Faith

I will be talking about faith in this post, but first I want to thank all of you who have downloaded my book (which is my testimony of how I came to faith in Jesus).  Many of you have taken me up on my free book offer, thank you!  I hope you are enjoying it and it is encouraging to you!  If you have any questions or would like to talk with me about it, please don’t hesitate to contact me!  I would love that!  My free book promotion is active  until 11:59 p.m. PT on Monday 8-20-18.  Be sure to grab your free copy of “One Man’s Very Strange Supernatural Life” soon!

Okay, back to faith.  I have often asked myself, “would you have accepted Christ if you had not lived in a haunted house?”  I really don’t know.  Probably not at the time I did as a freshman in college.  I was real worldly and I liked to party.  I was definitely scared of death before I knew Christ and I had a gut feeling that Heaven and hell were real.  I didn’t want to die and I wanted to know how to get to Heaven, so maybe I would have accepted Christ in time.  Living with a demon sure did speed up my decision making process though, I know that!  I believe God has a plan for all of us (Jeremiah 29:11-13), so if I was destined to preach the Gospel, nothing was ever going to stop that.

I love the above verse.  This is the complete section of scripture that verse comes from as quoted from the 1984 NIV (Thompson Chain-Reference) Bible I use:

“My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power.”

1 Corinthians 2:4-5

That is all I know too folks!  I did not grow up as a Christian, and I never went to church.  My family lived with a demon in our house for 4 years when I was in high school, and when I went to college I met Jesus and He saved me and my whole family from that darkness!  I went from hating Christians and never believing to having absolute faith in Christ because of God’s power, and I have been following Jesus ever since!

If you read my book, then you know that my life continued to be strange and supernatural after I accepted Christ.  No, there were no more demons.  Jesus took care of that.  I had two very dramatic experiences in 1998 and one in 2012 that strengthened my faith to a point where I know without a doubt that anything is possible with God, and I mean anything!  If you read about what the Lord did for me when I stopped breathing on 4-28-2012, then you know what I mean!

Another question that I asked myself and God for years is simply, “Why me?”  Why did our family move into that house?  Why did God choose to open my eyes to angels in 1998?  Then, when I thought everything supernatural had calmed down, I stop breathing in 2012 and God does a mighty miracle in the Holy Spirit to save me!  “Why does this keep happening to me?!”

I don’t have an answer for why, so I stopped asking it.  It doesn’t matter anymore.  It all happened, and it happened to me and my family.  This is my life and these are my memories, and that’s just the way it is.  One answer I do have is that I am supposed to tell people.  God has made that clear to me, and He has empowered me to do it!

No matter how crazy it makes me look, no matter what it does to my name, I don’t care.  It is not about my name.  I gave that up a long time ago!  It is about the Name of Jesus.  Ryan never died for your sins and I never will.  Jesus Christ died to forgive your sins, and no one else ever has or ever will.  Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, period.  My greatest purpose is to make that known to the world.

My faith does not rest in the wisdom of men, but on God’s power!  With everything I have gone through, do you think it bothers me if somebody hates me for being a Christian or they think I’m stupid?  I know the Gospel is foolishness to the world.  I have had people call me a fool for believing.  I used to think the same thing, and I had fun making fun of Christians before I knew Christ.  I didn’t understand that I had that hatred in my heart for believers in Jesus because I was part of the spirit of the world, which is Satan’s spirit.  I didn’t understand I needed to be saved.  No, it doesn’t bother me and it won’t stop me either.  I am one of God’s soldiers in an ancient spiritual war and I am fighting it in God’s power.

With what God has revealed to me and with everything that has happened, I know 100% that Jesus Christ is Lord and that everything in the Bible is true!  It doesn’t matter what the realm of men say to me about it.  Mock me, hate me, even kill me.  I am still going to proclaim Jesus is Lord and tell the world about Him!

How could I not?!  God rescued me from real darkness and real evil, then He surrounded me with light and love and tended to me with angels.  Then after a 14 year break from supernatural events, my crazy supernatural life continued when He gave me my breath back and let me live in 2012!  Do you think He did all those things for me, so that I would hide away and keep the knowledge to myself?  No way!  He commands us to speak the truth and share the Gospel with the whole world (Matthew 28:18-20).

These events changed the course of my life, and that is why I am here today preaching to the world.  God let me live and gave me breath back, so I could use that breath for His glory!  He wants me to share it with the world to help people believe.  He knows it is hard.  I know it is hard.  Why did this happen to me and not you?  I don’t know, but we can at least learn from each other and help each other.  I want you to know Heaven is real, and I want you to be there, and most importantly, so does God!  You don’t have to live through the torment of a haunted house to realize that!  Learn from my experiences instead.

Most of us have never had to live through the terror of a real haunted house.  There is nothing funny about Halloween to me.  Those scary movies Hollywood makes are disgusting (as are most of their movies), and they don’t know what they are messing with.  They don’t even have the Holy Spirit, and they are making movies about demons.  They don’t know what they are messing with folks!  Those fallen spirits are incomparably stronger than us if we don’t have Jesus.  With Jesus though, you can overcome any evil!

Let your faith rest on God’s power.  The Lord still does miracles!  Angels still help and rescue people just like they did in the Bible.  Believers in Jesus filled with the Holy Spirit can still cast out demons (I know, I did it once!).  And Jesus Christ is still alive and well moving in power among us today!  People, hear me, that is exciting!

I know it’s hard to believe and lay down your life to Jesus.  I hope what I have gone through will help make that easier.  God loves you so much that He died for you.  He does not want you to perish.  He wants all of us to come to eternal life!  Isn’t that great news today?!  You have a Creator, He loves you, and He wants to be with you!  Mind blower!  Your sins are already forgiven in Jesus.  He paid the price for you.  All you need to do is receive that gift and that forgiveness is yours!  You can have that right now.  Let salvation and peace be yours today!

I love you all in Christ!  Grace and peace to you!

“For I resolved to nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.”

1 Corinthians 2:2

“That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”

Romans 10:9