Apostle Ernie apostleernie@outlook.com Author On My Trending Stories

My name is Ernie, and I founded Cross of Jesus Christ ministry in 2015.

http://apostleernie.crossofchristlive.one
Yeshua saved me in 2001, and it happened rather abruptly. At the time, I was a New Ager, searching for the truth. I did not like Christians; they were too happy in my mind. At the same time, I envied them for their happiness because I knew they had something I wanted and needed.
I was coming home from work and started preparing dinner when Yeshua saved me in 2001. Up until then, I had considered myself to be a reasonably good person. I never stole anything, and I had never murdered anyone. Of course, I knew I was not perfect, but in my mind, I was not evil and did not have the potential to do anything harmful.
Suddenly and without warning, while I was cooking, I saw myself the way Yeshua saw me. I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, I was an evil sinner who had the potential to become even eviler. I saw how my perception of myself as a reasonably decent individual was so different from the way Yeshua saw me. In His eyes, what I considered “fairly decent” was extremely evil. Then I heard Him speaking to me. He told me, “this is the day of salvation. I have called out to you so many times, and you have ignored it. If you do not repent today and trust in Me, your heart will become hard, and you will no longer have the ability to hear My call”. So I repented and believed in Yeshua (Jesus) as my Lord and Savior that day, and I have been a Christian ever since.
As a new born again Christian, I did not know what to do. This was before Facebook and the Internet. So I just knew I had to get my hands on the Bible. As a new Christian, I did not understand the Bible, and it felt like an arduous task to read it. At the same time, I knew I had to have a Bible, so I bought 15 Bibles over one year, but I never read them. I just felt such joy of purchasing a Bible and holding it in my hands.
Today there are thousands of Christian sermons online and on Christian TV. Back then, in 2001, in my part of the world, I had one channel, and it never showed anything Christian. So as a new Christian, I knew I needed guidance and other Christians. The question was, to what denomination should I go to?
I first started attending the Lutheran church, but I knew something was not right when I was the youngest there, and all the others were in the age group of 60+. Every Sunday, on my way to the church service in the Lutheran church, I passed by the local Pentecostal assembly. I quickly noticed the differences between those attending the Lutheran church and those attending the pentecostal meeting. Pentecostals had joy and laughed a lot; they smiled when they entered their building. Lutherans rarely smiled, I never saw them laugh, and it seemed as if I was attending a funeral compared to what the Pentecostals experienced.
So I started to wonder if I should begin attending the Pentecostal church instead.
After some time, I decided to attend the Pentecostal church, but I was very very of them and what they believed. I had heard a lot about them, and I did not know if I could trust them or if becoming a Pentecostal meant joining a cult. So I decided I should attend a meeting, but I planned to come late after the meeting had started and slipped in unannounced in the back.
The first time I walked towards the door of the Pentecostal church, I felt a physical force restraining me hindering me from entering. Nobody was around that I could see, everyone had gone inside to start, but something did not want me to go inside. I did not understand what was happening, but I knew whatever it was it was not from God. This was not God trying to hinder from attending the Pentecostal meeting. So I decided to trick whatever it was that was trying to block me. I knew that somehow, this “thing” communicated with me in my mind, but it could not read my mind. It depended on my actions to understand what I was about to do. So in my mind, I decided to go home and skip the meeting. I started walking away from the church, and at that moment, I could feel whatever this was relaxing its grip on me. In the same second, as it loosened its grip, I turned and ran toward the building, grabbed hold of the door and ran inside. I made my way up the stairs to the sanctuary where the meeting had just started and slipped unnoticed in on the back row.
I did not know anything about Pentecostals or what they believed in. While I was sitting there, my mind was bombarded with weird thoughts about them that went something like “now you have done it, this is a cult. They are dangerous people,” and I knew that those thoughts came from whatever it was trying to hinder me from getting inside the building.
While I was sitting there, the pastor whom I had never met, got up and said the following: “I had planned something for this meeting, but I feel the Holy Spirit is telling me to change what I had planned. Instead, I want everyone who is a member here and a Pentecostal to testify to what they believe in.”
Nobody knew who I was, I had not spoken to anyone, but I was sitting there wondering what does a Pentecostal believe in. And then suddenly the pastor answers my question. I found out; these people were ordinary people, Christians who had discovered something in the Bible I had always longed for and something the Lutherans lacked. They had found the Holy Spirit, so I became a Pentecostal myself.
As the years went by I felt called to ministry, so in 2015 I launched “Cross of Jesus Christ Ministries.” Some years after that, Yeshua called me to be an Apostle.
When I first started this ministry, I was not at liberty to use my given name, so I just called myself Apostle. This has changed so now I can use my given name, Ernie. Hopefully, things will change so I can soon use my full name, but until that happens call me Apostle Ernie.