Hello and welcome to Lift Jesus Cross!  I hope you’re enjoying your Christmas shopping, baking, and decorating.  Do you want to give Jesus a gift this Christmas?  Please send me your personal story of salvation.  This is a great way to honor his birthday and share your story with others.

I’m please to introduce you today my friend Mark Ettinger, who attends my church, Life Center Ministries International.  Mark is a songwriter, poet, and has won awards for his photography.  The story of how Mark came to Christ is AMAZING!  Now, here’s Mark:

God will not leave you desolate – He will come to you.   John 14:18

In 1989,  I started to get weary and depressed and couldn’t think right.  Then everything started to work against me. I was divorced, working shift work and getting worn out from not sleeping right.

One night, I had an anxiety attack in my bed and I tensed up and felt this presence come over me and actually saw an image of a demonic face, telling me I was a failure and everything I do is wrong or fails and I ruined the lives of my wife and sons. From that moment on, for about a year, I was a burned out, depressed, and a suicidal mess. I tried doctors, churches, support groups, but in this condition, everything was a downward spiral—like the power of gravity  pulling you down and you can’t fight it. Alcohol and drugs and medication from the doctor didn’t stop the lies about being a failure.  I was a crane operator in a steel mill.

At work, I was continuously swayed to think about jumping off the crane. One day, standing on a platform on the crane, I smoked a cigarette butt that I picked up off the ground and threw it off the crane. Nothing was stopping me from jumping this time. For a moment, I glanced over at the huge opening at the end of the building and saw a woman, walking through the opening.

She stopped and just looked up at me and we stared at one another for a few seconds until  she simply lifted her hand, like saying hello. Hesitantly, I lifted my hand and she walked away.   Stepping  back over the railing, I got back into  the crane. A few minutes passed and I got down off the crane and went into a tiny break room. I couldn’t eat or relax, so my eyes scanned the room, when  I noticed a soft back book hanging over the shelf.   Reaching up, I pulled it off the shelf.  Written on the top of the cover was; THE WAY and I knew it was a Bible. I just threw it down on the table. Read a Bible?  I wanted to die. Then I said out loud: “Ok, here I am in this desolate room with a Bible, now what do I do?”

Something came over me, and I picked up that dirty, old book, put my fingers in between the pages and opened it. In big -black lettering across the page it read, “I WILL NOT  LEAVE  YOU  DESOLATE.”  

My eyes welled up and I felt hope and peace surround me and a tingling in my body from head to toe.   Turning to the book of Matthew,  I started to read the Beatitudes. I felt renewed and alive again. On that day, God Himself showed me “THE WAY”.  He Himself, stepped in between me and death and said, “Enough—you cannot have him.”

He had plans for me. Soon after that day, I was led to a church and committed my life to Him and was baptized in front of witnesses. To this day, He is my way my truth and my life.

Mark was born into the Kingdom of God in 1991.  Within the next year, God called Mark to be a scribe, a psalmist and a herald of God’s word.  Mark has been writing continuously ever since and is also a photographer and a musician.  He and his wife Annette, who is a minister, have an anointing oil ministry that has been providing oils all over the world. Mark is currently writing a compilation of twenty years of writing, hopefully to be released  before the end of the year titled: “All about his love” Mark is committed to the belief that God is love and Jesus was the human form of God’s love and forgiveness on the Earth.