Testimony of Chris Woods

These events happened starting in May 2007. We have waited for the Lords timing in making these events public, and now is the time. Much thought and prayer has gone into this testimony because of the startling conclusion. To those of you who know us personally, please contact us with any questions or comments. We would love to talk to you.

 Rom. 2:4 for it is the mercy and kindness of God that leads men to repentance. 

What does a 21^st century American Christian Hypocrite look like? Me!!! 

The life I lived was a lie and I was deceived. I thought I was living a Christian life, and so did everyone else around me, but from Gods viewpoint, I was not!

At 16years of age I accepted Jesus into my life. Never having been a churchgoer and not even knowing what a bible was, I met someone who had a love emanating from their heart that was difficult to explain. But I wanted it. I heard someone talk on  the “lost son” and quickly my interest was peaked.  My first acquaintance with the Lord was when He stood next to me and comforted my broken heart.  He had won the deep affections of my soul. I had never experienced this type of love, and I didn’t even know how to receive it or what to do with it, but I knew He was real and I asked Him to change my life.  Later at a Christian meeting, I prayed the “sinners prayer.” I quickly became an avid follower and then became a disciple, as this was the only lifestyle I could ever conceive of living for the rest of my days.

Decades later…I look back on my life.

 From my eyes, I looked good , well ok, although I always knew something was wrong deep inside me.  I wrestled with sin, but I knew that most other Christians did too.

I had a problem with inner lust, along with a host of other hidden sins that I kept at bay to a certain degree with a modicum of success. I had certain staunch religious, and moral boundaries, which prevented me from ever, ever propagating any of this sin outside my own soul.  I thought if I worked harder, meaning quoting more scriptures, did more bible study, worshiped, prayed, put the armor of God on, etc etc, that one day I would overcome “it.”  I confessed to my wife and the Lord of my struggles with lust.

I never had any problem with wandering eyes around my wife, in any Christian environments or public settings. The reels were all in my head ,fantasy bodies, and not real women.   Slowly over the years I  added to them, especially during a few “bad seasons” and always through the “normal channels”, hiding and in darkness.

 Of course I was a Christian so I pressed on…Yet  when I got tired in the “fight of faith”…disaster followed.

 At times, it only took one little fiery thought, to enflame the desire that was always lurking deep in my heart, to propel me in to sin.  Many other times I could over come the dart and be victorious.   But when I sinned, then I would go to God  with my guilt and sorrow, and with sincerity meaning every word I prayed “O God,  I have sinned again, against You and You only” I would repent saying “I’m sorry please forgive me, I will never do that again,”(honestly weeping from my soul).  The scriptures I trusted in profoundly were:

 I was very sincere in my approach to God with reverence and a broken heart.  I made these verses a personal prayer unto the Lord “If I confess my sin, you will be faithful and just, to forgive my sin and cleanse me from all unrighteousness…thank you, and please cast my sin as far as the east is from the west. And there is therefore now no more condemnation for those who are (actually) in Christ Jesus. And also forgetting those things that are past, we press on to the future in Christ Jesus.” Then I would have a (temporary) peace and I would bolster myself up with more scripture and singing psalms, and embolden my faith with determination that I would never fall again to this sin and be a better soldier from now on . But eventually I would fall again.

As I look back over the years I had developed a great “selective memory loss!”

I was blinded to the fact that for over my 38 year life of outward Christianity, I had a continued  life of seasonal inward sin.  I only remembered that I was pressing on to the High calling in Christ, I was going on in Him. Never once to my memory did I ever think that I would deny Him or turn from the faith.  My heart, so I thought, was set on God and there was no other life I could even consider living.

When I was surrounded by strong outward Christian fellowship my lust went into hibernation. For a long season, I was in a fulltime Christian ministry that frowned upon any outward or inward signs of lust or any sin for that matter (of course all ministries require this!)  So in this time, I didn’t have a great fight, hardly at all.   I had determined that I was seeking God and the temptations of lust abated.   But other forms of sin sprang up and I had to deal with them; pride, fear of failing, desire of leadership, financial worries and fears etc, etc.   At the time I didn’t relate to these as sins pre say but as struggles to overcome and fight.  I  had character flaws, I was growing in grace, I was trying to overcome. I was in a constant process of yielding all these things to God and denying myself any rights to all these worldly attitudes.  I was fighting the world, the flesh, and the devil.  I was denying myself the right to have anything.  It got so serious than I didn’t even have a favorite color or food.  Do you notice all the “I” in this paragraph?  That’s because it was all about me and I didn’t know how to completely die to myself rule.

I dealt with my sins on an individual basis, one at a time, applying all the Christian works and overcoming some of them sometimes; in hindsight, only temporarily and occasionally. Two times early in my Christian life I let God deal deeply to the inner core of my heart on two issues: Pride with my dad and Pride of leadership.  Both of these were in group settings.  I had to stay for some hours waiting on God to reveal sin to me.  And He did when I finally said “Is it me Lord?”  He exposed my sin and with great weeping and repentance I forsook them.  The repentance was so depth that I never repeated those sins again.  Although I had liberty and victory from these sins, I think because these experiences  were so humbling and painful I slowly turned from truly exposing my other sins.  I only dealt with the other sins one at a time as I committed them and not to any depth.   

While I was inwardly wrestling with sin my outward life looked fine.   I loved God with all my mind, soul, and strength or so I thought.  I always placed myself into the best and most Cossack ministries available.  I whole-heartedly jumped into every move of God in this nation.   These included ; the Jesus movement,  discipleship training, the Holy Spirit charismatic movement, the word of faith movement, recent renewal and refreshing of Gods Spirit.  Along with these I believed in all the scriptures concerning physical healing, signs and wonders, the gifts and callings of Spirit for the believer, in a personal relationship with Christ Himself, the great love of God, a burden for souls, the prayer of intersession etc.  I experienced and moved in all these gifting for short periods and in certain seasons of my life. I applied all of these to my life by faith.   I even have had two miracles of healing in my own body and I also have prayed for the sick and they were healed.   Being used of God and sensing His presence deceived me into thinking I was right with Him.

 All of this, but something was missing. I didn’t know what. God’s promises were true  and I believed Him with all my strength but my faith always fizzled.  I earnestly and desperately tried to have more faith to fulfill Gods promises in my life and others.  By faith, in obedience to the Lords leading, my wife and I quit our jobs to go into full time ministry several times.   Inevitable, these ministry times were short term and I folded under the pressure. I failed, something was missing in my faith but what was it?   The next time I’ll do better. I had faith in that.  I knew it wasn’t Gods fault and I never blamed Him.  Neither did I blame the Devil because God had him beat hands down.  It was I, it was my fault.  But I rarely asked God to go deep inside of me to show me the answer. And even when I mouthed the prayer, or cried out in deep anguish,  “ Oh God show me what is wrong, expose my heart” I never hung around long enough for Him to show me.   I  would quickly avert my attention from His searching by singing happy worship songs or  searching the scriptures to find out how to do better..  In hindsight, I now realize that I meant this prayer with my mind and my emotions but my fear of having my heart truly exposed caused me to run and hide.  I actually felt relief by just saying this prayer without following through.  This hiding slowly led to more deceit.

I would find relief from my guilt by propelling myself into doing other good Christian works by faith, going to church and worshipping God with gusto, ministering to others with kind words and the prayer of faith, empathizing with others who had problems or were needy.  I would read the bible because I loved God and wanted to encourage others with His truth.   These actions relieved my consternation and the struggles in my soul, thus quieting my mind and my emotions for a season.   I was happy with my self during these times.   I  had found temporary peace and rest in doing my positive duties and getting reward back from the praise of people for my performance.  I was well liked in the Christian community because of my positive, kind, and loving  merciful attitude.  I was very understanding to the struggles of others because of my own struggles. I could empathize with them easily and this empathy was one more veil of deceit.

In reality (from Gods point of view I now see,) I was a seeker of peace and rest for myself, my soul, but not a seeker of Gods truth in me.    For 35 years, I was a desperate seeker of these following scriptures to be a reality in my life:

“Oh how do I cease from my own works?”

I longed for them desperately and unceasingly, rest and peace, with such a deep crying that overwhelmed me at times, and this longing grew to almost a hopelessness.  I knew God was the only answer so I searched in no other place. Jesus was the truth and had the answer.   So, why, if he was in me, did I not have lasting peace and rest. I thought “I’m saved so WHY don’t I have this rest in my soul?  Where is this peace that Jesus promised to those that are His?”  Since I assumed He was in me then His peace and rest should be in me, but they were not.  Yet I shared this with no one, not even my wife, not even myself.  I was unwittingly avoiding my self exposure.   I was stuffing my failures-my failures with sin and so the deception continued.

Why did I wrestle alone.  How could I tell anyone I didn’t have the true peace or rest of God?  My goodness I had been a Pastor and missionary and an upstanding Christian leader.  How could I confess this? Was I hiding my pride?   Was I unwilling to expose my true heart because of my sin?  Would it be too painful and humiliating?   Was I too full of pride to expose this reality?   The real answer was yes, but during these times I unintentionally  deceived myself  into thinking I would deal with these issue later or I would conquer them by more doing.  I wouldn’t let these searching question stay to long in my mind.  I easily dismissed them and distracted myself  with life.  I’ll deal with them later, but I never did.  I choose to stay positive, and press forward to the hope that was set before me.   But in reality, (and in hindsight) I was deflecting the exposing of my sins by stuffing them deeper and deeper.   Life kept hurdling on and I’d kept running to catch up by trusting, believing, hoping…and hiding and deflecting.   The deceit was now deeply entrenched encasing my mind and heart.

As the years went by the seasons of this struggle would ebb and flow and I settled into my routine. The busyness of life diverted me from realizing that this struggle was the true constant in my life.  This battle was now regulated to the back of my mind.   Somewhere along the line I forced myself not to think about it.  I ignored it as best as I could.  I went on with life, new jobs, buying new homes, raising the children, becoming a grand parent etc.  I was still a nice guy but I wrestled with sin and lack of peace.  Also along life’s journey I had gotten hurt and harbored bitterness to some.

Soon my fantasy Christian life would be exposed as God saw it and come crashing down.  My beloved wife had had it with my sin.  She had wrestled with my sin our whole married life.  This was especially hard for her because she had been set free from the slavery of sin when she first became a true Christian and believed the Savior promised this to all believers.  I also believed God provided complete victory over sin.  God hated sin and wept over my sinning ways, and I had hurt Him because of it.   But I was powerless to stop my sinning that grieved His heart.  What a miserable existence I lived and I perpetrated this life on her, for 31 long years.

Now we were long haul truckers. We had paid off all the bills and  I should have been happy.  But the fears in my heart and my lust had surfaced again.  And now I was even treating my wife poorly.  I would get so angry with her that I couldn’t even listen.  My wife tells me I was so dull and listless she thought I had a tumor.  I would write down lists of things to do and then totally forget to do them or even think of them.  I was even shocked at my own behavior and memory loss, although it hadn’t been stunning over the years, the decline of it now was shocking.  She would ask “what on earth do you think about all night long as you drive?”  I would make some excuse to cover the fact that I was letting my mind wander.  These wandering started innocently, but they always led to the lustful or angry  reels.  In these anger reels I would valiantly, as a knight in shining armor, defend and protect my wife, but in reality I would never ever stand up for her, to her consternation.   I was living a fantasy Christian life inside. 

Because of our job we were driving all across the USA and we had a lot of time to talk but now these talks grew into arguments more and more.  I knew it was because of my sin so I confessed to her that I was struggling with lust again.  This subject had been a silent topic between us for the last few years.  It was just easier that way.  It kept the peace between us. She had thought I had this conquered years ago.  But on that day with the resurrected confession of my lust she blew a gasket.  She had lived with my struggles for 31 years and the realization that nothing had changed nor  ever would change in the next 40 years was too much for Her to bear.  Mount Saint Jeri erupted into a volcano of the fiery words of God for 2-3 hours.  She violently, and rightly so, preached hell fire and brimstone.  She exposed my life to me from God’s point of view.  How my sin was hurting His heart and hers.  Gods’ words cut to my heart and exposed me. I stood naked and bare with no place to hide.   Her closing statement was that I was going to hell if I didn’t repent once and for all for my sin.  She thundered “I divorce you and God divorces you too!!”  I could not disagree with this startling truth.

The Day of Reckoning

May 2007

I crawled into the back of the truck and I began to repent.  But this time it was different   because the truth was so clearly preached to me about sin and Hell that I could not hide, or deflect, or justify my sin any longer.  I saw myself on the edge of Hell, and that this was my actual position before God.  I was actually feeling its heat as I balanced on a precipice ready to fall in.  I could hear and sense the despair and cries of this evil place.  In my minds eye God was clearly and vividly revealing to me my true state.    I knew without a doubt that Hell was where I deserved to be.  I had never seen myself in this light.  But it was shockingly accurate.  And I agreed with His assessment and judgment of my life.

 I saw myself as alone. I had lost everything.  I had lost the love of my life, my wife was divorcing me.  Rightly she had left me because of  the continual sin in my heart of lust, adultery, pornographic thoughts, pride and arrogance….  I had hid under my religious piety.  I had hurt my wife severely.    I had caused all of this and could blame no one or nothing else but myself.  All of our dreams had been lost.  I had dashed all her hopes.

Then began  8-hours of my reckoning before the Judgment seat of God.  He showed me my life from His viewpoint.  He showed me every great sinner in the bible and I confessed and agreed that I was just like him or her.  I was guilty and ashamed of my behavior.   I repented with wailing, tears and screams at the top of my lungs.  Every time he showed me another sinner like Jacob the deceiver he would pause and be silent until I agreed that this was I. “Oh my God” I acknowledged through the screams “I’m a deceiver!”  I  took full responsibility for all my wicked ways.  The movie continued -Ananias and Sapphira were liars “ Oh my God” I shrieked “I’m a liar!”  Levi and Simeom plotted and in anger and wrath murdered a whole city for their vengeance.  “Oh my God” I yelled “ I’m a murderer because of my anger, bitterness and the unforgiveness in my heart.”  On and on went the movie of my 38 long years of deceit, and hiding of my immoral heart.  I saw for the first time how perverse I was with my lust and other sins. I was disgusted and revolted by my evil heart.   I had read about all of the wicked, sinful people in the bible but had never ever seen my self as such. For the first time I, Chris Woods, realized that I was the wicked one and not someone else, but it was I.    Now that I saw what I truly was, my heart fully repented and willingly forsook my wicked ways and it was final.  “A repentance never to be repented of.”  God accepted my deep repentance and cleaned my heart thoroughly with His blood.  The Lord Jesus and my wife were so merciful to forgive me all my sins.  Words cannot express my thankfulness for His longsuffering with me!  To this day, I weep every time I think of it and will forever be grateful for His unfailing love to me!  A sinner saved by grace and I sing through the tears “Amazing grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me I once was lost but now I’m found, was blind but now I see.”

This cathartic repentance was the beginning of a journey that lasted 8 months.   I had finally come to the “end of myself,” and Christ came in my heart to reign supremely.  It took so long because I had deceived myself for so long.  The web of hiding my sin was gnarled and tangled within my mind, soul, and will.  The deception was great.  But

God through His great mercy lead me to the bottom of it, as I  forced myself to stay open to His exposure of all my darkness.  There was a continual honesty and disclosure before the Lord and my wife (we are miraculously still happily married).  In obedience to the Lord, I wrote many letters of restitution, and asked forgiveness.  I had found a new determination in my heart (will) to seek and obey Him. His Spirit is now abundantly alive WITHIN me, not outside of me.  After my true repentance and His cleaning of my temple Christ was finally able to dwell WITHIN my heart.

All these years I had related to Christ outside of me not from within me.  Now I look back over my troubled life from new eyes.   Eyes that have come into His  marvelous Light,  a heart full of the Truth,  and  a soul void of  darkness.  The comparison between my “old” life to my “new” life is astonishing.  The old  life was lived in darkness thinking it was in the light, but it was lived in sin.   The new life is now lived knowing He fully abides within me and I’m free from the dominion of sin.  The simplicity of my “old” life was that I was a sinner and therefore I sinned.   I wrestled with sin because I had never repented therefore sin had never been abolished in me.  Only  Christ reigning completely within my heart could destroy sin.  Oh there is no comparison to the two lives, they stand separated by a great divide. Now that  I have died and divorced that “old” man and I don’t wrestle with all the sins of my past life, they no longer hold me as a slave.   Before I was relating to Jesus from outside of me, like in Old Testament days, but now the Prince of Peace resides within me and I have found the lasting peace and rest I so desperately longed for.  The Rest is Him.    Now that I have finally let Him in, His great heart of love is at rest inside of me.    I no longer live but Christ lives within me.   

Since the “actuality of entrance” of the Lord in my thoroughly cleansed and completely purified heart, I have not wrestled with sin.  This is because I have died to my own self-rule and He now rules my life.  Now He is on the throne of my heart, and I’m the gatekeeper of  His palace.       Since His Authority  is finally within Me, I can easily rebuke any lustful or untoward thoughts and they leave.  There is a new abundant power that flows naturally out of my heart   Now that He reigns from with in me, sin has no more dominion over me, and I am not a slave to sin.  This is practical reality in my life now and not just a theory to strive for. My wife can verify all of this and loves the “new man!”

Now I came to two startling truths.  I saw these truth from God’ point of view. The  first shocking reality is that I had never been saved or converted.     This light came from the comparison of my two lives to the scriptures.  From this new life I see the distinct difference.  My foundation was all wrong.    In retrospect at 16 I was only awakened to Him, but had never allowed Him to enter my heart through repentance.  At that time, no one preached to me the whole truth of my serious condition that I was a sinner and a rebel against Him, going to hell, and that I needed to acknowledge and repent of my sins.  This must be preached with full conviction (as my wife preached to me)because it is God’s truth and His only way to conversion.  No one wanted to make me feel uncomfortable or bad about my true situation or myself.   I was merely told I was on the wrong path and needed to change directions if I wanted to go to heaven.  They pointed to Jesus and heaven, so I willingly “accepted Him” and started to follow His loving ways.   Now I was on His path (without Him in me)and everything I learned of Him, unwittingly, became head knowledge or a life philosophy that I actively pursued.   I yielded to every new truth  as best as I could and with a sincere heart.  I gave many areas completely to God, but I was still building on a bad foundation.  If the foundation is wrong the house will never be correct and will eventually fall and perish.  It must be dug up with a jackhammer and replaced with the true foundation.

The second startling truth is that I was a hypocrite. I looked great on the outside but my heart was full of sin!  Jesus clearly said: