The Easy Way Out

Introduction-From darkness to Light

From a time up until the age of 19, I was a satanist, serving the demonic kingdom very faithfully and very effectively. I honestly thought God hated me. I grew up in church most of my life, even though I didn't really feel like the Lord loved me at all. Furthermore, I always had this voice in my head telling me, "If God loves you why would all these bad things be happening to you? If God loves you, why would he allow this to happen? If God loves you, why didn't he put you up with a better family?"

To make sense of all this, I was adopted at the age of nine months, and my birth family wasn't exactly the greatest at following a godly path. Like any normal kid or any kid into any type of anime or cartoon, I honestly thought my mother was nuts when she told me that Yu-GI-Oh and Pokémon were demonic. My mother used to tell me as a kid that Halloween was demonic. I would just laugh. Every time I would go to church trying to find some type of truth, I'd always get that judgmental stare. You know, the one where they kind of look at you like a monster and tell you don't belong here without saying anything. It only pushed me further and further into the darkness.

When you feel unloved by your mom and your dad, and you feel unheard by almost everyone around you, it can do scary things to you. Most of the time, the way we're treated growing up can affect our perception of God the Father or how we perceive information that is given to us by others can also impact our views and beliefs of God himself. Some of you reading this may not have had the greatest family at all. Some of you may have an alcoholic mother or narcissistic parents and ultimately when you think of God the Father as a parent, you often perceive Him to be evil or impatient, or you're scared He's going to smite you for the smallest thing. You may also have had people who are supposed to represent God, but give you information that is contrary to who God is and His Word. But God is loving and wants what is best for you, through His personal and perfect will for your life. By His will, I was given an opportunity to know love through a person.

At the age of 20, on May 6th 2016, I was invited to church and honestly most of the time when people invited me I just brushed it off. The person that would invite me would be a man I now call a close friend, Pastor Jerry, and a boy I grew up with named Ben. For the first time ever, I felt something pulling me to go to church, and I didn't really understand. After the service, Pastor Jerry did an altar call. I felt compelled to go up and give my life to the Lord Jesus Christ of Nazareth. I will tell you the truth, literally everything in me was gripping that pew and trying not to get me to go up there, ultimately I forced myself to go.

When I went up there I lifted my arms to Heaven and Jerry asked me if I accepted Jesus as my savior, I said yes, but little did I know this was only the beginning of the battle. Oftentimes, churches will teach by saying this little prayer, and you're saved. Jerry did not teach this doctrine, nor does he endorse it. I think the next Sunday I was struggling to either destroy objects I bought or sell them. There was a man we call Rooter there. He asked me one simple question that kind of stuck with my soul. He said to me, "Is selling the objects worth another person's soul or problem?" By this point, I already had the realization of how deceived I had been, regardless of how convincing these entities can be. The following Sunday, I ended up destroying the objects on the road in front of the church in Booger Bottom, Georgia. But as you may have it, this was not even the very end of the battle.

I proceeded to struggle for the next four and a half years between trying to serve Christ and going back to my old ways. Proverbs 26:11-12(ERV) states, as a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool repeats his foolishness. I had a constant urge to download witchcraft apps and talk to demons. Ultimately, Christ prevailed inside of me. To this day, I still struggle with some things, but nothing like it used to be. I was a profound satanist and feared by many. I was very good at what I did. Deceiving Christians and dragging them down. I'm not proud of anything I did. But it is to Christ and Christ alone that He revealed to me how much He loved me and how much He cared for me, and despite all of my failings and all of my mess-ups, He still calls me to repentance and salvation.

If you're anything like me, you know, and you can be honest with yourself, we deserve Hell for everything we've done. We can call ourselves good people, we can call ourselves whatever we want. But at the end of the day we are aware of these inner truths, and we try to deceive ourselves in the process. I fail every single day, but Christ is merciful. The scripture states, "a righteous man falls seven times and stands up eight." It is also written in God's Word that "there's none that do good, no not one." Even the Book of Isaiah states, "our righteousness is like filthy rags." If you know these scriptures like I know these scriptures, then you know without a shadow of a doubt, it is only by the salvation and mercy of God and great love that we even have the opportunity to be called His child. I am told my testimony is a powerful one, and I hope this book finds you well.