This Is My Testimony

 Since part of the motivation for my blog is to leave a legacy to my children & grandchildren, I thought I would share some history this week. This post is about my father, I will share mine at a later time. Many of us grew up in churches that had the occasional “testimony time”, usually in an evening service. Unfortunately, most people don’t really know what a personal testimony is. I’m not talking about the type one gives in court, but a personal testimony of their relationship with Christ. The Christian site Cru.org gives a definition as good as any. They say a testimony is “The story about how God has changed your life through a personal relationship with Him — that is your Christian testimony.”  When I was a trainer for Evangelism Explosion, we would tell people its’s three easy steps.

1. This is how I was. (spiritual condition)

2. Here’s what happened. (conversion experience)

3. Here’s how I’ve changed. (new creature in Christ)

 Some people have dramatic stories. Others have a much simpler one. My father, Maynard Cross, once told me his.

He said he had started attending church (mostly because he had met the girl that would soon be my mother) and had made friends with the Pastor. They even went fishing together. He liked to share his passion of fishing. One morning Pastor Adam Lutzweiler ask my father to travel to the Chicago Gospel Rescue Mission for a taping of the radio program “Unshackled”. Pastors Lutzweiler story was being featured, that day.

 Here is an excerpt from the poetry collection & writings of James Lutzweiler, his son. (MS615_Lutzweiler_James (3).pdf  p37)

 Before my father's own conversion after a theatre performance on the night of 1 August 1925 on the 10th floor of the Paul Revere Hotel in Detroit, Michigan, he had been a jazz-mad marimbist in Vaudeville, where he went by the far more euphonic name of Lew Adams and helped to make the Twenties roar. His life story was broadcast on the serialized program "Unshackled" in 1953 by Chicago's Pacific Garden Mission. Upon his conversion, my father abandoned Vaudeville for the Christian ministry, and he returned to Philadelphia where he eventually enrolled in the Philadelphia College of the Bible, a school founded by C. I. Scofield.

 My father said when pastor Lutzweiler had finished, he went forward and handed him something. It was a package of cigarettes! “What am I supposed to do with these?” the pastor asked.  “I don’t know, but I’m not going to need them”, quipped my father.  On that day he quite a 2 pack a day smoking habit cold-turkey, and never looked back. He had given his life to Christ. My mother and father were baptized in the same church shortly after, and throughout the years always strove to raise their family in accordance with the scriptures. They are great examples of what God can do. 

Thank you, I miss you dad.

 

This is my testimony

From death to life

'Cause grace rewrote my story

I'll testify

By Jesus Christ, the righteous

I'm justified

This is my testimony

This is my testimony

 “My Testimony”

Writers: Brandon Lake, Christopher Joel Brown, Steven Furtick, Tiffany Hammer

Copyright: Lyrics © ESSENTIAL MUSIC PUBLISHING, BETHEL MUSIC PUBLISHING