A Living Testimony
by Luis (Louie) E. Chaves
"JESUS! - MY NEW LIFE IN HIM"
(A true to life account of Luis E. Chaves)
This is the tale of my spiritual birth in Christ, Jesus, who died for me and placed all my
sins upon the cross. By His blood, I have been cleansed and set free. I don’t rightly
have any idea how to begin to thank HIM for this, of course, the best way to begin is by
obeying HIM……..and that is exactly what I am doing.
This amazing story began for me just a little over eleven years ago. I was a very strange
person. Showing immense strength and power to everyone around me but on the inside being a
very insecure person with very low self-esteem. I had a very rough time growing up with a
lot of mental abuse from my father, which did cause me to be very immature most of my
life. I never really had been given the go ahead to become a man: Most of my father’s
insults and accusations were of the type of, "How can you possibly be my son, being
so fat?" and "You are never going to be a responsible man being so fat!"
"I am so disgusted at you, you make me so sick!" Needless to say, this
didn’t set well in my mind and heart! Much of my life was spend trying to prove to my
father that I was more than worthy to be his son. I became an over-achiever studying like
crazy, taking on every single project in my life like as if it was the last thing in the
world. When I took up guitar at a young age, I couldn’t just learn to play like
everybody else, I had to play in classical style and once this became easy than I
proceeded to what is called Flamenco, which is a very difficult type of music to learn and
play. My hands were so interesting! I have finely manicured long nails on my right hand
(girls were always jealous) and on my left hand they are completely cut off. This was
quite a paradox since I was also a martial artist (Karate) and had been studying for
nearly 30 years.
This also made me a god unto myself. I would have people literally get on their hands and
knees and almost worship me by saying things like, "We honor the work of your hands
and we thank you for your presence!" Of course, GOD could not allow this to go on
much longer, so HE had to put a stop to it.
Due to my low self-esteem, I had also developed a nasty habit of addiction to pornography.
Wheww! This was really a tough one to break, because this is a very complex addiction: I
learned that it was a chemical addiction by the fact that a hormone is released into the
mind by your body when you watch and look at this type of material, its called
Epinephrine, and its used in Emergency Rooms to jump start hearts when people have had a
heart attack. The worst thing about this hormone is that it shoots an image of whatever it
is you are looking at into your brain and develops an addiction to the chemical which your
brain will desire to have more and more of from then on, creating a habit that will ruin
most people. This addiction is especially addictive to men with very high IQ’s (smart
too) partly because of their greater capacity to fantasize.
Okay, so here I am, a very nasty person! Profanities coming out of my mouth in such a way
that I could make anyone blush (and I would love it), an attitude that I thought I knew
everything and I could answer any question that anybody would ask me, and a life style
that would have ruined me if not outright kill me.
This attitude that I knew everything came from a life long desire to be important and my
studies had given me quite a bit of head knowledge. So I would have people ask me any
question and lo and behold, I could always give them an answer! Well, one day, a little
over twelve years ago, I began to have a situation where I didn’t have the answers to
the questions. One of my brothers began having some extreme legal problems while in the
military in Europe, where he was charged with a very horrible crime. His security
credentials had been stripped from him, he had been arrested and put on trial! Eventually,
after a two year period, he was found innocent of the crime, however, he had insulted and
offended the military and thus, in their great wisdom, they sentenced him to 10 years hard
labor. He first went to jail in West Germany, then was transferred to the USA in Colorado.
Next, I found out that my mother had been diagnosed with breast cancer and doctors had
scheduled a radical mastectomy of the right breast along with part of the right armpit.
Once again, I had no answers to this. She was about to undergo very painful and possibly
deadly experiences, yes! She could die!
And another thing, one of my other brothers was worshipping satan openly, and even wicked,
filthy me was able to see that this was very wrong, but I had no idea how to fix it or
even how to address the problem.
My own life and marriage were crazy! Even though my wife and I had a very honest and
healthy relationship, I was not exactly the best model of a husband a person could have. I
had thoughts and actions of infidelity and had already had one mistress. This was a tough
one but having an amazing woman of a wife, with a very forgiving heart even before GOD
came into her life was definitely an incredible blessing.
Okay, now that I have laid the groundwork as to what was going on in my life at the time,
I can begin to tell you about what transpired in my life to bring me to the saving grace
of our Lord Jesus Christ.
While all these things were going on, a gentleman at work began to witness to me about
Jesus! My first reaction was violent! I almost slapped him! I couldn’t believe that a
good God could allow such bad things to happen to good people (this sound familiar?) and
outright rejected his ministering. Thank God for much wisdom that was put upon this man!
One of the many things that I had become in my life was that of a calligraphist (fancy
writing!) and I loved to transcribe people’s letters, poems, writings,
etc.……which I also loved to do for free. Guess what? This dear gentleman gave me
some poems that he had written (not telling me that they were heavily laced and based on
the word of God) and asked me to transcribe them to calligraphy. I began to work on them
and much to my surprise, I began to see how neat that "Stuff" was! I told him,
"Hey Bruce, this stuff is pretty neat!" of course you know that GOD’S WORD
SHALL NOT COME BACK VOID, BUT DO AND ACCOMPLISH THAT WHICH HE WILLS AND PURPOSE (Isaiah
55) and I began to sense that the Word was breaking up the cold, cruel heart of stone that
I owned and replaced it with one made of flesh that could be taught and humbled!
Two weeks later, on the second week of June 1987, I gave my heart to the Lord kneeling in
the Network area of the computer room at work. And this was definitely the beginning of
the fireworks..!!..
That very same weekend, which was a couple of days later, I attended a Victory of The
Believer’s Convention at the Anaheim Convention Center, which is an annual thing held
by Kenneth Copeland Ministries, which Bruce, the fellow that led me to the Lord was
heavily involved with. This of course, was no coincidence, since the meeting that I
attended was the Healing Seminar held by Gloria Copeland, Mr. Kenneth Copeland’s
wife. A couple of hours later, after hearing all the new wonderful "STUFF" that
I was being fed for the very first time in my life, I went up to be prayed for as sign
that I had heard and received what had been preached, of course, being so completely new
to the Word of GOD, I didn’t know that you had to have signs and wonders following
after the teaching of the Word, to show that the Word is alive (I Peter). And what a
surprise, I had a horribly defective back all my life which had caused me excruciating
pain, and "IT WAS HEALED INSTANTLY!" ….this was quite a surprise to me,
because I sort of knew that GOD did miracles, but I never thought that I would ever get to
see one let alone be the recipient of an actual honest to goodness, verifiable miracle.
Well, this was such wonderful "STUFF" that I began for the first time to worship
GOD. I had never done that, however, having been a singer all my life, and the fact that
one of my favorite works of Classical Music was Handel’s Messiah
(coincidence?….I don’t think so!), and so I began to worship singing my heart
off, for the first time understanding the meaning of the words that had been empty for so
many years, which now sang and gave testimony to a miraculous, Loving, Nurturing, Perfect
Son of God, which had now become my Savior. And sing I did……..for the next three
days straight! This had been a weekend and although, I had been working on the weekend, I
still had been singing, much to the amazement of my co-workers and my family which all
thought I had really flipped my lid, and lost all my senses!……..THANK
GOD….!!!!!!!……I was then told about the Baptism in the Holy Ghost, which
later I found out is a subject of great debate among a good many Christians. Well, I never
had a chance to argue about it, since I didn’t know what it was and I didn’t
even know the Word of GOD well enough to form any kind of opinion (Smile!).
Tuesday came around, and yeap you guessed it, I was up all day singing to my new found
Lord and Savior. Now, I say up all day, because I worked the later shift, which means that
I was up most of the day and went to sleep at 1:00PM so as to get the right kind of rest
(I had been doing this for nearly 10 years by then, and was so good at
it……..resting that is, that I was instructed by my superiors to teach a course
to the other late shift employees on How to Rest!) to get up at 9PM and be in good time to
get to work totally refreshed. Well, this day was going to be a little bit different. I
finished singing and said a quick, very heartfelt prayer of many thanks to Our Lord, and
took a bath to go to bed. When I got into bed, I said yet another quick prayer (I
didn’t even know how to pray either!) and just as I end my words, something very
strange began to happen: Without anyone touching me or anyone else being present in the
room (so I thought!) I began to get a ripple in my belly which turned into shaking that
quickly began to spread to the rest of my body. And, to my bed, the floor of my bedroom,
the walls………All this caused my wife, who had not yet received the Lord, to
get very nervous and run upstairs to my bedroom and inform me that we were having an
earthquake, but only in my room!!! This of course petrified her, but she was able to
gather her wits about her and enter the darkened room (what guts!) and come to my bedside
were she cradled my head n her lap and began to soothe me, telling me that everything was
going to be okay! guess she thought I was getting sick and having some kind of seizure!
Boy! little did she know how okay things were going to be!
I then began to experience another something that would not stop until this day: I began
to speak and utter words and sounds that I had never heard coming out of my mouth, now
mind you, I still didn’t know about the Word of God nor the controversy about
tongues, but tongues they were and I was speaking up a storm of them. But that was not the
end of it! I then began to hear a very loud, yet gentle and almost whispering voice in my
heart, mind, I don’t know what! But I began to hear it very clearly and very audibly
(no kidding!) I then realized that it was the Voice of God Almighty translating the
tongues that I was speaking! Now THIS REALLY DID BLOW MY MIND
AWAY…!!!!!……First I thought I was loosing my mind, then it dawned on me
what was happening, and then, I asked myself the most amazing question of my life,
"Why is the Creator of the Universe speaking and talking to me?" Hey! I actually
got an answer, real quick like, immediately too! He said, "WHY NOT!"
……….Simple, yet profound! God would prove that in the few words that HE
chose to say to me, HE had the capacity to tell me volumes. I almost immediately was
pointed to appropriate scripture in I John 4:1-3 where it speaks of how to verify the
Spirit of Truth and what He must confess in order for me to know that it truly is the Son
of God speaking to me. This worked of course, He began to teach me directly out of HIS
Word.
Okay, so now I had been baptized in the Holy Ghost, and I spoke in tongues! What next? Of
course, I heard God’s voice, so now I had insight into a lot of things that were
going on in my life! One of them was hearing HIM telling me to go and lay hands on my
Mother (remember, the one diagnosed with breast cancer?), to which I said,
"Sure!" I didn’t know exactly how to do it, and I still didn’t know
even how to pray! So, a couple of days later, I went to my Mom’s place in Hollywood
and told her, "Mom, you know that God has touched my life, right?" she answered,
"Yes, its a little strange and very intense for me, but I do know that something
amazing has happened in your life" and I then informed her that God had ordered me to
touch her so that she would be healed of this condition. She immediately said yes, and
poof! She was the first healing that God wrought through my hands. She fell to the floor
so quickly, I had no chance to catch her! She came up shaking from head to toe and needed
a cold drink of water! Of course she didn’t hurt herself! God’s Holy Spirit
caught her (Smile!).
Well, you know what happened next! She went for her scheduled appointment and surgery and
had a rockem, sockem, drag down fight with the doctors until they took another Mammogram
of her and discovered, much to their shock, that she had no trace of the huge tumor they
had seen there previously!
My Mother would later become my first convert too! God explained to me this way, "I
gave her life, to give you life (birth), so that you could give her life (yes,
Salvation!), through Me!
Not too long thereafter, my family was visited by an aunt that we had not seen in over 20
years! Come to find out that she was too a spirit filled Christian and talking in tongues
and everything that my wife and me were doing (Yes, she had also found our Lord and it was
over a Christian Television Station too!). Her most often spoken subject when she saw us
was, "Hey! Lets find the Eagle’s Nest Christian Fellowship that I have heard so
much about!" It took us almost two weeks, but find it we did!
Now, when we finally got to this place, no at single person had ever met us! And we had
told no one that we were going there (my immediate family was still a tiny bit
uncomfortable about my newfound "Craziness!") so we kind of kept this type of
information from them for a while. So needless to say. when the Head Pastor of this place,
Dr. Gary Greenwald, called out mine and my wife’s names, we kind of had near heart
failure! He called us up and said, "I see a golden eagle when I look at both of you,
What does this mean?" I had just received a gift from my wife of a Twenty-dollar Gold
Piece Wrist Watch, which had a huge golden eagle on it, another coincidence? "I
don’t think so!" And when I showed it to him he said, "Yeap! That is
it!" He proceeded to prophesy (another thing that almost everyone argues about, but,
since I had never been exposed to other people’s interpretations of this controversy,
I was able to receive very quickly the first time I heard God’s Words coming out of
another person’s mouth, which of course, was being interpreted into tongues and
regular language at the same time they were being spoken by the Pastor (Neat trick huh?)
God is indeed versatile! Needless to say, we immediately knew that we had found our church
home and have remained there until today!
God has continued to wrought miracles through my hands and even called me into the
Ministry by Ordaining me just a short year after my spiritual birth, "much to my
shocked surprise!" and so on and so on and so on and so on!!!….Its obvious that
He is not done with me yet, in fact I have barely begun! A little more than two years ago,
I came down with a serious illness! I was taken to the hospital and found out that I had
been within ten minutes of passing away, This was yet another shocker! But! Once again, I
heard God’s voice and as I was laying in the ER of the Hospital, He said, "YOU
SHALL LIVE AND NOT DIE, FOR IT IS UNTO ALL NATIONS THAT YOU SHALL SPEAK AND THEY SHALL
HEAR MY WORDS!" Of course I was shocked again! One never really gets used to God
speaking in an audible and very personal and intimate voice. But! Once again, this did the
trick and I had no more fear of what lay ahead, yes it would be difficult, but I had to go
through it.
And yes, of course, I was miraculously healed of that disease too! And also due to the
condition, which all medical authorities agree that its something permanent, I was
medically disabled by our wonderful government!
So, last year, during the month of November, I received my first Personal Computer, given
to me by my baby brother who is a technician and of course, felt that his big brother
needed to have access to High Technology. Another surprise! I begin to learn it like crazy
and before long, I am online chatting and ministering over the Internet: Bringing the lost
to salvation, praying and people being healed (Yes! Over the Internet) and even an
exorcism or two for good measure. Once again proving to me that there are no boundaries
when it comes to the way God can and will minister. I am now in charge of an International
Online Prayer Group on AOL; this ministry currently covers 57 nations and has an
approximate membership of over 3.5 million. This was yet another surprise, since I never
expected God to fulfill that promise in the ER without me having to set foot outside my
home.
The remainder of this Testimony is in the future………This is just the short
version, and there is much, much more detail! But for all intensive purposes, this will do
quite nicely for a short one! (Smile!)
Signed,
Luis E. Chaves (LouBear55/HeisAbba)
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