And I was like, ‘What is this book?’ And next, I heard so much about the book of Matthew. And Jesus Christ obviously is like the focal point of Christianity. And I heard that the book of Matthew was the primary book about Jesus. And I was like, ‘Let me read the book of Matthew, and see if I can learn about this.’ And I read the book of Matthew, and I was just reading and reading and reading. I was just, I don’t know how to say it, I just started believing. Something in me was telling me, ‘This is real. This is the truth.’ Everything was making sense.

I don’t want to say this, but I used to pride myself in being a wise person. And when I read the Bible, it was so much wisdom it was overflowing from the Bible on a page to page basis with them that I’ve never heard in my life. And I just believed it. I don’t know why, I don’t know how, it just seemed so real to me. I just believed it. So, I was like, ‘OK. If this thing is real, if this is the truth, then I got no choice but to believe.’

So I got down one night soon after I was reading the Bible, maybe a few days later. I just prayed, I remember praying, I prayed, and I was like, ‘Jesus, if You are real, can You please show me that You are real, or show me that this is true?’ And I had a dream immediately. And in my dream—it’s hard to explain—but, it’s like I saw a figure in front of me, and I knew it was Jesus. He was just standing there, and I knew it was Jesus. I’m not saying that was actually Jesus in my dream, but when I prayed for that dream I had it and I knew that this was it.

So, from that point on I just got on my knees and just confessed my sins, gave my life to Jesus Christ, gave my life to God. And my whole life just changed. The Holy Spirit came over me, my whole spirit just changed. All those things I told you about, smoking, drinking, cheating, adultery, all that stuff fell off, Boom, Boom, Boom, like it was nothing. Everything was leaving me. And I was overcoming that stuff like it was nothing. I lie to you not. Things that I thought were impossible, things that I had questions, things that I have seen many, many people not be able to overcome, Jesus showed me that it’s been possible, and I have overcome them myself. And I’m a living testimony. And all of these things were just falling off of me just easily. And every day that goes by I’ve been worshiping Jesus more and more. He’s been providing more and more miracles in my life everyday.

And that’s how I came to Jesus Christ. He just saved my life. And my spirit changed. My spirit changed from wanting to do whatever I want, wanting to commit all of these evil things, wanting to smoke, and wanting to lie and cheat. My spirit changed from that to literally wanting to be righteous, wanting to do right things. Literally, innate…instinct, my instinct is no longer to do those evil things. My instinct is to want to do the right thing, to want to be righteous, and want to serve God. That’s my instinct now; that’s my spirit now. A whole new spirit was given to me by Jesus Christ, by God. Thank God.

And, this is my testimony.”

~~~

Ellen White agrees with this new creature in Christ. She wrote, “All true obedience comes from the heart. It was heart work with Christ. And if we consent, He will so identify Himself with our thoughts and aims, so blend our hearts and minds into conformity to His will, that when obeying Him we shall be but carrying out our own impulses. The will, refined and sanctified, will find its highest delight in doing His service. When we know God as it is our privilege to know Him, our life will be a life of continual obedience. Through an appreciation of the character of Christ, through communion with God, sin will become hateful to us.” Desire of Ages, p. 668.