Acts 26:18 – “..to open their eyes, in order to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in Me.”
The following is the testimony of Helen of London, England of how Almighty God worked in her life by His grace to bring her ‘from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, that [she]..receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith’ in Lord Yeshua the Messiah, Son of the living God.
Helen, roughly how long have you been saved?
About 30 years.
In your own words, what does “saved” mean and where in the Scriptures do you derive your understanding?
‘Saved’ means having your past sins and future sins forgiven by the sacrifice of Lord Jesus – in His death and resurrection – by faith in Him and repentance of sins, that is, turning away from a sinful life to God. You are then given the Holy Spirit which comes from Him and so in the end you will not be condemned. It is Acts chapter 2 in the Scriptures that primarily informs my understanding.
In your own words what is repentance and its connection with salvation?
The Scriptures teach us we need to repent because we are sinful but, we can’t get rid of our sinful nature and neither can we continue living wilfully sinful lives, as if there was no God. We therefore need to turn from all that is unholy, ungodly, in God’s sight to living a life that is pleasing to Him, a life that is holy and that is honouring to God. This is because Jesus Christ died because of our sins to make the way for us to be forgiven from sin through His sacrifice and we have to walk worthy of what Christ has done for us. If we don’t, we dishonour Jesus and we trample over what He has done – He is holy, we cannot trample over Christ. It is the sin that we have that keeps us separated from God. Repentance and salvation therefore go together – you can’t have salvation without repentance. If someone has not repented – turned away from what God has called sin in faith upon Lord Jesus Christ and His sacrifice for sin – they cannot be saved and therefore cannot have a relationship with God.
Helen’s background
Can you share with us about your family background?
I was born in London, England in the UK to Caribbean parents and am the only girl among the four children they had. My dad was not saved at the time of my birth and I’m not really sure where my mum was at in connection with saving faith in Lord Jesus Christ. Although not a churchgoer, she in particular was very insistent on my siblings and I going to church. While they both stayed at home, my mum attending her housework and cooking, we were therefore sent to Sunday School at the local Church of England congregation. Whether my mum was actually born-again at that time [Ed. see e.g. John 1:1-13 and John 3:1-8 for meaning of ‘born-again’] I can’t really say but I can remember that she was very aware of God and would always speak of Him. During my childhood I therefore definitely had some knowledge of the existence of God and while church attendance didn’t have a great impact on me then, some bits did stay. I particularly remember being given illustrated books of stories in the Bible at church which I read and quite enjoyed. Although I was given a bible as a child, I did not actually read this until I was around 17.
My childhood was also very disciplined – my parents were very strict traditional West Indian parents and so growing up, both had very definite ideas of their expectations of their only daughter. Later on, a couple of years before my own conversion at 23, both my parents became born-again believers in Lord Jesus Christ.
Can you remember when you first heard the Gospel? What were you told? What impact did that have on you? Where were you in life at that time?
I think this would have been during my time at Sunday School but I don’t recall it having any particular impact on me.
When did you become conscious of the Gospel of Lord Yeshua, that Messiah died for your sins, personally?
This was in my early twenties when I was searching for the meaning of life and began attending a bible study at church.
Helen’s Journey to Faith
What was your journey to saving faith from then on? How did God work in your life to bring you to the light of the saving knowledge and salvation of Lord Yeshua the Messiah?
I was still living at home when I came to faith in the Lord but let me go back a bit to when I was 17.
I had been feeling quite depressed at the time and one day visited a Rastafarian friend of mine. During my visit he showed me some Bible Scriptures and I felt a real lifting of the depression and a joy that came over me. I went from feelings of such depression to a tremendous joy that just filled me. It made me think I had received the Holy Spirit. (I don’t know how I was aware of the Holy Spirit but thinking about it now, this must have come through associations with some people who attended Pentecostal churches who must have spoken about the Holy Spirit). When I returned home after this experience, I immediately began to read the Bible from the beginning in Genesis with such a sense of excitement. I read the Bible every day and wanted to find Jesus so I began visiting an Anglican church [Ed. a Church of England denomination]. Unfortunately, I didn’t find Jesus at that time and became discouraged. Within about a year I had turned away from seeking God.
After this I didn’t really want to know about God and even started to think evolution could be true, although I could not totally reject the creation account in Genesis nor get it out of my mind. Thinking about evolution was a reaction to my disappointment and anger at not finding Jesus. At 18, my expectations were of something miraculous happening, some distinct powerful sense of connection with God, with Christ, especially after experiencing the immense joy initially at my friend’s home. This however did not happen. Although I enjoyed reading the bible, I never experienced that joy again and still felt that there was a distance between me and God.
This all led to years of drifting, of just doing what I wanted and life in general continued. I finished college, finished polytechnic and began work but I was aware of an emptiness within. I was unwilling to turn to or hear anything about God at that time. I recall a particular occasion at work when I had asked an older work colleague what the meaning of life was, ‘And don’t talk to me about God’ I added. He then said nothing.
About a year later, on the way to a swimming lesson one evening, I was early so had some time on my hands. By this time, I was around the age of 22. Feeling a deep sense of emptiness – again – I began to cry out to God saying: ‘God, why have You made us? You must have made us for a reason. You must have made us to share in Your creation and Yourself with us.’ While I was walking I saw a woman walking towards me and I thought, ‘Oh no!’ I could tell that she was religious and was going to stop me. She did in fact stop me and began talking to me. She explained that she was from a church and began asking me questions such as: Have you read the bible? What did I think about it? I told her that I had and about the bits I didn’t like about it and in short, the conversation ended with her inviting me to a bible study and asking for my number. I had intended to lie about this but to my surprise I gave her my real number. Afterwards, as I walked on, I began to experience a sense of joy again, a feeling of excitement and expectation replacing the emptiness I had felt before meeting her.
After the swimming session when I got home I told my mum of what had happened, that I had been invited to a bible study and had decided to go. At this point both my mum and dad had been born again, baptised and were part of a Christian church fellowship so my mum was really pleased.
In due course I attended the bible study and thought it was a good study so I continued going. The believers however were of a church which was a bit cultish in practice. By this I mean, for example, they were extremely insistent that I studied the bible every day with them. At the time my mum was not well so this put a lot of pressure on me, for which there was little understanding from the church. My mum and dad both felt that there was something wrong. I too had concerns. When I asked for a day’s break, their response was that if I were really serious about being a disciple of Jesus, I would study with them every day. They also would not allow space for discussion over the topics we studied nor coming to your own reasoned conclusion, but rather expected what they said to be accepted with no questions asked. For example, on one occasion when they taught on being grateful to parents, I tried to share my struggles with some aspects of this because of some difficult childhood experiences. My experience of living at home with my parents as the only daughter, for me, was not so great and when I commented that I hadn’t asked to be born they just jumped down my throat! Instead of talking with me about it, the response was, ‘you have to believe this’ and ‘you have to think this’ etc. Instead of room being given to talk about this, I was shut down and had to accept what they say – full stop.
This church was very controlling and I did have a sense of feeling trapped. Nevertheless, I was really seeking God, wanting to find Christ, wanting to be saved and so even though I had disagreements with them, I did not want them to give up on me. I knew I had some issues in my life which had to be dealt with and I did want to deal with these as I was genuinely seeking God. For example, it was at the time during Apartheid in South Africa and I felt a lot of hatred in my heart arising out of the issues there. I remember praying to the Lord that I wanted to be a Christian but how can I when I have this hatred like this? – I knew that the two could not co-exist.
The church went through a structured bible study which covered all the aspects of the Gospel of Lord Jesus Christ, i.e. His cross, His resurrection, sin, repentance, saving faith, baptism etc and at some point during this bible study, in the midst of my struggles, the Lord opened my heart and I believed the Gospel. I was enabled to believe upon Lord Jesus: that He is the Son of God; that He came, died for our sins and rose from the dead; that I was a sinner; that I needed to repent; the church preached baptism was part of salvation and I believed that I needed to be baptised. I really wanted Lord Jesus and shortly after my confession of faith in Him, I was baptised as a believer in Lord Jesus Christ. After this, some of the things which I had struggled with, by God’s grace fell away from me without me having to try but some other things lingered for a short while, however I believed that I was saved at this point. The Lord did it – He changed my mindset, He changed my heart.
When did the assurance of salvation come? When did you know you were saved? Can you describe how that felt?
When I was saved, there was a measure of assurance of my salvation but because of the level of expectation from the church I was in and, the heavy emphasis on what they said a true disciple of Lord Jesus is, I struggled with full assurance. This would not come until about 8 years later, for the reasons explained further below.
From Then To Now
Since then, can you share a little bit about how the Lord Yeshua has worked in your life?
Following on from the point where I had accepted the gift of Lord Jesus, the gift of salvation, my inner struggles with some of the ways the church was led continued and this played a large role in hindering me having the fullness of the assurance of my salvation. Let me explain:
Helen’s Journey to the Assurance of her Salvation
In my first church, whether you were a true Christian was mainly measured by how many people you brought to church and how many disciples you made. As this was out of my control and I wasn’t particularly good at getting people to come to church, this measure was always an issue for me, causing me to question my commitment to Christ and my discipleship. One of the good things they did teach was self-examination – and I was always examining myself- but it was always measured against my works, particularly the number of people I brought to meetings and my own attendance. Since my mum had become unwell and I was expected by the family as the only daughter to take on the bulk of caring responsibilities at home, going to meetings was not easy or always possible. This however was not understood by the church, adding to the increasing pressure I had begun to feel. As one of few people who had a car, I was also expected to give lifts to several people after meetings. On the one hand they taught I had a duty to my parents, on the other they expected me to attend all the meetings but with a full-time job in between it was impossible for me to meet their standards. Missed meetings when mum needed me were generally seen as a sign of me not being a true disciple and when I did leave mum to go to the meetings, my parents viewed that as being a bad daughter and a bad Christian. So, I was endlessly criticised by both sides which was difficult for me.
The church also believed that they were pretty much the only true Christians, apart from one or two people who also evangelised on the streets. If a person left this church, it was considered that they were no longer a Christian. Evangelism was a big thing for them – if you were not evangelising literally everywhere you went, to everyone you meet, you were not a true Christian. There were specific times we were expected to join in with church evangelism on the streets but we were also expected to do this in our own time. Since not many believers are able to literally stop everyone they meet when walking down a street to invite them to a bible study, most Christians outside our church were not thought to be true Christians. On the occasions I was able to bring a few people along to church, I felt I was still not seen as a proper disciple because I wasn’t evangelistic enough. I therefore often struggled with questions of my salvation.
The pressure from all the expectations – three meetings per week, evangelism times at least once a week, lifts, work, a sick parent, babysitting requests etc – continued on for two years before I came to a point where I felt I was not far from having a breakdown. Around this time there was a lot of young people in the church with no dependants or responsibilities. For those who had young children, babysitters were found for them and I was one of those constantly being asked to babysit although there were many in the church who could have done it instead. I did it when I could but I was constantly asked why I was unable to help even when I had explained my home situation many times. Despite explaining that my mum was not well, the fact of this totally went over their heads and just seemed to be ignored. I was constantly juggling demands of home, church and work. My parents had become increasingly angry with me as well because of the times I felt I really had to attend the church meetings and could not be the one to care for my mum on those occasions.
It all came to a head one day after about two years of the same scenario when I realised at that point I had to make some decisions of my own, otherwise I would fall off the precipice as it were! It was after a church meeting, after which I had cried all the way home. I had been asked to babysit again at that meeting by my bible discussion leader, which would have meant me getting home after 10pm four nights in a row that week, after leaving for work at 7am each morning. No one cared that I was struggling. It was about 10pm when I got in that evening after being asked to babysit. I greeted my mum who angrily told me to get out of her room. I went to my bedroom. Fully clothed, winter coat, boots and all, I crawled into bed and just lay there in the foetal position. It was a real low point. It was also at that point I came to realise that if I did not make some decisions that night, I was heading for a break-down. I had heard of other people having breakdowns in the church.
The next morning, I said no to the babysitting request – and I felt a lot better afterwards! The relief was palpable and I felt as though I had saved myself by saying ‘no’. After this, however I did continue attending the church for another two years . Nothing much changed with the church’s way of doing things and for me, much of the joy of knowing the Lord was eroded.
It was partially through a momentous event within the church that after four years with them, I left. For the leadership of this church, the sign of “a true church” of disciples was continual growth in numbers. When they saw that the church was not growing at the rate they were expecting, they concluded that most people in the church were not being disciples. They decided to then put everyone out of the church – which, when I think about it, they were effectively saying that we were not Christians anymore (because if anyone were not in the church they were no longer seen as Christians) – and given conditions under which people could be brought back in. It was not an “ex-communication” as such, nor was there a formal membership application process but rather a loose membership based on who was considered a member of the church and therefore part of the church. The church was divided into groups anyway, but the emphasis was very much on what the individual had to do in order to come back into membership of the church as a whole. What I personally was required to do in order to be brought back into the church was to leave home and move into what was called a sister’s flat. A lot of the church members lived in homes with brothers or sisters, which often meant also having to share a room as well. I decided not to do this. I had had my own room since I was six and as a twenty-something year old at that point, I was not about to move into a house and share a room with one or possibly two other women. Why would that make me a Christian?! Also – especially – my mum was not well.
As a consequence of this decision, a meeting was organised for me to see one of the leading women. As this was someone I had spoken with before and which had not been a good experience for me, I refused to meet with her. This then led to questions as to whether I had ‘fallen away’ – to which my answer was ‘yes’. I knew in my heart that I had not fallen away from Lord Jesus but I also knew that in their eyes, if you leave the church, you have fallen away from the faith. You were not a Christian. Thankfully, I knew that this was wrong. During this momentous event for the church – which they termed as “revival” – a lot of people left. I was one of them.
After leaving, I did struggle with the question of whether I was a good or bad disciple – or even one at all. At this point, this had been the only real experience of “church” I had had – all my doctrine had come from them and so I had the tendency to equate my salvation, to some extent, with works such as evangelism and making disciples. For a while I did not attend any other church fellowship but it wasn’t long before I sensed a hunger in me – a need to go to church. I had visited my parents’ church but it wasn’t for me. Initially, I began to visit a local Methodist church just out of the sheer need I felt within for church fellowship. Not long after, I met up with some of those who had also left my previous church who were now attending a reformed church fellowship and invited me along.
This reformed church were also aware of the church I had left and this led to some interesting discussions, particularly with the leadership. This particular Reformed church fellowship followed the teachings of Calvin to some part and some of their beliefs included: only using the Authorised King James Version of the Bible; belief in the five-points of Calvinism [Ed. for information of what this is, the article on Got Questions website about this may be helpful to you. This is the link: https://www.gotquestions.org/calvinism.html]. They also believe that the gifts of the Spirit ended with the first Apostles, etc. One difference, for example, was that the church I had left believed after you had repented and believed upon the Lord Jesus Christ you had to be baptised in order to be saved and this Reformed church fellowship did not. I realised through doctrinal disagreements, their views of the church I had left and by the way they treated me, that they didn’t believe that I was saved. I could tell this by the way the church prayed for me and others, being prevented from taking the Lord’s Supper (Communion) with them, not being allowed to pray in prayer meetings (but still expected to attend), calling each other ‘brother’ ‘sister’ but referring to me by my name. With the experiences at my previous church, my hyper self-critical tendencies and then questions being raised about my salvation at this Reformed church fellowship, it was not long before the now familiar struggle with my doubts about whether I was a true Christian began to arise again. I saw these believers in the Reformed church group as extremely godly and holy and there was nothing I saw in them for me to think otherwise. Moreover, since the church fellowship followed the Calvinistic view of salvation [Ed. broadly speaking, classic Calvinism teaches that some people are pre-destined to be eternally saved and the rest pre-destined to eternal damnation] their answer to my struggles was not a clear one.
Their response to me in my struggles was that I should ask God for mercy. Basically, they believed that if you’re saved, you’re saved – if you’re not, you’re not. If you’re a sheep you’re a sheep – if you’re goat you’re a goat. Their message to me was that there was nothing one can do to be saved – all we can do is ask God for mercy. Either God will show mercy or not! In one conversation with them about the way they presented the Gospel, I addressed this, pointing out that in the Bible an answer was always given to anyone who asked – it was never ‘there’s nothing you can do.’ The Calvinistic teaching really messed me up spiritually for quite a while because now, for me at that point, the Gospel wasn’t simple anymore. It wasn’t solid anymore. It had become like a cloud which just dissipates as you reach out to touch it. Nothing you could do to be saved?! My thoughts whirled around in my mind about this – something that had seemed a lot simpler seemed to have become very complicated: If God has mercy upon you, He has mercy; if He doesn’t have mercy on you, He doesn’t have mercy on you. If you’re a sheep, you’re a sheep; if you’re a goat, you’re a goat – there’s nothing you can do. This also shut me up from attempting to share the Gospel with anyone – I just didn’t want to say anything to anyone just in case they should ask me what they needed to do to be saved. I could not say to someone, ‘well there’s nothing you can do’. I could not put someone through the same spiritual torture that I was in.
The effect of all of this during my time in this fellowship was that the measure of assurance I had when I first repented and believed on the Lord Jesus was depleted even more. Again, I just did not know where else to go for Christian fellowship. I found myself looking to the church for affirmation of my salvation which only deepened the instability of my spiritual understanding. If they happened to refer to me as ‘sister’ to me that meant I was saved! If they did not refer to be as a sister, well, that meant I wasn’t saved. This yo-yoing was eventually brought to an end when I finally thought to myself, ‘this is ridiculous. I don’t care if they don’t think I’m saved and won’t let me take the Lord’s Supper; I don’t care if they call me ‘sister’ or not. I don’t care anymore. I’m just going to seek the Lord Himself to draw close to Him through personal prayer and feeding upon His word more and ignore how I was seen by the congregation, including the leadership. I don’t care what they think anymore.’ From that moment on, I felt freed from all of that baggage. It was either at that moment or not long after, I received a full assurance of salvation through faith in Lord Jesus Christ. It no longer depended upon people anymore and their flawed judgment. Many of the doubts I had, had left me and I sensed peace within and a stability in the Lord and His salvation.
I was eventually accepted as a believer by this church.
There is one other thing I would like to share which, for me, was an unusual occurrence during my time at the Reformed church fellowship. On one occasion during a prayer meeting when I was an outsider, as we stood up to pray, I experienced a sensation of a strange warmth starting at my feet, rising very slowly through my body. It was slow enough for me to track it as it rose until my whole body filled with warmth. I’m not an outwardly demonstrative person, certainly not a hands-in-the-air-Hallelujah person but at the moment I wanted to scream out – in this Reformed church that was anti-charismatic – ‘Thank You Lord, Praise God!’ for everything. To my great regret I kept it inside so as not to cause anyone to think I was bringing something in which they felt they had escaped from. The church group was mainly made of up “refugees” from charismatic churches [Ed. i.e. church fellowships some would consider to have an extreme over-emphasis on the gifts of the Holy Spirit and arguably weak on teaching sound biblical doctrines]. I do believe this experience was from Lord Jesus although it had never happened before then or nor since. For me, it was quite strange although wonderful. I’ve never understood what this was about, why I experienced it – all I knew was that I just wanted to praise the Lord, but I suppressed it and there has been times when I repented about this before the Lord.
From Then to Now
Around about 18 months later, I left the fellowship after meeting and marrying a man who attended another church. It was actually difficult to leave that church fellowship as it was so small, they needed everyone who was there. I attended my husband’s church but, in short, the marriage was a disaster but Lord Jesus really helped me. I truly believe the Lord when He says that we will not be tested beyond what we can bear [Ed. see e.g. 1 Corinthians 10:13] and, despite the difficulties I experienced, I indeed was not tested beyond what I could bear. There were people at the church I attended with my husband who, not knowing of the difficulties in the marriage, would come to me saying that the Lord had told them to come to me and pray with me. This was a particularly great encouragement to me at that time. I personally believe that the Lord took my husband away to preserve me. I remained at this church for a number of years and after being invited to evening services by friends at my present church, I settled into it as my home church.
Throughout my journey thus far, I believe that the Lord has been with me the whole time, speaking to me, instructing me in His way, guiding me in my ways and giving me strength beyond my ability. The Lord has enabled me to live as a single woman, giving me the practical skills to get things done, He helped me, sometimes averting disasters and generally shown me how to abide in Lord Jesus Christ.
Can you tell me about the ministry in serve in and how you came to know the Lord was calling you into this ministry?
I’m currently serving the Lord in visiting an elderly lady without a family to care for her. I had such a strong sense of the Lord directing me towards this that I believe it was Lord Jesus who put it on my heart to visit her. The Lord has maybe put me in this lady’s path for this reason.
I do believe the Lord has given me a heart for elderly people in general, especially those who are alone and feel left behind in this technology-driven world. Maybe it is because as a fifty-something year old I feel a bit left behind – technologically-wise – that I believe the Lord is drawing me into serving the vulnerable elderly by supporting them.
What is your heart’s desire for this ministry?
I have been enabled recently to serve some vulnerable members of my church fellowship and am open to opportunities to serve in a regular home-visiting ministry, including care homes local to our church vicinity. I’m also open to being part of a small team that is responsible for older people, to be there for them for support and, where someone isn’t a believer, showing the love of Christ as well as sharing the word of the Lord with them. Essentially whatever I do my desire is to have Christ at the centre of it.
Within the will of God, do you have any particular hopes for the future that you can share with us?
My hopes for the future is to be enabled to forget all the times I’ve fallen short in the past, to become the disciple that God wants me to be and to have increasing wisdom to know what, when and how to speak. I hope also to be enabled to take my eyes off my shortcomings and to keep in mind that God is greater than I and can take my stumbling inadequate self and do something great. I do not want to limit God in my life.
Last Words
Can you share one Scripture passage through which the Holy Spirit has really encouraged, strengthened or instructed you in your walk of faith in Lord Yeshua?
I would like to share 1 Corinthians 1:26-29, which says this:
For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in His presence.
I chose this because this brings me a lot of encouragement. When I’m feeling weak, foolish, unwise and all of these things, it reminds me that God chose all those things. He chose weak vessels – He chose me.
Finally, how can sisters in the faith of our Lord Yeshua the Messiah pray for you?
Pray that I keep growing in my understanding and faith. That I would believe that I can overcome obstacles and weakness through His Name because He is the maker of heaven and earth. That I can bring many people with me to Christ.
To God be the glory, great things HE has done!
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