Justin's Testimony

 

I met Justin at a Bible Study that I was holding at a Substance Abuse Counseling Center.  He was standing in the hallway awaiting this program that was offered as part of his rehab.  He was big and mean.  His pants hung down so low you could see his underwear.  He was not expecting any real help with this program.  He had given up on finding help after spending time in the Bahamas with a get tough drug rehab that had only hardened his heart to a point of complete demonic takeover.  Now here he stood with attitude waiting for the bible teacher to show up.  I was that teacher.

I made a joke about his underwear and told him to come in and find out that God is real.  After just one or two sessions, Justin broke down and went into hysteria because I was teaching on the Father’s love.  Justin had to let go of his natural dad (actually bury him in his heart) to be able to find the true and living God.  His natural dad was an alcoholic severely abusive man.  Justin had watched his dad beat his mother until she was unconscious and bleeding with a broken back.  He remembered as a small child being forced to fight bigger kids until he saw blood or his dad wouldn’t let him in the house.  Over the next four years Justin would reveal one horrible experience after another from his life.  At seventeen, he had truly lived a life full of hatred and disappointment.  He had a hardened heart and a seared conscious.  He had participated in criminal activity and violent behavior.  He had spent time in jail and juvenile detention for most of his short life.

God gave me a love for Justin that was supernatural and unconditional.  He became a regular at all the meetings.  The bible study that was part of his rehab was only a small part of his participation with Beauty for Ashes Ministry.  He even found a way to attend our women’s retreat.

It has been a journey to see Justin delivered from the many demons in his life.  I have been cussed out and blamed for things.  I have had to bound the enemy in his heart to prevent him from harming me and others.  God had our ministry hire him for a short time.  We have had the entire ministry pray and seek the face of God to bring Justin back when he has walked away.  God will spare no expense to show his love for us, he had me pay to take Justin to the Philippines on a dangerous missions trip.  God finished a work that started four years earlier at that first bible study.  Half way around the world and Justin could finally see that God did love him unconditionally.  What Justin had seen as weakness He now could see was truly strength in the life of our Lord.  He was able to finally renounce the things of evil and demonic strength and find that our weakness is the place for God’s strength to be real in our life.  To find freedom from the evil that some of you have embraced as strength please listen to excerpts from some of the teaching that Justin heard that were fundamental in his finding freedom in Christ.