John 3,16 - My Testimony | The Adventure in the Supernatural Realm of God's Kingdom Begins

My Testimony of Encountering God, Conversion, and Journey Toward the True Church

(Excerpt from the book : It's an adventure of the supernatural)

The Night Everything Changed

One November evening, in a rented apartment without a bathroom across from Hotel Union, I finally decided to start reading the Bible, which I had successfully avoided the whole month since classes began at the Faculty of Theology. The next day I had a colloquium on the Gospel texts. I stocked up with a good supply of cigarettes and a thermos of black tea, as I was facing a long night of staying awake. I began with the Gospel of John, and when I came to the powerful verse 3:16 (supposedly the most quoted passage in the entire New Testament):“For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved. He who believes in him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God,”something happened that forever changed me and the world around me.

A Curtain of Darkness Pulled Back

The shadow-soaked atmosphere I was used to sensing around me, born from my feelings, sensations, thoughts—everything that had shaped me in the past, where there hadn’t been a single perception of eternity—unfolded like a curtain of smoke. The glory of God entered my life. The Word I had just read came alive and felt completely real.

I became aware that Jesus is ALIVE!

The Author of the Book is Alive

The book I held in my hands had always been the most untouched among my books, as far back as I could remember, because I had never even picked it up, let alone read it. But unlike all the other books, its author is alive and stands behind every word written by human hands in His Name. I was struck with the realization that Jesus died on the cross for me, and that He would have done it even if I were the only person in the world.

GOD LOVES ME.

And so, with the Bible on the table, my study script in one hand and a cigarette in the other, I became aware for the first time that I am more than a rational and emotional being—that I have a heart, which must belong to God. It seemed to me like a more than fitting moment to start praying. I said:"Jesus, I give you my life, I give you my heart, my hands and my feet.”I felt very silly, because I couldn’t explain why I said that. “Hands and feet” sounded very shallow, and “heart” sounded very… well, I don’t know—I had never given anyone my heart before. In fact, I didn’t even know I had one…

And for one long breath of a moment—nothing at all happened.

Washed from the Inside

Then suddenly, light filled my insides, and the entire room was flooded with the glory of God. Eternity entered my heart. The room lit up as if someone had turned on 10,000 lights, and inside I felt a purity, as if someone had washed me from the inside with bleach.

I had always subconsciously carried the burden of a constant feeling of guilt, without any rational reason—probably a consequence of words spoken to me as a child, like some omnipresent curse hovering over my soul, marking everything I thought and did. This awareness of a curse—that nothing would ever succeed for me, and that I would always remain on the fringe of life, like an orphan staring into a shop window full of delicacies, knowing she would never taste them. This spiritual orphanhood that I carried constantly evaporated in a second, like a false identity that had been forced on me—it left my being. I became a child of the Most High God. I knew that Jesus would never leave me again.

The Morning After

The next day, I walked to the faculty as if in a dream. I knew something irreversible had happened to me and that it wouldn’t pass. The air seemed cleaner, the people more real. Everything I read in the Gospel now made sense and came alive. I was eager to pass my colloquium and tell someone about what had happened, although I had no idea how to put it into words.

One of my classmates noticed something had changed in me and asked me why I seemed different. I said,“Jesus met me.”He looked at me with an odd mixture of suspicion and wonder and said,“You met Him? You mean… like really met Him?”I just nodded, not knowing what else to say.

The Beginning of a Journey

That encounter was only the beginning. My life began to be radically transformed. The Word became my daily bread, and prayer became the breath of my spirit. Even though many things in my life remained the same on the outside, inside everything was new. I began to hunger for God, for truth, for freedom. I knew I had to leave behind the ways I used to live, but I didn’t yet know how.

I also understood why I had never been able to find peace in anything—religion, philosophy, even theology—as long as Jesus wasn’t at the center. He is not just a good teacher or a historical figure. He is alive. He is the way, the truth, and the life.

My life changed forever after encountering God's love. "If just one sentence from God's Word that I believed in had such power," I thought, "what about everything else that is written?" Every Word of God in the Bible carries His character and has the power to create the same reality in the life of the believer. When you are born again from a seed that was not created, you become radically different in nature from everything around you.

"For you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God. For 'All people are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord endures forever.' And this is the word that was preached to you as the gospel." (1 Peter 1:23-25)

A person, in their own strength, cannot do anything that would bring them closer to God. God came in the flesh to save humanity from its fallen sinful nature and to give them a new nature. Through the Word. Because, in the beginning, was the Word.

The old meets the new

The next day, I announced to the group in the bar across from the university, where we drank coffee every day: "Guys, I got saved yesterday!" "Oh no," they said, "that doesn’t happen anymore. You’re not Saint Augustine," and continued sipping their drinks. I was stunned that no one believed me. That evening, my usual party for a night out came over with their stash of opiates. I sat among them like some kind of stick figure, and I was not even tempted to take anything from the table. For the first time. "What’s going on with you today?" they asked, "You’re acting completely spaced out." I prepared for my historic speech: "I met Jesus yesterday and I’m not partying anymore because I don’t have that drive in me anymore! So, everyone out!" They laughed: "You’re in some kind of trip," and left. They didn’t seem offended at all, but I never saw them again. Seriously. The news of my conversion spread very quickly among my acquaintances, and just as quickly, they concluded that I had totally lost it and that it was better to avoid me.

I felt like the last living specimen of a dinosaur on the planet. My friends from religious circles kept their distance because my experience with God didn’t fit into the religious frameworks they were stuck in, and my friends from the world disappeared into their subcultural holes.

But I started studying the Bible like an addict.

It seemed to me that I had to give something back to God because He had saved me from the abyss. The first thing that came to my mind was that I wanted to be baptized and at least become a nun… somehow fit into the system. But it didn’t work out. The priest I called about baptism started listing everything I had to do first before I could be baptized, but none of it aligned with what I had read in the Bible. "Why do you baptize children randomly when they can’t understand or do any of these things and aren’t even aware of anything?" I asked him. He was a little upset because I didn’t understand the most obvious things. Nuns, well... I visited a convent with very kind nuns, and it was immediately clear to me that nothing would come of it.

The Church in the desert

In the evening, I lamented in prayer: "Jesus, I have nowhere to go, I know I must become part of the Church, but I want one like the one described in the Acts of the Apostles... The Catholic Church is the only one available, but it’s not it..." And God answered me with a clear voice as if a person were speaking to another: "I didn’t free you to put you back in chains. I called you when you weren’t even looking for me and revealed myself to you when you weren’t expecting it. So wait, because I am doing a new work that you don’t know and can’t yet understand." He reminded me of a passage in the Gospels that speaks of how, while the great priests were in Jerusalem, the word of God came to John in the wilderness.

And so, at that time, my life looked like this: I went to every possible lecture about God, listened to biblical scholars, but nowhere did I encounter the glory of God that had been revealed to me in my room. Many people tried to convince me that I shouldn’t take God's words literally and that God doesn’t work anymore the way it is written in the Bible. And even though I tried to depart from my newfound faith, I always found the answer for everything — it was in the Bible.

God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. In the beginning was the Word, and all things were made through Him. Why would God stop working? Why have people stopped believing? Because the teachings of human traditions have corrupted the truth of God's Word and taken away its authority.

"Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like that." (Mark 7:13)

When someone stands on the truth of God’s Word out of the pile of human teachings that toss humanity like waves tossing sand on the shore, and says, "This is my rock, and I will not depart from it!" it always upsets many people.

If I believe that Jesus is the only way to God, it is very intolerant to all others on a human level, where we all acknowledge that we don’t know anything, and everyone has their own belief. People give you peace if you call your micro-truth your personal salvation and nurture it as your self-centered ego-culture that enhances your soul. After all, it only matters for you. But the truth about Jesus is not one of the tourist destinations for spiritual selfies. It's not New York, Paris, or London. It is omnipresent, applies to everyone equally, and divides everyone. Jesus claimed to be the Truth, the Way, and the Life. Whoever doesn’t believe Him has called Him a liar. Even if they consider themselves a Christian. A very tolerant Christian. A very accepting one in the eyes of people. A very unclear opinion about God. Without a testimony.

"If we accept human testimony, God's testimony is greater because it is the testimony of God which He has given about His Son. Whoever believes in the Son of God accepts this testimony. Whoever does not believe God has made Him out to be a liar because they have not believed the testimony God has given about His Son. And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life." (1 John 5:10-11)

What God promised me that evening when I nearly gave up on finding a community that lives the gospel-centered Christianity began to come true. Since I had no clue about Christianity, I didn’t know that there were several communities around that based their faith on the Bible. Once, I had listened to a lecture on Protestantism, but the speaker was a staunch anti-Reformationist who regarded all forms of Protestantism as Satanic sects and other Christians as complete apostates from the only-saving Roman Catholic Church. So I lost all interest in visiting any of these communities.

About a month later, a friend, concerned about my sudden solitude, invited me to a concert at the theater he had organized. Backstage, I met the light technician Andrej, who, after initially being appalled by the theologians who didn’t know anything, told me how Jesus had completely healed him of schizophrenia when two friends prayed for him. Of course, he didn’t talk about his miraculous healing with psychiatrists because he was still afraid they would lock him away in some other department of the same institution. Andrej started explaining to me about baptism in the Holy Spirit, speaking in tongues, God’s miracles, and living with God in the way I had known from the Bible. We started meeting for coffee. He introduced me to some friends who had personally encountered Jesus. Although they had no particular spiritual image, it was evident that they were under God’s authority and peace. One day, they excitedly told me about a friend who had returned from America. He had been traveling with an evangelist (an expression I had never heard before) and preaching Jesus to people who hadn’t heard of Him. We went to visit him.

As we sat at the table in the kitchen, talking about God, I sensed the same presence of God’s glory as when Jesus first revealed Himself to me in my room. I realized that this was the beginning of the fulfillment of the word God had given me. And I knew this was the start of a very specific God-given destiny for me. This is how the new local church began to form, with more and more people coming. We moved from a small kitchen to a large kitchen and then into a rented hall. Because of God's presence, many people who came to the meetings out of curiosity were converted and gave their lives to Jesus.

"Jesus declared, 'Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is Spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.'" (John 4:21-24)

God Reveals Himself Far from Religious and Intellectual "Glamour"

God reveals Himself far from religious and intellectual “glamour.” Far from the ossified religious structures that, in their museums, may hide a few living specimens of Christians. The true Church of Jesus is built from living stones, people who have given their lives to Jesus and know the power of God’s work through the Holy Spirit. It is not a building made of stone, filled with gilded wood and external rituals from another time that cannot satisfy the human soul. That is why the untransformed person continually seeks the same rituals. It never satisfies them, and like a crumb of bread, it blinds their hunger for God until the next moment.

"Whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life." (John 4:14)

God reveals Himself through His Spirit and first to the human heart. Therefore, He is not far from any of us. People travel halfway around the world to find God. But the more a person buries themselves in religion, the greater the chance they will miss Him. That is why it is sometimes hardest to accept Christ for those who have been very close to the truth their whole lives but are still incredibly far from it.

"The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart; that is, the word of faith we are proclaiming. If you declare with your mouth, 'Jesus is Lord,' and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved. As Scripture says, anyone who believes in him will never be put to shame. For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him. For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." (Romans 10:8b-12)

Anyone, in any way, anywhere. No one can claim God’s Name and dictate where, how, and by what protocol He will reveal Himself. He is near. He is here. And He is now. By the only protocol that can touch the supernatural, by the law of faith.

The Absurdity of Grace

Once, I read an article published on one of the Slovenian online portals that described the announcement of salvation, the gospel message, as the unbearable lightness of Christianity. The Lord was driving on one of the German highways, where (almost) no speed limits exist, and despite that, he could not overlook the billboards screaming at him with the message: “Accept Jesus Now!” It stirred up righteous indignation in him, a Slovenian with a conscience.

“How can they!” he wrote.

“I KNOW! It’s absurd to say it and unbearably hard to do it,” I added to myself as I read. "Only by faith can we bridge the unbearable lightness of God’s claims. If someone said them, they would still crucify him."

Offense is a form of self-centered religion, and the right to be offended hates the truth to such an extent that it kills it if it stands in its way.

"Jesus answered them, 'Stop grumbling among yourselves. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them.'" (John 6:43)

Faith is the Substance of Things Not Seen

Faith is the substance of things we do not see. And only faith in God is capable of the quantum leap that a person, in their mental and emotional awareness, cannot achieve, because it exceeds the scope of their existence. It is a shift from the temporary to the eternal, from the visible to the invisible, from the impossible to “possible,” from “I am unworthy” to “I am worthy” in the eyes of God.

If God is Father, He wants to be the Father of all. He sent His only Son into the world that no one would perish, but that everyone who believes would have eternal life. And every one, yes, every single person, becomes like the Son, loved and accepted. And if God is Father, He does not hide. And if God is Father, He has a Name. And if God is Father, He will give you His Name. And if God is Father, He is not ashamed of you. The Father’s eyes do not know a hierarchy of children. And I, a child of yesterday, and you, a child of today, are not received any differently before God’s face because we were born by faith. Faith does not have seniority. You may have faith today and not tomorrow, and just as I save you today, you will save me tomorrow.

"Peter replied, 'Lord, if it’s you, tell me to come to you on the water.' 'Come,' he said. Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water, and came toward Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, 'Lord, save me!' Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. 'You of little faith,' he said, 'why did you doubt?'" (Matthew 14:28-31)

Walking by faith is always walking on water. Because it is itself a sovereign substance, nourished by the spoken Word of God. The totality of human reason does not reach faith even to the knees, but it refuses to serve it. My personal conviction is that the ability to believe is the most far-reaching and expansive capacity a person possesses, because they are created in God’s image.

Creation and the Eternal

God created the worlds out of nothing. Something that passes away came from the eternal. Something tangible came from the intangible. Something that loves came from someone who is love. Something that changes came from the unchanging. Something that is many came from the One. Therefore, every single moment of our earthly life is suitable for an encounter with God. Separation from God is proportional to the hardness of our own heart and the blindness of our own mind. The heart is a miraculous mirror in which we can see Jesus, the true Light who enlightens every person, or the dealers of the imperishable theme who have donned the appearance of an angel of light, for they once, in the beginning before the creation of the world, carried and reflected this light. In the heart, we carry the reflection of infinity, which defines our life’s distances. Whether we are close to God or far from Him, we can judge by the state of our hearts. No one can say that it is too late or too early. In our lives, there is nothing that would be suitable for an encounter with God. Everything in us is completely inappropriate for eternity. That is why only God could become man, so that man could once again become one with Him.

But He did not become so like a man that He would allow truth to be relativized.

The Sensory and the Spiritual

Our senses need tangible things, and our senses can have nothing in common with faith. Man is the work of the Creator’s hands, so the representation of God cannot be the work of human hands, but only the person who has been born anew can represent God. The representation of God happens when Christ, through faith, dwells in the heart. That is tangible. You can take the person who has given their life to Jesus by the hand and embrace them, but you discover them only when they speak to you.

With an idol or image, however, you can have no relationship. Attributing any closeness or dimension of divinity to an inanimate object is the embodiment of non-resemblance. It is the projection of the soul, which longs so deeply for God that it simply imagines Him. And the imagination must be animated, given a soul. It must be called something more.

"Those who make a god or cast an idol, will be of no use to them. See, all who worship them will be put to shame; the craftsmen are only human. ... They know nothing, and they understand nothing; their eyes are plastered over so they cannot see, and their minds closed so they cannot understand." (Isaiah 44:10, 18)

Just as in the time of Moses, when the people made a god for themselves. God was not in sight, Moses was not in sight, and the people needed something tangible. The golden calf, which came out of the fire, was called a god and had a priest appointed for it. This is the path of every movement that has lost the glory of God. It must counterfeit it.

I have never heard of a church where the pastor or priest on Sunday would announce: “We have gathered a huge amount of money, we are doing everything, we have our own TV program, but God has been gone from us for some time. Everything we do is in our own power and for the promotion of our denomination, so I suggest we get rid of this monstrosity we have created and give all the church money to the poor. Please, join the local community that truly seeks God in spirit and truth. I, too, will join that little church around the corner, those humble people we always look down on because they are not as 'cool' as us, because I can no longer stand in front of you as though I have a relationship with God, but I lost it long ago. If I were honest, I would tell you that I spent whole nights on the internet, and a third of the church money was invested in the stocks of failing companies. I covered it up by building a very, very expensive shelter for the homeless.”

And the whole church would clap, shout “AMEN!” in unison, jump out of their pews, throw their hymnals in the air, and cry out, “Finally, we are saved from pretending, bravo pastor (or priest), you are a true hero!”

Yes, of course. The only one who would applaud would be Jesus in heaven.

(Continued)