 With the church, the family, I have just a new heart with new desires to seek the Lord and not to seek my own will. I want to do everything that pleases Him and then when I don't, I cry because I want to seek His face. I want to, I want to, I just want to, like I was telling Pastor Rick, I want to, it's like an urgency to be perfect, but we know we're not perfect, but we want to be made perfect already. It's just like, it's hard, but you know, continue to do. I'm just waiting till either Christ comes or we die. But yeah, so that's my testimony. Hi, my name is Claudia. My testimony is, I was raised in a, okay, I was raised in a Christian home where my parents took us to church. I was very moral and didn't do things that were bad, so I thought I was a good person. I started looking for a church because that's what I was taught. I started visiting churches in Kissimmee, but I felt that something was missing. Brian and Alexander had just started coming to Cornerstone and they started telling me about the church. So I asked them if they would take me to church on Sunday and they did. I heard the sermon and after church, some ladies came up to me and spoke to me. They took me through the gospel and asked me if I lived out the Ten Commandments. When I went home, the Lord convicted me. I started thinking about what the ladies had said and I started to ask myself if I was really going to heaven. I started asking questions about salvation, Christ, and beliefs I was raised in. The Lord started convicting me of my sin, of anger and my heart and our births of wrath. The Lord is now changing you. I can't tell you the time or the moment that I was converted, but I am not the same person I was last year. I want to live a holy life. I want to please God. I now have a desire to read my Bible. I am constantly asking questions and reading books about doctrine. I love being with the heavens and serving the Lord and I want to serve the Lord with all my life. I want to serve the Lord till He retires or calls me home. I am grateful to the Lord for bringing me to this church. My name is Mitchell. I'm happy Easter everybody. It's a blessed day. My mom was a regular tender in church and was very involved in it. She's always had an amazing voice. Her job for a living was singing for the military, the Air Force in particular. She would serve on the praise and worship team and as a result we were there most days of the weekend. Then we would also be attending biblical study classes, theology, biblical history classes. That took up a lot of our time with her. It was an area of contention with me and my sister. It definitely was something that was done aside from what we really wanted to do, which was just hang out with friends. We would still try to reconcile that by just hanging out with friends at church. That was what it meant to us. I found the services so boring that numerous times my mom had to correct me by whether shaking me or just being like, Ethan, pay attention. She called me Ethan because that's my middle name. I had little understanding of the application of the Bible. I had the historical ideas. I had exposure to it and its teachings. I understood at a very base level what it meant. That no application was received and specific to me and my life and why I needed it. I would pray at night and ask for forgiveness for my sins because I knew it was something we were supposed to do. I knew that there was a reason that this man, the story of his death in the Bible... I don't like these! I knew it was something I was supposed to do, but it was a very empty prayer. It was definitely more recited and more calculated. It was something I was supposed to do. When I was 13, my mom put me in a biblical summer camp named Triple R Ranch. They actually did a crucifixion reenactment that was one of the first times it was displayed before my eyes. I've always been a very subjective person, a very visual and emotional person. It touched me. It took a story and made it more real than anything I could understand. It just text in a Bible meant to draw people into living a better life as I took it. At the end of it, I went and I said a long prayer. I thought it was God truly working within me. I prayed out asking him to come into my life to forgive me for my sins. Seven minutes of what I'm sure if he was listening was a lot of rambling. But it was empty in terms of when I went back to where I lived for school, my life was no different than any kid who wasn't raised in a Christian home or under Christian teachings. It was more conformity with my mom than anything knowing what she believed, knowing what she expected, and knowing what the church preached. I went about living my life as a teenager, as a young adult, as if God wasn't a part of it. Prayers at the end of the night were just, again, a ritual. It was just something I was supposed to do, hoping to be forgiven for sins. I took that into college. In college, I was introduced to the life you see in every teenage movie. I was introduced to drinking. I was introduced to drugs. I was introduced to girls. It escalated quickly. We moved in together at the end of my freshman year in college. I was drinking frequently, but by 24, it was a nightly occurrence. I can honestly say I was an alcoholic in a drug addict by 24 years old with experience in getting other people into the habit as well and selling or just involving anybody I could because I didn't want to do it alone. In June of 2000 of last year, we went out for one of my best friends going away parties. My habits, my drinking and my drugs put me in a position where I was verbally berating my girlfriend, physically assaulting two of my friends I've had since I was as far back as I can remember. I lost both of my friends. A lot of my friends, my girlfriend told me that I needed to change. She didn't say it was over, but she emphasized how important it was that I changed and that I changed drastically. I had always prided myself on what people thought of me. They were my idols. She was my idol. Her opinion of me mattered more than anything. There was nothing about being a good person aside from what people are saying you're a good person. I basically made the decision that things needed to change and it needs to change drastically because I needed to prove to her that there's hope in me, she should take me back. I put a post online telling all my friends on Facebook and acquaintances that I wasn't going to be attending anywhere where alcohol would be present and not to hold it as something personal but as something I needed to do because I couldn't handle my emotions when I was drinking and drinking was a serious issue for me. I kind of do it in moderation. I immediately received a bunch of responses all praising me, all saying how honest I was and how much confidence they had that I could do it but I could have cared less because the one response I wanted wasn't on there and it was a bunch of building me up when I needed if something was missing. There was no way to build me up without her. I was just empty and I didn't know what to do aside from everything that I thought a good person did. Soon after a lot of the responses I got, TJ, a guy I had worked at Olive Garden with, a guy that you guys probably know pretty well, he private messaged me saying you want to come to church with me on Sunday and I remembered well. I remembered what I thought of the people that went to church. I remembered the habits and the responsibilities I had to my mom when I went there and I know that they were, I guess you would call them conservative and they were things I would expect a good person would do. We had breakfast that morning and rather than reinventing myself and seeing this option to become a better person, I was introduced to a Bible I had never heard before. Rather than stories, they were now examples. They were now instruction on not only what people that lived on both sides of God's law but as well as what God's law was, what he thought about people that broke it, how people broke it and what our responsibility was to it and to him and how there was no hope for me. I was also formally introduced to my sin. I knew I wasn't living the way I was supposed to be living but I didn't realize that I was guilty of everything which individually I would call somebody bad for doing. I was every one of them. I thought out only the things that I thought would bring me pleasure and all of those things were sin in one way or another and that's not what the Bible says of those who would inherit the kingdom. I was clearly not saved. I was terrified of my impending condemnation and I knew I needed to repent of my sins. I left understanding the need to repent and I was totally consumed by desire to read the Bible and learn more about what it said, what I needed to do, who I was. I wanted this. I knew what people were supposed to think. I had heard at the sermon how conviction of sin, the price that had to be paid was so great because of how God views sin and because of the just punishment that needs to be dealt out for it and I wanted to follow after Christ and I knew that to do so I needed to hate my sin to turn away and follow Him alone. So I searched the Bible. I saw the instructions verse after verse. I read how Christians were not to be of the world but to die to themselves and live for Jesus Christ. I received these things with strong reservations because all this time I was doing things in anticipation of hoping to get back together with her and now I'm starting to read things that are very contradictory to the life. I know we lived together and will live together and I couldn't possibly say I'm going to deny the world knowing the things that she loved or many of the things that we did or many of the things that I would have to step away from. I couldn't stop drinking knowing she liked drinking. I couldn't know we lived together and it would be very unlikely that we wouldn't live together again yet fully accept it's called abstinence and biblical courtship. I couldn't accept a life that following Christ and not being ashamed or feared of men knowing that she might fully reject everything I'm saying and view me as one of the people that I viewed those strong Christians as so long ago. As a hypocrite I continued to attend church and receive the conviction to say amen to the things I knew I needed to say amen to but knowing that as soon as I left I would be going back out into a world where my sin would again take over as my desires were in them and I was powerless in every effort to stop them. I found myself skipping small groups telling lies to do so, Sunday services where I was going to purely for convictions I felt about other people expecting me to be there and I was basically 100% falling back into the life I knew I had and I remembered from before I was terrified. It was actually last baptisms where I skipped the first service because I said I would go to the second service I skipped Sunday school because and all because I had gone out the night before and I just wasn't feeling up to it. And I remember thinking to myself if I can do it today can I just do this for the rest of my life can I know what I know now and go out into the world, forget about church forget about God altogether as I've done for so long and accept the judgment that I now and will always remember seeing so clearly. I broke down I cried out to the Lord I was overwhelmed I didn't know what to do I didn't know how to do it and I didn't know how long it would take and I asked him to change my heart to one that no longer desired to live according to these things in my flesh and to keep it that way not allow me to continue to have these struggles reconcile these differences and trying to live in the world while following him which just wasn't possible I never wanted to feel as helpless as I did that day I wanted to change my life my old life enough to... sorry and I realized I wanted my old life didn't want my whole life back enough to accept the judgment and forsake him I can't put a date on it the only thing that mattered from that day on was really just those things that I knew I needed to do now they were things that I wanted to do no pleasure desire was important enough to me anymore to forsake him or to do them without regards for his opinion of me afterwards or the sacrifice that I was putting on Christ every time I did that Christ paid for me every time I do that I saw my sin clearly and searched his word to mortify them I saw more of my sin and found encouragement in the Holy Spirit for the work he was doing in my life and a further opening in my eyes I struggled during trials but persevering through them I struggled less and I praised him more the Lord changed my heart and now my life has changed I no longer desire to live in sin for any reason or anyone sin had separated me from the Lord and now I wish only to walk with him I do not desire to return to my ex or the lifestyle we lived I do not want to go away from any opportunity to preach the gospel or discuss the Lord regardless of what environment I'm in or who will hear I know the whole alcohol had on me and know that even one drink is a cause for temptation for another so in repentance I abstain and resist any cause of temptation to have one I love the Lord so any opportunity to praise and worship him is one I do my best to take I won't skip church I'm tired every morning but I love it and I know I know the blessings that come from it and I know the praise he deserves I love the word so I pray for discipline and I schedule reading study and godly resources into every day he deserves my all so I confess my inadequacy and pray for growth he has given his life for me and now I give my life to him good afternoon and happy resurrection day I am privileged to be here to tell you of my background which wasn't pleasant but the aftermath of God's work on my soul which is very pleasant I was raised as a Presbyterian but I didn't really go to church much because my parents didn't either but they did a good job of showing me right from wrong so I really had no excuse my entire life I joined the Air Force after graduating from college in 66 served for four years became a New York State prison guard in 1972 and worked there for 28 years joined the Army National Guard in 82 and retired in 1997 so I have a somewhat military and paramilitary background which probably shut me off from most of the world because it has a tendency to make you concentrate on yourself more than other people here's your poser I'm going to draw myself out and I was an immoral depraved sinner for a very long time decades on the 10th of September 1981 I attended a concert at my wife's request given by a Christian singer named Johnny Hall at the church which my wife and son were attending I went hoping my attendance would get her off my back about salvation at least for a while she had been inviting people over from the church for months to witness to me about Christ all who I totally rejected during one of the singers breaks he had two his ministry was not evangelism Christian singing but he took two breaks during which he prayed each time I found myself praying in the second break I have no idea why other than the fact that I now know God allowed me to do it I was an agnostic I didn't know if there was a God or if there was no God but my life was being lived as though he did not exist dominated by sin during the prayer I mouthed a lot of phrases I had picked up from my family in TV programs that they had watched for example I wasn't happy my life had a tremendous void I told God that I would ask Christ into my heart but I didn't believe then came the question God if you exist please give me the faith to believe when I awoke the next morning and opened my eyes an overwhelming feeling of love flooded my heart initially I was perplexed but then it hit me I believed everything I believed in God Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit including the absolute infallibility of God's word all of it I ceased drinking alcohol stopped cursing of which I was a garbage foul language and taking God's name in vain and began going to a war sing gospel church on a regular basis God had saved me I was baptized became a church member attained the offices of church secretary and treasurer God had saved me when I retired and moved to Florida my wife and I eventually wound up at First Baptist Church of Orlando my wife and I became members around April of 2002 she died in August 2003 and I continued on at FBCO even becoming the facilitator of a Wednesday night class Master Life for Men and eventually was nominated for the position of Deacon God forgave my abominable sins every day after all he had saved me in August of 2008 I was babysitting my grandchildren when there came a knock at the door corner stone evangelists had arrived Keith and Steph were looking for a church so they attended a Sunday service in October Stephanie invited me to church on a Sunday which was followed by a baptismal service I was not impressed as most easy believers aren't understanding the message is portraying salvation by works the cool temps and I don't know if Drizzle did nothing to enamor me to the occasion either two days later as Steph and Keith's house for dinner while Keith went to Tim Miller's group she spent two hours preaching to me from God's work to show me the foolishness of my erroneous assessment of Sunday's message I didn't buy it but God's Word and Steph's insistence planted a mustard seed of doubt in my mind the next morning I sought an answer to that question by getting down my 20 year old copy of MacArthur's The Gospel According to Jesus having purchased it in 1988 the year it was published I had tried reading it a couple of times before but it never got past page 70 because it scared me to death this day I didn't finish it either while perusing the pages the scales of unbelief dropped from my eyes and I by the grace and mercy of the Lord saw the absolute truth of the true gospel of Jesus Christ Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 118 for the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing but to those who are being saved it is the power of God and in Romans 1 16 for I am not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes may we all never ever forget I've been attending Cornerstone for two and a half years and God has blessed me with the love of the brothers and sisters Lord from the ability to actually not ability but he drew me to Cornerstone in an answer to a prayer back in 2011 Nicky was the secretary of the church and the pastor's wife had been her relief on Friday so she could have the day off to be with her children and on the Thursday she was informed by the pastor's wife that she would not be able to come in the next day because she had to go to work to help the family out financially and I discovered about an hour and a half later when I talked to her on the phone having been led by God to call and ask if there was something I might be able to do and service to him at the church and she broke down because she told me she had been praying for somebody to respond and it happened on the same day God works in our lives continually every believer can look back and see how God has done how he has directed their paths how he has provided for them how they got to the point that they're at now and I pray that everybody here who isn't saved would look back at their lives and see their sin for 27 years I was Christ professing covenant blaspheming communion partaking abominable hypocrite that Pastor Mark talked about in his message this morning I thought that God had saved me but I was worse than I was before he enlightened me because I knew the truth and yet I still was an abominable sinner my favorite verse is Psalm 63.7 and it has been for I can't remember how long because thou has been my help therefore in the shadow of dice wings will I rejoice the Lord Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins and I am here to my testimony as a praise to what he has done in my life and to all who believe his lives that are here today if you're not saved don't waste time don't sit back and say oh God I can do it before I die or when I'm my age but you never know you could die tomorrow or later I cup it your prayers because I have been very disobedient when it comes to evangelism I have at least 20 or 30 reasons why I haven't been but I realized God doesn't care about those excuses they mean nothing to him he wants me out there preaching God's word to the lost whether I'm in a wheelchair on crutches or perfectly healthy it makes no difference we need to evangelize those of us who do believe in every way that we possibly can and I pray that you would help me to get to that point where I will be going out on a constant basis Lord God thank you for this time thank you for being able and strong Lord God to help me come to the point where I can testify to your salvation in my life in Jesus name I pray Amen Amen Amen