Jesus cleanses electronic sales specialist of idols

J carried emotional burdens from childhood. Unknown to him, J was also spiritually separated from God as a result of worshipping many idols, both false gods and human beings. The Holy Spirit led J to repent of the things that blocked him from God. As J obeyed the Holy Spirit, he saw visions of God’s Light shine into the darkness of his soul to cleanse and liberate him. Praise God!

(See Chinese versions: 简体中文 > 耶稣洁净资讯科技营销专员的偶像 | 繁體中文 > 耶穌潔淨資訊科技營銷專員的偶像)

I studied at a Christian primary school. 

When I was little, I wasn’t very interested in Christianity because I accepted and followed the traditional folk beliefs and idols that my family worshipped. On Sundays, we would go up to the mountain to worship. On certain occasions, we would go to the temples and religious halls to pray for blessings. Due to all these, I resisted Christianity.

Every time my teacher in religion class in school taught that Jesus is our Saviour, I would despise the teaching. I thought to myself,  “There are many gods, why does Christianity focus so much on emphasising that there’s only one God?”

At the same time, the values and principles of self-centred thinking were growing inside of me.

I started to treat others with arrogance and saw things with prejudice. At the same time, I felt insecure. Eventually, the two opposite sides of arrogance and low self-esteem unknowingly developed like twin brothers inside my subconscious mind.

Growing up, I always thought that I am right and that others are wrong. That made it impossible to build deep and positive relationships with people. Relationships often end badly.

Negativity occupied my whole heart, and I didn’t bear any bit of joy and hope. There was just fear and worries. There was no peace or joy. 

For half of my primary school years, I lived at a relative’s home. They have two children. I couldn’t get along with them and had a very bad relationship with them. Most of the time I lived at my relative’s home, I was unhappy and many unhappy things happened. That family often argued and even had physical fights.

I had hoped to leave that toxic environment. I often wondered why I couldn’t be like other kids who could live together with their own parents. My parents ran a business overseas, so they couldn’t always stay and be with me. That made me feel lonely and fearful. I was always hoping for a just and righteous person to take me away from that distressing, grievous place, never to see those people again.

Living in such a negative environment impacted my relationships with teachers and other classmates, both directly and indirectly. 

I always fell out with other classmates whenever I felt they were unfriendly or sensed a slight rejection from them. Doing so worsened my relationships with my peers. I went to school with a hostile attitude everyday. I didn’t want to forgive those who weren’t friendly towards me.

During those early years, I experienced so much disapproval, unhappiness, and unpleasantness. Eventually, a self-focused mentality and attitude grew more and more, and that became very deep-rooted inside me.

The first time I was touched by God’s words was at the Christian secondary school I attended. 

In a short period of time, I was led by the school evangelist to receive Christ as my Saviour.

At that time, I didn’t know how to be a believer who is pleasing to God. I only applied my own perspective to do whatever I personally thought God would want me to do. I attended fellowship and worship mostly because I could get to play basketball with brothers-in-Christ. That reason motivated me to go to church.

It was not because I wanted to build a relationship with Jesus. I only saw Jesus as Someone I went to when I had problems.

At the beginning of my secondary education, I felt very hopeful about my academic journey. I had hoped to enjoy positive relationships with my teachers and classmates. I didn’t expect that I couldn’t catch up academically and that others would label me as incapable.

My self-esteem fell down into a pit. I felt inferior and down. Again, academically and relationally, I entered into another endless vicious downward spiral.

My third year was the unhappiest stage of my life. My classmates’ sarcastic remarks towards me made me distrust people who came from a certain background. I began to wonder if this school was really suitable for me to gain an education and be prepared for a good career.

Then, I happened to come across an article a teacher shared with us, introducing us to well-known universities from the United States. 

The article also talked about how the students developed good character and broader thinking, which made me desire to study and live overseas. That was the third year I had believed in Christ and I was confident that God was giving me a chance to study overseas. I put my hope in leaving and breaking away from all the things and all the people that I felt so unhappy with.

I persevered for two more years in that unpleasant learning environment and got to graduate with better than expected Cert-level exam scores. Besides feeling happy that I had wiped off all the shame and humiliation, I was even happier that I could finally leave a place where I always felt out of place. At the same time, I was becoming even more prideful.

A few months later, I went to Canada to study, feeling very hopeful for the future. 

But half a year later, the world was hit with the global financial crisis and my family was greatly impacted. They had to close down the business that they had spent so many years building and even ended up in debt. Meanwhile, our relatives betrayed our family and took away our emergency funds. The business closure and the family betrayal caused my family’s health to break down, both physically and emotionally.

Not only had I lost the financial support I needed to pay for my tuition fees for the coming school year, I lost faith in people. My happy life had ended. I was reluctant to deal with the challenges ahead and the shame of not getting a diploma.

I felt that would only give my old classmates the chance to ridicule me.

One year after moving back from Canada, I continued to feel the impact of the financial crisis. There were many hardships and after bowing down to others, I could only get a job as an electronic sales specialist that didn’t give a good salary package. It was a job where I had to deal with many hypocritical colleagues and bosses who weren’t more qualified than me. Resentment and indignation had reached its peak.

But a miraculous thing happened. I found out that my branch manager is a Christian. Whenever we had some free time, we would talk about faith and belief. Gradually, our working relationship became a friendship. Six years later, I was one of the best men on his wedding day.

I thank Jesus that He has sent many people to help me at each stage of life!   

But the problems with my inner man (low self-esteem and arrogance) still persisted. I didn’t have any motivation for life. I lost faith and trust in people. An uncertain future made me feel discouraged and I lost my will. I lived dispiritedly for about three years. I would idle my time away and use alcohol and food to numb myself as a way to escape reality.

“Giving up on living, giving up on life” was how my family described me during that period of time. My weight also went up rapidly to almost 200lbs. The state of my health became alarming.

Through a blood report, I learned that there were many issues with my health and I worried that I would get an incurable disease. 

After months of one difficulty after another, I felt I did not know how to move forward to the next step in life. At that moment, I suddenly thought of Jesus. He is my one and only last hope, my last resort! But I didn’t know what to do next. After all, I hadn’t gone to church for many years.

I remembered the Christian manager at my first job. Maybe he could guide me to the right path, so I picked up the phone to call him. After a meal together, he told me that God has different purposes in each person’s life, and that endurance will be produced after we go through trials.

Now, I know how wonderful and marvellous God’s plan is. He let me grow through trials and tribulations so that I can learn to rely on God. 

Over time, I joined Bible study fellowship and worship to learn once again who God really is. I felt my relationship with God grow closer, but my self-esteem was still low.

I was still anxious and still disappointed in people and relationships. However, scripture and people’s testimonies always served as good medicine for me. Whenever I faced difficulties, I would want to hear more and to be encouraged by them. Even though I didn’t completely understand everything, my heart began to have hope.

In recent years, my spiritual growth seemed to hit a bottleneck. My heart did not open to allow the Holy Spirit to guide and heal me, I only had head knowledge. 

I am grateful that God once again sent brothers- and sisters-in-Christ to care for and help me, and I joined the Love the Lord course.

It turns out that I was influenced by the idols and traditional folk beliefs that I believed in when I was little. This consequently created spiritual strongholds that blocked me from experiencing the Holy Spirit. During an inner healing and deliverance prayer, I asked for the blood of Jesus to cleanse me from the sin of worshipping idols, and the sin of unfaithfulness and ungodliness.

In Jesus’ name, I repented and broke away from the ungodly influences that had been influencing me. I also repented of seeking wisdom outside of God’s wisdom and idolising human figures, such as historical figures and diplomats.

I quieted my heart and felt the light of Jesus in my spirit. I’ve never experienced this before. It was a beautiful and bright, yet soft and gentle light. 

The Holy Spirit guided me back to recall the traditional folk beliefs that I used to believe and worshipped when I was little. He showed me that there were so many idols.

I confessed and repented of my sin of yoking to each idol that I had worshipped instead of Jesus. During the inner healing and deliverance prayer, Jesus showed me a ray of bright, soft, and gentle light. That light was full of hope and power. I believed that is the response that Jesus Himself directly gave me.

It was the first time I felt firsthand that God is right next to me! He Himself cleansed me from the sin of worshipping false idols.

These included worshipping false gods such as guanyin, wong tai sin, and buddha etc. I prayed to cut ungodly soul ties with all the idols and all the unclean spirits that oppress me because of the worship of false gods. The Lord Himself set me free. My mind became clearer. Jesus put me back on the path that God had prepared for me.

I also repented for idolising scientists and politicians because I wanted to chase worldly knowledge and strategies. I also repented of wanting to gain praise and approval from others. I repented of seeking after worldly principles and teachings and those who teach such philosophies. All these offended God, but God responded to me that He will bless me with wisdom and that I don’t need to pursue and learn from worldly wisdom. Hearing and knowing that really empowered and strengthened me.

God also told me to forgive those who did not know how to communicate with me and get along with me.

He asked me to forgive my father for neglecting me irresponsibly and for using material things as a replacement for his presence and company. Due to work, he couldn’t always be with me, but what he did to substitute couldn’t change how I felt inside; there was still emptiness and lack in my heart.

God told me to tell my dad that God loves him and that my father also is a pleasing son to God, and that God wants to restore his pure and joyful character.

God also asked me to forgive my uncle for what he did to my family relationship and how he caused endless arguments in my family. My uncle’s actions caused my parents to gradually and progressively diminish their love for each other.

With the guidance of the Holy Spirit, I felt God’s love and greatness after I finished the inner healing and deliverance prayer. 

God rescued me from the accuser, Satan. My heart felt peace and I could feel the Light from God. Everything in my surroundings and environment seemed better and brighter.

The Holy Spirit touched me and led me to be baptised after the inner healing and deliverance prayer – to set apart to be holy and be in Christ. The Lord’s Light now illuminates my journey and my walk with God. It is like He guided me to walk to a station that transported me to a better place, a wonderful place that I have never been.   

This is my testimony. In the 20 years of my faith journey, I had experienced so much. Like the parable of the sower in the Bible, which soil am I? Although I did not grow and flourish perfectly, God still watched over me, cared for me, and reminded me of His faithfulness. He taught me how to completely rely on Him, and accept and obey His commandments. At the same time, the Holy Spirit lives inside my heart and is leading me onward to a fruitful path. Amen!