I was working in the 70s, working hard, long hours [sometimes 15 hrs] in London as an assistant manager in one of Britain's leading supermarkets. I would come home totally bushed.
One sunny afternoon I espyed a magazine seemingly carelessly thrown away on the pavement, it was a gospel magazine, American, very colourful. The banner headlines proclaimed "God loves YOU He wants to bless YOU"
I thought that sounds good, I could do with a bit of that.
When I got it home I found it was full of photos taken from evangelistic meetings conducted by Evangelist T. L. Osborn and his wife Daisy, the photos purported to be of people supposedly healed during prayer at the meetings, scores of them, blind people who could now see, lepers cleansed, hopeless cripples raised up and made whole. I TOTALLY disbelieved it.
Yet T. L. and Daisy looked like honest folks if a little colourful, and I sure did like their sermon messages and their articles and features, I bought a bible to check out the many quotes and ticked the box to receive further copies.
The magazine at that time was published 6 times a year and because it was shipped it might be anytime between 6 and 10 weeks when I received my copy through the post. Yet I always KNEW travelling home from work that it had arrived that day. I would lock the doors and settle down to read it in peace.
Always the same, dozens of photos, scores of miracles, never believed them. But I did love that message. Christ IN YOU the hope of glory. And there was that scripture I saw over and over again "Jesus Christ the SAME yesterday and today and forever" what could it mean? I used to stare hard at it trying to understand it.
One beautiful may morning in '77 I received my magazine in it was two page spread of one man's testimony, Juan Santos of Poncé Puerto Rico, a beggar who had been helplessly paralysed for 16 years and had been lain out to beg every day.
T. L. and Daisy came to his town for meetings, he heard about the miracles and begged to be taken, they set him back to back with a blind woman far back of the field so that he could sit up. But the woman was healed during prayer, she received her sight, she could see. She jumped up screaming because she could see.
Poor old Juan flopped onto his back. He struggled desperately to get up onto his elbows but kept flopping back. A local policeman who knew Juan saw him and took him by the shoulders hauling Juan to his feet "Jesus is healing you now Juan, only believe"
Juan Santos stood on his feet for the first time in 16 years, he said I felt like I was 10 feet tall. He was made every whit whole.
When I read his story I believed him, just a poor man, he had an honest face, he's telling the truth ... then all the miracles are true. THEN I understood the scripture "Jesus Christ is the SAME yesterday, and today and forever" He's not changed.
Then after receiving so many of those magazines my eyes fell upon the prayer for salvation, it's in all their magazines [now out of print] but I never saw it before.
I got saved and I love the Lord to this day.
One sunny afternoon I espyed a magazine seemingly carelessly thrown away on the pavement, it was a gospel magazine, American, very colourful. The banner headlines proclaimed "God loves YOU He wants to bless YOU"
I thought that sounds good, I could do with a bit of that.
When I got it home I found it was full of photos taken from evangelistic meetings conducted by Evangelist T. L. Osborn and his wife Daisy, the photos purported to be of people supposedly healed during prayer at the meetings, scores of them, blind people who could now see, lepers cleansed, hopeless cripples raised up and made whole. I TOTALLY disbelieved it.
Yet T. L. and Daisy looked like honest folks if a little colourful, and I sure did like their sermon messages and their articles and features, I bought a bible to check out the many quotes and ticked the box to receive further copies.
The magazine at that time was published 6 times a year and because it was shipped it might be anytime between 6 and 10 weeks when I received my copy through the post. Yet I always KNEW travelling home from work that it had arrived that day. I would lock the doors and settle down to read it in peace.
Always the same, dozens of photos, scores of miracles, never believed them. But I did love that message. Christ IN YOU the hope of glory. And there was that scripture I saw over and over again "Jesus Christ the SAME yesterday and today and forever" what could it mean? I used to stare hard at it trying to understand it.
One beautiful may morning in '77 I received my magazine in it was two page spread of one man's testimony, Juan Santos of Poncé Puerto Rico, a beggar who had been helplessly paralysed for 16 years and had been lain out to beg every day.
T. L. and Daisy came to his town for meetings, he heard about the miracles and begged to be taken, they set him back to back with a blind woman far back of the field so that he could sit up. But the woman was healed during prayer, she received her sight, she could see. She jumped up screaming because she could see.
Poor old Juan flopped onto his back. He struggled desperately to get up onto his elbows but kept flopping back. A local policeman who knew Juan saw him and took him by the shoulders hauling Juan to his feet "Jesus is healing you now Juan, only believe"
Juan Santos stood on his feet for the first time in 16 years, he said I felt like I was 10 feet tall. He was made every whit whole.
When I read his story I believed him, just a poor man, he had an honest face, he's telling the truth ... then all the miracles are true. THEN I understood the scripture "Jesus Christ is the SAME yesterday, and today and forever" He's not changed.
Then after receiving so many of those magazines my eyes fell upon the prayer for salvation, it's in all their magazines [now out of print] but I never saw it before.
I got saved and I love the Lord to this day.
