The following is a member testimony from Calvary Temple, a Bible believing church located in Sterling, VA, that teaches and lives sound doctrine.
As I sit here and think over these last few years my mind cannot help but going back to December of 2011. It was a monumental time for me and looking back at that crossroad, that the Lord allowed me to come to, and a true life changing decision that I was faced with at that time. See, earlier that year, I went on a short term mission trip to Kenya with the mission team that was sent out from our church and had an incredible time. The goal of the mission team that year was to go thru and strengthen the main core of our churches in relating to one another (building true relationships built upon God’s word). I was assigned with two others (Corey E. and Tony S.) to prepare share our lives (to be open and vulnerable) with other married couples in each of the core churches there. In order to do this, we created a marriage booklet, with different sections (each dealing with common areas from scripture in relating to our spouses) to facilitate the ministry while we were there. A daunting task that I know none of us felt adequate for. Well the team went and the ministry we were a part of that year was powerful (probably because we felt so inadequate for the task at hand) and effective, However I could not help coming home from that missions trip being bothered by a lot of the topics (relating to your spouse) we had discussed while we were there. I could not stop thinking of how many areas that I was having problems with and trouble in relating to my spouse.
When we arrived back home from our mission trip, I picked up the normal routine of life, and I never took time to deal with these issues in my life or to even look at why or what was the root of these issues in my life. Well life continued as normal all the way into late November of that year until, when Pastor began to teach on marriage and challenging each one of us in how we were relating to our spouses. The funny thing was that pastor pulled out the marriage booklets that we had made earlier that year and we began to go through them as a fellowship. The Lord used the topics in this book (communication, money, physical relations, etc…) and really began to challenge the lives in our fellowship. I was one of those lives, Praise God! I remember submitting a question in writing with no name attached, to a panel of our pastors (that we were having in the middle of these teachings) asking a question in regards to “the struggle my wife was having when it came to our physically relating to each other. That she seemed uninterested and never really interested in this area of our life and what could be done on my part (real noble) to help her change. Well when it came time for our question to be read and answered, that the answer that came forth caught me totally off guard. I remember Pastor sharing that the problems that we were having in our marriage was because I (he kept it general saying we -even though it was me he was talking to) was wearing out my wife spiritually and physically having her doing things that were unnecessary. That I needed to look at what I was having her to do at this time in her life and ask was it God’s will? At the time, I was asking my wife, a mother of four children to work forty-eight to fifty hours a week, at a strenuous job thirty miles from the house (one-way) and come home and minister to her husband, children and the Body of Christ with minimal to nothing left in the tank. Looking back now with shame even to think that I asking why she was having trouble relating to me? Was it ever God’s intended will for my wife, actually she’s not mine but God’s daughter and I had better be absolutely sure that I was helping her to fulfill God’s plan for her life and not my own plan. To make sure that I was giving her the best opportunity, to fulfill that role, unto God’s family. Sister, let me tell you that was the opposite of what was happening.
The decisions that I had made in the previous years (poor financial decisions caused by my own lust) had caused now a need my mind for my wife to leave the household that she was looking so well too, to help me hang on to everything I had obtained. What was so important? A house? A Car? A Better Quality of life? Entertainment? Vacation? To have enough money in your account so that you do not have to live by faith check to check? “What profits a man if he gaineth the whole world and lose his soul?” (Luke) I remember being very smitten in my heart during these last weeks of 2011. I remember very clearly Pastor challenging us as a fellowship that it would be madness to continue to do the same things over and over and yet expect different results. In my mind I had only one choice, I needed to repent from the things that the Lord’s spirit had convicted me of and to do so would require a complete change in my life. I knew in my heart that my wife must return fully to the work that God had created and intended her to do. My wife is not my own but the Lord’s, and what does God’s word require of her? That’s the priority that we needed to return to. In order to do so, that she must quit her job and come home, that her focus needed to be towards her children (they need to see God’s word being fulfilled). This did not come easy, I remember many sleepless nights of wrestling with God, of confessing my faults, my fears, my doubts before the Lord crying out to him for grace to obey. I have to admit, I was very fearful (knowing that we no longer made enough to live off of on my salary alone) and I was very afraid at the time of losing our everything. I remember bringing these things to the light with my wife, Deacon and Pastor in order to do whatever it took to be freed from this snare in my life. Then one night after a wrestling with God in prayer, I broke. I woke up the next day and told Shelly to resign, that she was coming home (oh the joy it brought her!) and that we were going back to Bethel. I repented before her, my children and shared the things God had been working in my life and the changes that were coming.
That was the last days of December 2011 and began a walk with the Lord that was renewed and began a walk down a path greater trust and dependence that God would bring out in the days ahead. See this decision was just the beginning of trusting in God’s word for every need in my life and not looking to another source (and God knows I have tried). See, the trials did not cease, the dark clouds that I was wrestling with in the prayer closet did not disperse, in fact since have gotten darker at times but the three years since those days in December we are still standing by God’s grace, we are still learning to trust God through all of Life’s trials, that we still have a savior in Jesus, who has promised to never leave us or forsake us. That He is working something far greater in us than we can ever imagine (most definitely for His eternal Glory) and to think, I almost forfeited it all for temporal things. Thank God for Men and Women who will tell you the truth, when your life does not line up with that truth, who will not let you press on while you are sick. I am sorry this has been so long, but this is what came to my mind when you asked for a testimony of being healed. God will not allow us to rest, when we are living below what he called us to be.
Romans 8:28-30: “And we know that [k]God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.29 For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren;30 and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified.”
Your Brother In Christ,
Mark
About Calvary Temple
Calvary Temple is an independent church which holds to all Assemblies of God tenets of faith. Calvary Temple ministries include Discipleship Training, adult Bible college, media ministry, and an aggressive missions program.
Pastor Star R. Scott is Senior Pastor of Calvary Temple in Sterling, Virginia, where he has ministered since 1973. In addition to the pastoral gift, Pastor Scott functions in the five-fold offices of apostle and prophet. He has planted churches, and currently oversees the pastors and ministries of numerous satellite churches.
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