My Testimony

I was born in a border town in the Canadian prairies in the late 70's to a well-off family, where my father was a manager of an oil company, and my mom stayed home.

My family did not know the Lord until I was three years old, when my father came home after a business trip as a changed man. Visited by two angels who had led him into the heart of Calgary, he witnessed the sin of the world for what it was, and accepted the Lord as Savior, realizing that we cannot save ourselves. A few weeks after his revelation, I realized what my dad was talking about, and at the young age of three, I accepted the Lord with a full heart. The Spirit of the Lord came like a rushing wind on my life, filling me with His love. From that day forward, I have known the Hand of God was on my life.

The Visitation, Confrontation and a Lesson Learned

Not long after this excellent change from a child who knew nothing, to a child who loved the Lord and understood the Love of God that surpasses all understanding, my parents left my brother and myself with our next-door neighbor to baby-sit us. He claimed to know the Lord, and to that extent I will say he may have, but he did have a problem. Over the course of a month, I was tricked into playing a game, and then being sexually abused. I had known it was wrong somehow in my heart and I cried quietly to the Lord. My parents had no idea what was happening to me while they were in their outings. No parent could be blamed for trusting the person who was supposedly trustworthy to look after their children. I was only three years old, and did not totally understand. I asked Jesus to help me.

I woke up that night after the prayer to a dark bedroom. I felt strangely numb all over as I looked around. A light entered my room; it was bright gold and silver. When I focused I realized it was not just any light, but the Light of life. Jesus stood before me in glorious splendor; I saw his feet and his robe. His feet were strapped in brown sandals; his robe was not white silk, but a coarse tan fabric. I looked up to his hands. They looked strong, yet gentle. As I saw his hands I knew it was my Lord, because they were pierced. He knelt down beside my bed and I looked to see His face, but the light was too bright. I could make out His eyes, which were gentle against his bearded face. I don't know whether His form was true to life, or just one I would recognize, but when I saw His eyes, they were a deep pale blue, like the color of the oceans you see in satellite footage over the Caribbean. He put his hands over face and placed them on my cheeks and spoke to me.

His words were simple and not complicated."Craig, my son," He sincerely whispered. "Do not be afraid, I am Jesus who had died for you. I have been and will always be with you." I could feel the excitement in my heart rise as He spoke. "Do not be afraid to tell your parents what has happened, it is not your fault." He stroked my cheek, "Go now and tell your parents." He picked me up, and as I stood He was gone.

I didn't think twice about it, I walked to my parents' room. It was early in the morning; the sunlight of the new day was starting to shine through my parents' bedroom window. I remember their quilt comforter was like pillows as I jumped up on their bed. My mother sat up; she was somewhat startled at my pounce. "Craig?" she asked, surprised at the rude awakening. My dad was out of town on a business meeting that weekend so I only woke her.

"Mom!" I said excitedly, "I saw Jesus!" She didn't believe me. She thought I was trying to share a dream with her. "What did he look like?" she asked quizzically. "Did he wear white?"

"No mom," I responded with a chuckle, thinking she was playing with me. "It was like your color but brighter!" I could not explain what tan looked like, but my mother was wearing a dark peach night gown that resembled the color. My mom's face was glowing with blush. "Oh, that's good Craig!" She wanted more sleep. I could tell she didn't know I had more to tell her.

"Mom, He told me to tell you, that you should not be mad at S------." I do not remember Him saying this, but in my heart those words were clear by the Spirit within me. My mom looked at me with confusion. Without going into much detail, I told her what was happening by my baby-sitter. Her blush turned to crying as she held me in her arms. She understood that I had truly seen Jesus that night, and that He was protecting her child.

The next day, S----- was at first resistant. I could hear a large commotion in the kitchen as yelling anger spewed from my father's mouth forcing S---- to admit what he'd done. I was hiding in the hallway listening to the commotion. I walked into the kitchen and saw S---- cowering, surrounded by my dad and a group of his friends. I felt a great compassion for everyone. "STOP!" I yelled as I ran into the room, "Jesus loves S----! He said not to get mad." This is when S---- started to cry. My dad was taken aback by my entrance. The proclamation of Love melted S---'s heart, and he admited everything. Instead of pressing criminal charges on the seventeen-year old, he went to private counseling to help him with his life. Some have seen this as an injustice, but the Lord did not come with "an eye for an eye." He said love your enemy and that is what brought forth the repentance. (Romans 2:4 "do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance?") The last I heard, S---- now has a family of his own, and is a pastor of a church in his city. That experience changed him, and the Lord taught me His justice.

Learning without Reading

Although at three years of age I could not read yet, I did "read" my Bible every night through audio Bible. I would play my tapes every night before I went to bed, visualizing the words in my life. My favorite books were Proverbs and Psalms; I could not get enough of them. I asked the Lord if I could attain anything it would be His Wisdom. The Lord gave me visions, revelations and prophesy-- and fifteen years later I was a young man of eighteen.

The Confrontation, Second Visitation and Revelation

In 1998 I was a successful salesman for a shoe company; I was divisional and regional salesman of the month of October that year and I was on the verge of running my own store. I had been feeling that the Gospel was wrong in most churches and was attending different churches trying to find out things about the Lord, but every time felt that they were missing something. I would find most congregations luke-warm or weak in their ability to teach the Word. Some of these churches were actually pure in intent and were faithful to what the Lord had called them. I didn't realize it yet, but my problem was pride; I felt my knowledge was far superior to them and they were not worth my time. So, in search for a church, I asked the Lord one night, "Lord, bring me to a church so I would know Your ways better, guide me to where You want me to be." It was a recipe for the Lord to bring forth righteousness, while I was going to be crushed in humility.

Within minutes of my prayer, two missionaries came to my store giving me a letter addressed to nobody in particular. It was an invitation to attend their church. Shocked, they also had said to me the Lord had guided them to me and I was supposed to attend. It was too much of a coincidence, soI took the invitation and prayed over it the next night. The Lord's voice was clear; I was to go with them.

The church was very lively and but artificially fake to the extreme. They had discipleship customs and strange authoritarian traditions but they believed in Jesus Christ. From the beginning I did not agree with their message, but the Lord told me to stay, so I did.To make a long story short, I learned that I knew less than I thought.

After six months, my heart was torn and I felt rejected and battered by the Lord through their words, "Craig," they would say, "You are not saved unless you obey the commands of God and are water baptized into our church!" They would say, "You do not have the Lord, you are not saved, you know not God!" To keep account of my actions I was assigned a 'disciple' to watch over me and be with me at all times. "If you do not give your pay-check to the church, you will forfeit all blessings of God!" they would continue. "Craig you broke the law of God, and unless you repent death is upon you!" They would drill me to the point of admission. They had convinced me that Jesus didn't forgive me unless I was part of their church, that I was not a Christian and that I did not know God.

One night I came to my senses and decided to give it to God. Falling to my knees in prayer and angrily pleading I demanded of God, "God! If I am not Your child, why did You visit me when I was young?" The memory of what happened to me at age three has never left me. "If I was not in Your arms, why did You say You would never leave me or forsake me? If I truly am not a Christian, why do You speak to me, and how have I heard Your voice!?" It was God who told me to go to the cultic church in the first place, because He had a better plan for me. I jumped inside to hear Lord's reply.

"Craig, My son," He said in a gentle fatherly voice that had a chuckle. "You are always My son! You are saved and made clean through the blood of My Son Jesus!" At once I felt a blanket of peace roll over my body, and I looked to the side of my bed to see the same Man who had seen me before, Jesus, sitting on my side chair in my room smiling. "Craig," He continued, "You know that I AM, but now know WHO I AM. Know why and what you believe! Do this and grow in Me!" The peace of God rolled over me like a blanket. Peace energized through my body starting from the top of my head down to the tips of my toes. I smiled knowing He was with me. "Now leave them, they do not know Me." That night I slept like I have never slept before.

When I awoke the Lord brought me to Scripture:

"If a prophet (messenger) or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder comes true, concerning which he spoke to you, saying, 'Let us go after other gods (or a god whom you have not known) and let us serve them, you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams; for the LORD your God is testing you to find out if you love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul. You shall follow the LORD your God and fear Him; and you shall keep His commandments, listen to His voice, serve Him, and cling to Him" (Deut 13:1-4).

"That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe. These are in accordance with the working of the strength of His might which He brought about in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him as head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all" (Eph 1:17-23).

I understood it. The Lord humbled me, as He pointed out that if I truly knew Him, I would have never stayed in the cult in the first place. It opened my eyes to something that I never saw. I realized now that all things were made for Him so that we may know Him better.

"For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities--all things have been created through Him and for Him" (Colossians 1:16).

From that point, grace has become more real to me. Its definition surpassed that of the dictionary and tradition. Grace became multi-dimensional in meaning, and I went into a wilderness pursuing the Lord with my entire heart and mind. Though I grabbed a hold of a better message, I still did not yet understand the completeness of the Gospel. Knowing grace, I tested the limits of His grace, not always with good results. It was an experience, but learning the the hard way, I received some really hard blows. (1 Corinthians 6:12; 1 Corinthians 10:23, "All things are lawful, but not all things are profitable; All things are lawful, but not all things edify")

My Depression and God's Intervention

The mind is a tricky thing, and mine is no different, it over-analyzes and seeks only itself. The testing of God's grace was not the best thing for my state of mind. Coupled with money troubles and relationship troubles, I went into a episode of depression.

When I was twenty, the wicked thought of suicide entered my mind and I held strongly to it. I moved back with my parents because of my money troubles and they were moving to a new address. I was borrowing my dad's television in my room and when we moved he just took it and put in another room in the house without consulting me. The thought of suicide came back and since I had not closed the door to its evil, I found a reason to embrace it. In anger to the stubbornness of my father, I yelled at him "If you don't want to respect me, then you do not need to worry about me any longer I am going to kill myself!"

To my dismay, my father in his anger responded, "Go ahead. Good bye Craig." My heart and soul broke. I got into my car, purposely forgetting my seatbelt, and visualized my death in a high-speed crash. Choking back my tears,I could hear in the background of my mind, "Do not go to the highway, go visit Erin your friend and talk with her." I fought it, driving past my exit to Erin's and continued to Highway One. "Slow down, you do not need to die." I shook the thought out my head. I could see my car at 210 Km (130 Miles) an hour, slamming into a cement barrier, ejecting me out of the windshield and into the wall quick and painlessly. After about five minutes, I realized that it was snowing and the roads were slick. It was then that I realized how foolish I was truly being--but it was too late. The highway turned and the cement wall was before me-- and at 210 Km/h on an icy road, it did not matter if I changed gears. I was heading for the wall and could not stop.

Time seemed to slow down and stop. The Father's voice (the voice I was ignoring), became loud and clear. "Is this how you want it to end? Is this how you want to be remembered? It is time for you to make a choice! From very young age, I've shown you my Love but you have kept it to yourself. If you want to come to me you are welcome but if you want to share what I have given you to the world, my grace is sufficient for you."

I chose life. The car slammed into the cement wall and I was stunned. I got out of my car and looked at the damage. The car was totaled and the front end caved I noticed blood everywhere and I looked around noticing I was cut across my forehead as a passer by told me to get back into my car. I sat there waiting for the ambulance. As they took me in, they cut my clothes off and checked my health. "Wow, blood pressure perfect! You are healthier than I am," said one of the paramedics. "Good thing you were wearing your seatbelt" said another, noting the red mark spanning across my chest diagonally. Perfect health? Seatbelt? They gave me two stitches in my forehead and I went home with a sore neck due to whiplash, but overall alive and well. That day my relationships changed. I was no longer selfish, but started giving. My dad and I started to heal our relationship. (2 Corinthians 12:9,10 "And He has said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness " Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ's sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.)

The Three Day Challenge and Revelation of Reconciliation

On December 23rd, 2003, I woke up with a dislocated neck and I had to get my dad to drive me to a doctor. While at the doctor we began to talk about the goodness of God and the Gospel of Christ. My dad said, "Craig, we understand that the grace of God and the sovereignty of our God is real. What if---and I ask this only for you to think about---what if all are saved?" He waited for my reaction.

In my heart, a piercing jab--like a sword tearing through my flesh--devastated my presupposition of God. I had known since I was very young about God's grace and soverignty. Could my father be right? Could it be that despite the things that God had shown me concerning Himself, that I had a very limited perception of Him? I recalled the words He had spoken to me: "You know that I AM, but now KNOW who I AM. Know why and what you believe! Do this and grow in Me!" Those words echoed in my heart as my dad continued to speak.

"Craig, would that not be the Best Good News?" My dad was not wanting to hurt me. He saw my expression of immediate anger slowly subsiding to reason.

"Yes, that would be, and that would compel me to tell the world of this good news." I didn't realize the truth as I said it, "That would mean that all our free-will is a joke." Though my pride was offended by the thought, my heart was telling me otherwise. "I will need to pray over this dad," I said to him. I wasn't about to going into deep debate with him over the possibility that God wanted to--and could--save all mankind. Though we ended our conversation that day, my dad's words continued to torment my mind.

I was thinking about this so deeply, that I missed my bus stop, and had to walk home. I'm sure it was the Lord's pleasure. All the way home, I argued loudly to God. I was hurt that this was not made a reality to me before. I was hurt the Lord had for 20 years kept me in the dark concerning this wonderful plan. I was hurt at the possibility that my perception of justice had been foolishness to God and that I had been deceived for so long. "God!" I said in anger, "Dear Heavenly Father!" I could hear my sobbing voice echo in the snowy streets, "You are not a God of confusion, and I ask you now to remove this thought from me! I cannot live a lie, nor can I follow You any longer if You cannot prove to me the Truth of your Word. If You cannot effictlively prove to me in two days Your purpose and plan, I will leave You forever and I will choose to live a life for myself." I was very hurt for some reason. It all seems irrational now as I speak it, but the emotion and confusion were very real. I got home just in time to open my Bible.

There was nothing but text, black ink on white paper. I could not read it for any understanding. I could not read in the reality of God, nor could I read in the reality of His existence. The words were dead to me as if God was a myth and I was atheist looking in on a foolish religion. I went to sleep crying.

The same thing happened the second day. No longer did I have a purpose to read the Bible; it laid bare in front of me, foreign and distant. I could not grasp any Truth from it. I could only read of a sadistic God who tormented His Creation with an iron scepter and whip. Hell was endless, with Satan and his fallen angels prodding the people who were imprisoned there. There was no hope in this gospel. I went to sleep crying.

Like Jonah in the belly of the whale, on the third day, I opened the Living Word for the first time. No longer were the words merely black and white, but color! I saw a broad spectrum of shades found in the rainbow promise of God! Praise God, He did save all mankind! He is the Savior of all mankind! I could not believe my eyes as every verse and chapter and book read of reconciliation and the Love of God. I read Isaiah 45; 1 Timothy 2:4; John 1:12-13; John 3:16-17; Romans 5:18-20, and the list goes on and on and on! I opened to obscure passages of Lamentations, Micah, and Hosea. I read strange Psalms and Proverbs that spoke of the immeasurable salvation that is found in the Lord, and how every knee would bow and every tongue confess that He is Lord--not out of fear but willingly. The Lord reminded me of my testimony; and for the first time everything made sense.

Needless to say, this revelation changed me and I know that the Lord will continue to show me things that will change me. I know the truth of this revelation, and now I can prove it by Scripture, experience, and tradition. It saddens me that many in Christ do not know how to believe or recieve this true Good News. The world freely accepts it, as I have seen more come to the realization of Christ through this message than any time in my life before--but it had a cost. I lost many of those who I call brother, and have been shunned from my Christian fellowships. I have peace in my heart however; depite the fact that I have not found many people to fellowship with who see this message as I do. I have a desire to continually surround myself with Christian brethren who know the Truth of this reality that is only found in Christ Jesus--our Savior who freely set the captives free. --Craig Nolin, www.studentoftheword.com