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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Jason Shives

Testimony of Jason Shives

My name is Jason Shives and for those of you who don't know who I am, I am a medical student at Loma Linda University.

Today I am going to be giving my testimony.

I am giving my testimony not because I feel like I want to show off anything.

I just I just want to praise the Lord because he has transformed my life and There's power in people's testimonies because it shows people that hey if God can do it in that person's life and God can do it in my life, too Before we get started I'd like to, well actually I'm going to ask what shall we do before we get started?

Dear Heavenly Father, Thank you so much for this Sabbath day.

Thank you so much Lord for allowing us to come Aside from the world Lord to cast our cares upon you.

I thank you Lord for allowing us to meet in this this Mountain Church Lord this place I thank you Lord for the people here that have opened their church to us, that we might be able to fellowship with them.

Lord, I pray, Lord, that you send your Holy Spirit to be here.

I pray, Lord, that the things that are mentioned today, Lord, would not be my words, Lord, but would be your words.

I pray, Lord, that you would anoint my lips like you did to Isaiah, Lord.

I pray, Lord, that I would not hold back something that you would want said Lord.

And I pray Lord I want to say something that you would not want said as well.

I pray Lord that we would put the distractions of the world aside as we open up our ears, open up our minds, and open our hearts to you.

I pray Lord that the message of the Bible will be true, the message of the Bible will be clear, sharp, and I pray Lord that you would change our lives through the word.

I claim the promise that we're 2 or 3 gathered, Lord, you are here in the midst.

Send your spirit and pray this all in Jesus name.

For those of you who have your Bibles, let's turn to Revelation chapter 12.

And for those that don't, go ahead and if you see somebody beat, you know, it's good to be nice as Christians, let's share our Bibles and Revelation chapter 12 I'll be reading from the the King James Version, Revelation chapter 12 verse 11, this is speaking of this end time people, this 144, 000.

Revelation chapter 12 verse 11, and it says, and they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they loved not their lives unto the death.

They overcame by the word of their testimony.

You know sometimes, I have to be honest, sometimes we hear somebody giving their testimony and I'm like, ah, you know, it's almost like sometimes it's like communion, you know, should I go to church or not?

But right here it's talking about these people that overcame and they overcame by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony.

So I want to ask you today, how important is our testimony?

Do you have a testimony that you would be willing to share?

Has God done something in your life that you're so happy that he's done in your life that you just can't keep quiet about it.

Our testimonies are what declare to the world that we serve the creator of this universe and that he lives within our lives and that we wish to serve him more than we wish to live.

That last verse says they love their lives not even to the death.

My testimony is a story of how godly parents persistently prayed and even though their son was this far away, well pretty far away from God, that rebellious son can be preaching in front of you today and so basically if you if you leave this place I love the emphasis that this church put on prayer if you leave this place without anything else please just remember God answers prayers and I'm a testament to that and that's my testimony but we can't pray and go on We have to hear a little more from the word.

I will go ahead and elaborate on that 1 point.

For the sake of organization, I divided my testimony into 4 different time periods.

I am a medical student and I like to keep things organized.

The 4 time periods of my life are not knowing Christ and finding Christ, sliding away from God's cross, Revival and then Reformation.

So I want to start off with finding Christ.

And I'll try to stay as close to the word as possible but you have to Give me some leeway because I'm telling my story and it's not in the Bible.

In fact, before I was baptized at the age of 14, I can only remember 1 time that my whole family was in church together.

I believed in God and in fact I believed in the supernatural being up there.

But the thing, because I remember when I was 12 years old my grandfather died and he was basically God to me.

And I remember praying to him at night, talking to him.

Now I know now that my grandfather is sleeping, but to me then it was relevant to me that there is something beyond this life here and there is somebody listening.

My family, my dad, to talk about my testimony I need to tell you about my family a little bit.

My dad was a marine, he was in the United States Marine Corps, and worked long hours to support his family.

He believed in a God, but saw Christians as weak people that were too dependent on other people and couldn't take care of themselves.

He had high morals for himself and his family and believed in being a good citizen of his country.

My mother was kind of on the opposite spectrum.

She was raised in the Philippines and was actually brought up as a Seventh-day Adventist.

When she went away to the big city at the age of 15 to find work, she left her family and she left her beliefs behind.

During my childhood, my mom loved to smoke, my mom was a gambler, my mom was decked out in jewelry, she stayed out late at night, she used to go out drinking with her friends, she ate, I mean only in this setting could I say this and there would be shock.

She ate oysters, pork and every unclean animal that she could get her hands on.

And the thing is you have to remember she grew up a very strong Seventh-day Adventist.

So for me growing up I didn't know those things were bad.

I didn't know the Bible talked about those things.

She never went to church when I was growing up.

She never talked about God and was extremely superstitious.

In fact, I remember many times, and my sister Jennifer is sitting in the front row, many times right before she would go off to bingo, she would have us come outside the house, we would sit down, there were 5 kids, we would line up and she would bring this little Buddha statue and she would have us rub the belly of the Buddha statue and then she would have good luck and that would cause her to win bingo that night.

That is basically what religion was to me growing up.

I think it is important for you to know where I came from.

All during my childhood she never mentioned her Adventist upbringing because of her poor past most people in the Philippines aren't rich.

Her life revolved around pride, money and achievements.

I have 2 younger brothers and 2 older sisters and My sisters were the ones that instilled the knowledge of God in me.

They used to take me to Sunday school, they used to take me to church.

I learned to sing like crocodile songs and stuff when I was little.

Because my sisters, they saw a need for God.

So I lived in this family type atmosphere.

Everyone in my immediate family is Seventh Adventist.

This is from a family that has no religion at all.

We used to live in Japan but that was in the military I mentioned.

The move was very hard on my family, especially my parents.

My mom especially lost all of her gambling friends.

She lost all of her friends that she ran around and did things with and she couldn't find a job.

My parents' bills were more than their income and the fights started to increase.

My dad was blaming my mom for mismanaging the funds and my mom didn't want to give up her costly lifestyle.

My parents were on the verge of a divorce.

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Testimony of Jason Shives

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