While out for our morning exercise, Ethan and I ran into James, a Bishop from Alabama. I was walking and Ethan was running separately, but we took the same lake loop, and we happened upon James at the very same time. We both saw his t-shirt which had messages about God all over it, and we simply couldn’t walk/run past him without engaging in conversation. In fact, James said afterward that he had noticed me earlier and was preparing something funny to say to me when I finally caught up to him.

Straight away, we discovered that James is filled with the Holy Spirit and loves speaking in tongues, and that many of his church members have also been water baptized and Spirit-filled. However, we were able to share with him some encouragement from the Word of God regarding being more intentional and proactive with helping the other members (and people outside of his fellowship) to receive the Holy Spirit anointing, like in Acts 19:2 and Acts chapter 8. We also shared how we come across so many people that hang their salvation on John 3:16 yet have no clue that this scripture is part of a more in-depth conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus — so, it’s solidly connected with Jesus’ commandment in John 3:5 that you must be born again of water and of the Holy Spirit.

It was a great but brief conversation, and we gave James one of our ChristiansRule.com cards. James later told us that after parting ways and heading toward the parking lot, he was thinking about what we shared and he was disappointed - he wished we could have talked some more. Then James spied Ethan coming right by him again (as Ethan had continued his run, not knowing where James headed off to after we parted), and James eagerly waved Ethan over to give him one of his business cards and to ask him to call.

We did catch up with James again, this time with the rest of our group. We spent about an hour together, sharing stories and experiences and exhortation from the Word. We even got to video James’ amazing and truly miraculous testimony. The Lord transformed him from a drug dealer immersed in the depths of immortality, money, addiction (and who knows what else) in the center of New York City, to a passionate preacher shining the love and light of God. The Lord even miraculously saved James from being murdered! We will edit together this story and soon post it for everyone to watch and be inspired by….!