MISSIONARY: JORGE BRIONES
Missionary in Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco, Mexico.
PERSONAL TESTIMONY
In 1997, the Lord put on the heart of Miguel Ahumada, a salesman who worked in my business, to testify to me about the Lord Jesus. After that, I took him with me, against his will, to a bar for a few hours. When we left, he told me, “Now it is my turn.” He told me of what Christ did for me on the cross and invited me to pray in faith and to accept, in complete repentance, the Lord Jesus Christ, who would forgive all my sins, as my Lord and Savior
In April 1998, at approximately 10:30 p.m., I was having a good time in a cantina (bar), in the city of Mission, Texas, with some of my friends. After using cocaine for a third time, I felt like someone touched the back of my arms. I felt sad and discouraged. I returned to my senses and felt as if I had never drunk alcohol before.
Later I saw the face of a woman who accompanied me to the cantina and the faces of my friends and everything was strange and horrible. Having a beautiful wife at home, I asked myself, “ What are you doing with this woman? Why are my friends faces disfigured? Oh no! I am having an overdose, I need to go home and have them take me to the hospital.”
Before I left the cantina, I heard a small voice coming from inside me, like a thought, that told me, “DO NOT FEAR, I AM YOUR GOD, I will take you from here.” In that moment I could believe everything except that God was speaking. I left with the feeling that if I died in that moment I believed that something bad would happen to me, like someone wanted to stab me, shoot me, or that I would be in an accident in my truck.
When I got home, I made a decision that I was used to making daily, but this time my wife told me, “You came with lipstick on you from another woman, and this time you are not drunk, this will truly end in a divorce. I don’t want you anymore.”
At that moment I went to my bedroom to sleep afraid that I would not wake up. This was the first opportunity I had to drink all the milk I could to disintoxicate myself from all the cocaine and I went to sleep. The next day I woke up as if nothing had happened. The ulcer in my stomach did not hurt me, I did not throw up, nor did I have a head ache. Just like I write this testimony today, I was full of health.
The story doesn’t end here. I woke up and went again to look for my friends at a car lot. It was a custom of ours to go the night before and have a cookout and lots of cold beer.
When my son and I got to the place, there was no one there, except a young man, who asked me, “When did you do to get out?” I told him, “In my house I am in charge.” He told me, do not tease. Last night you were in the cantina at about 10:00 p.m. When I went to take the wrecker to my boss, you were still there. I told him, “Yes, I was, but something bad happened to me and I went home.” He said, “What luck.” It was a little after 10:00 p.m. when the others decided to go to a different bar and they left in two separate trucks, each one for a different road. Both trucks were stopped by the police and they found beer, cocaine, and everyone was in jail.
At that moment I felt warm, and the little voice, the one I heard before I left the cantina, was this time a much stronger voice! “I TOLD YOU I AM YOUR GOD. I took you. You are not in jail!” Immediately after this, the young man offered me a beer and I told him, “For the moment, no. Maybe God wants me to go the Catholic church.” I then turned, took my son little Jorge by the hand, and I left to return to the house with my wife.
When I got home my wife was not there. I took my little son, Jorge, with me like a guarantee that my wife would not leave the house, but still she walked out. I felt a great pain for the things I had done wrong and thought, “The Lord saved me from JAIL, but now I have to pay the consequences for my sin. I walked to the bedroom and noticed that in the closet and everywhere else, there was no sign of my wife or son’s things. I went to the living room where I could see my wife’s old sandals, and I remembered the bad I had done to my wife and son. In that moment God touched my heart. Crying, I fell on my knees and challenged God. I raised my face to Heaven and asked God, “If you are really God and you exist, give me another chance, and if you answer me, I will serve you in gratefulness and try to take my family in the way you want us to go.”
When I finished crying and praying, I heard the sound of an automobile outside my house. It was my wife and her sister. It was not that she had left me, she had gone to wash the laundry. It was then that I told God, “Thanks.” I took my wife and told her about everything that I was thinking, and she did not believe me and she continued with the threat that she was preparing to divorce me.
That same day I looked for a Bible and I started to read it, opening to a page believing that God was speaking to me in that form. The next day I purposed to stay at home and watch football, but before I turned on the television, God put it on my heart to look for the Bible. I did not read it. Instead, I put it to the side and went to watch the football game. Immediately, the commentator on the television was criticizing the trainer from one of the teams.
Carlos Reynoso had a rare cap on his head that said, “Jer. 33:3,” and the cameraman focused the camera until all of the verse showed on the screen. I felt that God gave me the desire to look up this verse in the Bible and to read what He wanted to show me. Jeremiah 33:3, “Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and show thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not.” Apart from this moment, God enthused me to continue reading His holy Word, and I forgot about the football game. After that I remembered a Christian radio station that my brother Luis Briones had recommended just a few days before he passed away. I looked for it on the radio, found it, and started learning from the Word of God with a program from Radio Hope and my daily Bible reading.
Fifteen days after what happened in the cantina and after not going with my friends, a great joy came to my heart and I ran to my wife and told her, “I have a lot of happiness and joy in my heart. Something is happening in my life and she simply told me, “You are crazy!”
Later I ran to my father’s house and explained to him everything that God was doing in my life. He told me that I was confused and that I was a Catholic and that receiving Christ in your heart happens when you are baptized in the Catholic church as a child. This answer did not help me and in the end he told me that I was crazy and that one day I would also end up like one of those brothers who manipulate people with a false religion and not the beliefs of the Catholic church.
I hurried home and told my wife that it would be better if I died. Ultimately, strange things happened to me that I have never known before, and she told me that all the alcohol and drugs had made me think wrong.
I could not take it any more and I locked myself in the laundry room and when I lifted my hands to ask God what happened in my life, came the promise that I had made.
In that moment, I bent my knees and fell to the floor asking, in a loud voice, forgiveness for my sins. It was as if I was watching a movie of all the things I had done wrong. Crying, I begged Jesus Christ to forgive me. I received Him in my heart as Lord and Savior of my life.
This was the most wonderful day of my life. Finally, He extended His hand and took me from a cantina and saved me. He saved me!!
FRIEND, IF THIS REAL TESTIMONY HAS MADE YOU THINK, EXAMINE YOUR LIFE AND TAKE A FEW MINUTES MORE SO THAT TODAY YOU CAN RECEIVE THIS SAME JESUS CHRIST THAT TRANSFORMED MY LIFE.
1. THE BIBLE SAYS THAT WE ARE ALL SINNERS
(Romans 3:10-12) “As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are altogether become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.”
2. SIN HAS CONSEQUENCES
(Romans 6:23a) “For the wages of sin is death…”
3. IF YOU DIE IN SIN YOU WILL GO TO HELL
(Revelation 20:14-15) “And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.”
4. THE GOOD NEWS IS THAT YOU DO NOT HAVE TO GO TO HELL.
(Romans 5:8) “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
(John 1:11-12) “He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:”
(Romans 10:9,13) “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”
(1 John 5:12) “He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. .”
PRAY THIS PRAYER IN FAITH .
Heavenly Father, Today I ask forgiveness for all my sins. I recognize that I am lost in sin without you, Jesus. I open my heart and receive you as my Lord and Savior. Take control of my life and make me the person that you want me to be. In Jesus name, Amen
If you prayed this prayer in faith, and confessed that Jesus Christ is your Lord and Savior, please send a email at: jorgebrionesmissionary@yahoo.com