The Peace and Love I've Come to Know

I’d like to share my story with you in hopes that it will help you in some way. I was raised in a Christian home in Bronx, NY. I recall putting my faith in Jesus Christ when I was about five years old. I know it was sincere. But I wish I had believed what God said about me back then. I didn’t love myself. And it was hard to believe that God loved me.

The hardest thing for me was the absence of a father in my life – someone to model that loving father behavior. It opened me up to attacks from the enemy and to a real hard life.

Shame, Fear, and Isolation
At the age of twenty-two, I decided to go to Bible school to prepare for ministry. But when I entered the school, I was dealing with sexual struggles. There were unresolved issues of sexual brokenness in my life. The Dean of the school told me up front before I started that I must not tell anyone about this, so I didn’t. I kept it a secret.

There were a couple of mature brothers at school whom I knew well enough to unpack these issues with. But I had agreed with the college Dean not to talk about it. And keeping it all to myself bothered me. The shame, fear, and isolation I suffered as a result of that was terrible. I was angry with God and everyone else.

I was prideful, and as far as I was concerned, the rules didn’t apply to me. In fact, I once told my Mom, “If God has a problem with me, tell Him to leave me alone. I’m not bothering Him!” I know now that it was because of my pride that I had a problem wearing polyester, and dined alone at restaurants frequently instead of eating in the cafeteria with my classmates. God had to soften my heart. It was His mercy that eventually drew me.

Anyone who knew me at that time would tell you I always had to try and be funny or witty, but because of my underlying anger, my humor was sarcastic. I knew what the Word said and I could tell others, but I couldn’t find healing for myself.

When I preached my senior year sermon in chapel, it was about how God used the ravens to feed Elijah during a time of famine, and gave him water to drink from the brook. The Lord used it and people responded to the message. They were on their knees, crying out to God, and I was not touched. I went to my room and cried. I complained to God, because other people were blessed by the message and I wasn’t. I felt like the Lord responded by letting me know He would deal with me later.

I recall at the end of my time at Bible school, a dear staff member known affectionately as Sister Libby said something to me that I didn’t understand at the time. She said with tears after a chapel service one day, “Stephen, God can’t use you.” I thought, “What? God can’t use me?” She said, “Stephen, you’re too alive, and you won’t die. Jesus said, ‘Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.’” It was only later that I would come to understand what she meant.

Running from God
I was toxic when I left Bible school. I knew something wasn’t right. I was running from God.

After graduating, I accepted a position as the associate pastor of a church in Rhode Island in 1991. There I was standing in the pulpit preaching, while I was doing things that weren’t right.

At the time, I was also engaged to a wonderful woman. I knew that greater doors for ministry would open up for me if I got married and had a family. But the Lord began to show me that my motives for getting married were wrong. So at one point, I made three phone calls. First I called my mother and said, “It’s all coming apart.” Then I called my fiancee and told her not to come to Rhode Island. I said, “It’s not you. It’s me.” And finally I called the Lunds, the senior pastors of the church where I was serving, and gave my resignation.

The Lunds cared about me and tried to convince me to stay and work everything out. But the fact is that God doesn’t need me. The most important thing is not what I can do for God. It’s what the Lord wants to do in me. I need to first get right with Him, before I can hope to help anyone else. But there are so many pastors in the same position I was in. They know they’re not living right, but they can’t talk to anyone about it. They’ve got to keep it a secret and maintain an air of having it all together. They can never get healed and set free that way.

Yet even with all that, when I left that church in Rhode Island, I was still running away from God.
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Hitting Rock Bottom
After that I moved to Philly. While I was living there, I ran into legal trouble in 2003 and hit rock bottom. I got arrested and ended up in jail. That was a real wake up call for me. Prison is a dangerous place. But while I was there, I learned that I could put all of my weight on Jesus Christ. I learned that He could be trusted, because I had to! I had no other choice.

God kept me pure the whole time I was incarcerated. God can keep you in the most hostile situation. And when I left there, I was the spokesman with the warden for 3500 inmates.

A New Man
It’s now been five years since I got out. But when I was incarcerated, I watched the Muslims get down on their knees three times a day and bow their heads to the ground, screaming in prayer. But the Lord spoke to me and said, “These guys are begging and screaming, banging their heads on the ground, and they’re talking to nobody. But yet you are afraid to bow low before Me, the Lord of the Universe.” Ever since that time, I start each day by bowing low with my face to the ground before Jesus Christ my Lord.

While I was running away from God, people were praying for me. And after I got out of prison, I visited some of my old friends from Bible school. They were so glad to see me. But when they told me they thought I was dead, I was initially perturbed. Then I came to realize something. That Stephen is dead! I’m a new man now. I can say with the apostle Paul, “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.” (Gal 2:20). How appreciative I was!

A Safe Haven
God brought me to a safe haven. I’ve been in Richmond for four years now, and the running is over. If you had told me I could know and experience the peace and love of God I know today, I would have told you that you were crazy.

God has lifted me. God has let me live. He’s given me good health. He’s blessed me with a great job and supplies all my needs abundantly. I’m not afraid to die. At one point, I was working for Virginia College and I got an opportunity to go to work elsewhere as a caretaker for a ninety-two year-old white man with Alzheimer’s disease and dementia. As I considered that, I could have said, “Why would I want to take care of some old, white guy?” But as I prayed, the Lord said, “You go take care of the elderly man.” And I’m so glad I did. It’s helped bring about the healing I needed in my life.

It has healed the sexual brokenness and the lack of bonding I had with my own father. Bonding with this elderly man has replaced what never happened with my Dad. This man loves me. He doesn’t want anything from me. I live in a mansion and enjoy what I do there for the Lord. I leave this place feeling whole. I never felt whole in my entire life before this. God is doing great things!

Previously the whole father thing was foreign to me. I didn’t know God as my Father. My Dad has been dead for 25 years now. Like I said before, he wasn’t there to model for me the love of my Heavenly Father. And I’ve had to go to his grave site and forgive him. We need to forgive our parents for being human.

The reason God has let me live is to proclaim the gospel. It’s not about me anymore. When you come away from a conversation with me, you should be thinking more about the Lord and not about Stephen.

My love for God and His Word grows daily. Whenever I read the Bible, I see myself in all the parables that Jesus told. I’m like the woman at the well who had many lovers. I’m like the man who sat by the pool of water for 38 years waiting to be healed. I just can’t read the Bible anymore without seeing myself in the pages of Scripture. The Word of God is living and active. It has the power to read you!

I Thought I Could Not Change
In the Church today, so many want to excuse homosexuality. They say that we’re born that way, and we can’t change. They say many other things to remove man’s responsibility. But those are just excuses. I’m here to tell you that the Bible calls it sin, and there’s a cure for sin – it’s the cross of Jesus Christ.

In the apostle Paul’s letter to the Romans, he wrote about those who knew God but exchanged the Truth of God for a lie. They claimed to be wise but became fools. He wrote: “For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error.” (Rom 1:26-27). So there’s no question that Paul saw this practice as error. He went on to say that those who do such things deserve death.

But then as he wrote to the Corinthians in another letter, he spoke of those who had formerly been living this way. Paul wrote: “Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.” (1Co 6:9-11).

You see, I was that! And I was washed, I was sanctified, I was justified. For twenty-five years, I thought I could not change. But the grace of God did its wonderful work in spite of me!

God loves the sinner. He has power to change the sinner. But He has not given a free pass to the sinner to go on living this way. You see, before you’re saved, you’re running after sin, but once you’re saved, you run from sin. That’s the difference.

The freedom I know today is something I never thought was possible. God has given me the power to submit to the Holy Spirit. I can’t watch TV anymore. I don’t look at magazines or go to movies. Those things don’t glorify the Lord. And why do I need to expose myself to those messages and temptations? That’s not because someone told me I couldn’t do these things. It’s because the Lord has put new desires inside my heart and there are so many other things I’d rather be doing for the Lord. I’d rather spend time before him in prayer and reading His Word now. I’d rather spend my whole life serving Him and expressing my faith through love.

While I once pursued ministry positions, I’m no longer willing to take on a position of authority. I can be much more effective for the Lord just serving Him every day and touching lives wherever I go, than I could from an official leadership position. In fact, I think modern Christian leadership, as we know it in the church today is foreign to Scripture. The church has copied Madison Avenue. Yet in the Bible, we see servant leadership. Jesus taught us to lead by serving. And that’s all I want to be is a servant of Jesus Christ.

You Can Know This Same Peace and Love
Jesus loves you and died on the cross for your sins and mine. Then He rose from the dead, and you can know His forgiveness in your life today. You can know His healing power. You can be set free from whatever bondage you’re in. The same power of the Holy Spirit that raised Christ from the dead will deliver you from sin.

You need to begin by repenting of your sin. That means you need to change your mind about it and call it what God calls it. Ask Him to forgive you. He’s waiting to forgive you, if you’ll ask Him. When you receive His forgiveness, you’ll be set free from all the shame and guilt that comes with the sin. That shame is what helped to keep you bound in the first place, my friend, so you’ll be glad to get rid of it!

But something that’s rarely talked about any more these days is that you also need to make Jesus your Lord. I’m not talking about just agreeing that Jesus is the Lord of the Universe. When He’s the Lord of your life, then you submit your whole life to Him. You need to yield your desires to God. And when you do so, then He’ll do a miracle for you like He did for me. God has given me new desires – new love!

If you have not yet put your faith in Christ, I urge you to do that today. He loves you and wants you to know Him personally.

Do you want to know Him?
If you want to know Jesus personally, you can. Your first step is to pray like this from a sincere heart:

HEAVENLY FATHER,
I have sinned against you.
I want forgiveness for all my sins.
I believe that Jesus died on the cross for me and rose again.
Father, I give you my life to do with as you wish. I want Jesus Christ to come into my life and into my heart. This I ask in Jesus' name. Amen.

If you prayed this sincerely from your heart, then you are a child of God. You have a relationship with the Lord. Now cultivate that relationship. Like any other personal relationship, this one requires you to spend time with Him for it to grow more intimate. So spend time daily, seeking the Lord, calling upon Jesus name, talking to Him and listening to His voice. Read His Word, the Bible, in order to see what God wants for your life and all the wonderful promises He has given you. As soon as possible, you need to tell someone that you have given your life to Jesus. Join with other loving believers who believe the Bible and preach the good news of salvation in Jesus alone, and find a place of service in that loving community.