This is my personal testimony of the saving and keeping POWER of the Lord Jesus Christ.

All throughout my childhood, I was never truly taught anything about Jesus or His Word. One thing I do remember is having a dreadful fear in my heart as a small child of burning in Hell FOREVER and such a reality of knowing that FOREVER never ended. This was so real to me that I can only assume that God Himself opened up my understanding to know this. This terrified me, but as I grew, the fear faded away with the cares of this world. Having no foundation to stand on and no guidance, I went deep into sin.

I can honestly say every depth of sin I ever fell into was never enjoyable to me. I hated all of it. I remember many times trying to scrub the filthy way I felt off in the shower, but I never felt clean. This is because the filth was on my soul. I was in bondage to sin and did not know how to stop, so I found myself in jail with no bond. This is where I started to read God’s Holy Word. The seed was being planted; the Lord really started dealing with me. After I was released, I tried to stand and in my own power tried to overcome the sin I was still in bondage to, but continued to fall back into my old ways of life. No one was telling me I needed to be born again and get washed in the blood of Jesus.

After going to many different churches and still none of these churches had the answers, they told me, “Oh, God knows you’re weak. It will be okay. Just do the best you can.” But I hated my life. It was weak and beggarly, and I knew if there was a God who created the heavens and the earth in seven days, that this was not a weak God. So why was it okay for His creation to be weak? This did not make sense to me, and the Lord knew I questioned this. And what about this burning fire that never ended that I came to understand as a small child?

The search was alive in my heart, but death was all around me. I fell headlong into sin, this time crack cocaine, which caused me to lose everything. My kids had been taken. We had sold all our furniture for crack. We had no food, no electricity. We were sleeping on the floor in the freezing cold winter. I had finally reached a point of being so sick and tired of being sick and tired, that I started crying out to the Lord with everything I had in me to cry out with. For some reason, there was a King James Version Bible opened on the kitchen counter to Isaiah chapter 52 verse 1. It read: “Awake, awake; put on thy strength, O Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city: for henceforth there shall no more come into thee the uncircumcised and the unclean.” I knew God had heard my cry for help. I knew God Almighty was speaking straight to me. This was not the weak God these so-called churches were telling me about. This was an all-knowing, all-powerful God, and He was commanding me to do something. So I answered Him and wanted Him to show me HOW. “How do I do this, Lord?”

About two weeks later I found a piece of gospel literature from our pastor, Tony Alamo. Little did I realize at the time this was the answer to my question to the Lord. I needed to know how to be strong in the Lord. Well, I read the back of the literature, and it said, “Tony Alamo Christian Ministries provides a place to live with all the things necessary for life to all those who truly want to serve the Lord with all their heart, mind, soul, and strength.” Yes, this was me. Praise the Lord!

My family and I moved in. We have been in the ministry for nine years now, and this ministry taught me, in order to be free from sin according to the Word of God, you MUST be born again of the Spirit and washed in the blood of Jesus, and then you MUST pick up your cross daily, deny yourself, and follow the Lord Jesus Christ by reading, praying, and doing as the Lord commands. Now this is power! I now walk a victorious, power-filled life with my Lord Jesus Christ leading the way to the Kingdom of Heaven. No more death. I now walk in life. My children know the Word of God. They love the Lord, and this is not being taught in public school or any churches I ever went to. I am so thankful to the Lord and my pastor, Tony Alamo, and his late wife Susie, who laid down their lives over fifty years ago and started this ministry so others could lay down their lives and concentrate on serving the Lord and preaching the gospel to the lost and dying souls of this world.

Praise the Lord,

Tifini Koczan