Redemption- The David Guerra Testimony

This is Chris Hughes with the Christian Perspective Podcast with Chris Hughes, where we encourage our listeners to engage the culture with Jesus Christ. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just a few seconds, so enjoy it, share it. But most of all, thank you for listening to the Truth Podcast Network. Hello, and thank you for tuning in to this podcast, which is part of the Jesus Breaks the Chain series on Truth Network. I'm evangelist Michael Bowen, and I pray that the Lord blesses you greatly, and you receive this word in love and in truth.

This podcast is titled Redemption, the David Guerrera Testimony. First, I'd like to open up this podcast with the word, and this is a word from the Lord of Scripture that is very important to David and I, and it comes from Revelation 2, verses 9 through 12. So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old called the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world. He was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. Then I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, now salvation and strength in the kingdom of our God and the power of his Christ have come for the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night has been cast down, and they overcame him by the blood of the lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to death. Therefore rejoice, O heavens, and you who dwell in them, woe to the inhabitants of the earth and the sea, for the devil has come down to you having great wrath, because he knows that he has short time, and they overcame him by the blood of Jesus and by the power of their testimony. Both David, Gerrera, and myself, we overcame him by the blood of Jesus and the power of our testimonies. We overcame addiction.

We overcame destruction. We overcame death by the power of our testimony and the blood of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. David Gerrera is my brother in the Lord and fellow soldier of Christ in the battle being fought for souls. David overcame a childhood surrounded by drugs and drug addiction by the blood of the lamb, and he has a powerful testimony how God called him up out of a drug-dealing, gang-banging lifestyle into a life as a fearless and faithful disciple of Jesus Christ. David's going to share that testimony with us. David has an anointing on his life, and the Lord has blessed him with a gift to create songs that touches the soul of everyone who hears them. David is a powerful voice for his generation, and I'm pleased to have him on this podcast today. I would now like to introduce to you David Gerrera and let you know that you are about to hear an awesome testimony of transformation and redemption at the foot of the cross where David laid down his old life so Jesus could make him new. Hello David, how you doing today? Hey man, how you doing? It's an honor to be here to serve the Lord and be able to speak a little word with you.

That's great. Well, I know you're a hard worker, and so I called you during your lunch break right now. You're on your lunch break everybody. David is on his lunch break, and so let's get right to it little brother. First, when I first heard your testimony, I was just moved so greatly by its power and all the things you had to overcome from your childhood, and I'll just let you talk about that. It was a really tough childhood being born to both your parents being addicted to crack cocaine and what your life was like from the moment you were born and what you had to go through. So tell us about your childhood and how you grew up in the projects in Houston, Texas.

David? Okay, yes, as Michael was explaining, both parents, well my father had left me at the age of one years old, and my mother began to date this ideal what they call drug dealer, but later to find out that he was more addicted than he was selling. So I grew up in a what they would call a crack home, you know, it was a drug house where everybody would go party and smoke crack, you know, so I lived in a house that was later to be condemned by the city because it was unfit for children, it was unfit for anyone to listen at that point. So I'm talking about cardboard windows, you know, watching my mom get abused, she couldn't even look at it straight because she was always so amped that she would be drinking so much, selling our food stamps and whatever we had of value just to get high, you know, even at times you want to say prostitute herself just for her next time, you know, so there was a lot of physical abuse. My sister actually was a victim to sexual abuse from her own family, members, you know, so from there on, you know, my mother got later and deeper into her addiction.

So she started ponding us off on people, you know, maybe a family event, leave us at their house and never come back and should be gone for months. So my younger life, a lot of my younger life, I was living house to house majority of my life, you know what I'm saying? And so my mom then became rehabilitated, but it would only work for so long. As soon as she would come out, she would go back to her addiction in a way so I didn't have my mom for a good nine years of my life as a child, you know, so it was me mainly just raising myself house to house.

I was called all kinds of names from charity cases to being a bum, never amounting to nothing. The most horrible thing you could even tell a child, you know, so the devil tried to install that hate in the very beginning, you know, nobody's ever taught me the love of God so the hate was injected right away. As I'm listening to this and it's just so touching in my spirit and I can just imagine what it was like coming through that type of environment and being taught that those negative behaviors and all that hate and shame and guilt you must have felt as a child. And I know you became addicted to drugs and I think you had told me around the age of 12 you were fully addicted to drugs yourself. So tell us how you became addicted to drugs and what was that like? Well, living that life I always told myself that I would never become an addict, you know, that was that was the thing I would never become my parents, you know, but as soon as I got of age I was introduced into smoking, you know, I was gang affiliated at the age of 14, you know, so during that time once I started smoking got introduced to bars, Xanax, you know, started robbing people. I had so much hate I wanted I wanted people to feel that same hate that I did I want people to to experience the pain that I had inside of me, you know, so I was going ahead and and partying robbing people doing drugs, you know, horrible, you know, I'm saying assaults on family members. When I would go to the door, there was times where I had nowhere to stay. So I'd be walking the streets, I would go to my own family's house, walking miles, you know, we're nowhere to go. I'd go to my family's house and I get the door only to get rejected, rejected from a place to sleep, rejected from a hot meal, you know, so so that that automatically just put more hate inside of me, you know, I'm saying so robbed cars just to go to sleep, you know, I would lurk around the streets looking for something to steal looking for something I could what they would say come up on, you know, hopefully that I can make enough money just to get me through the day. And every money I would make would be of course spent on drugs, you know, so bars and ecstasy and coke started taking control of me. I was doing disgusting things, you know, prostitute woman and robbing anybody I could get my hands on from beating them or to knife to their neck or guns to them. Anything I could get a dollar out of this.

That's what I would involve myself in. Yeah, I know you talk about that rejection. And when you started talking to me about that rejection, then I got the the image of Jesus Christ in my mind and in my spirit, I could feel that the rejection of Jesus Christ, this is what he went through. This is what our Lord and Savior went through. And so Jesus understands the pain of your rejection and he carried he died for that pain that you felt that hurt from your rejection because he experienced it too. He knew all along what what you had gone through and, and, and, you know, he talked strongly if you harm any one of these children of mine, it's not a good thing. And so he loves the little children, he loved you, he was with you, he protected you and, and, and you went through the things you went through because we live in this fallen world that's that's full of addiction and hurt and pain and rejection all the things that were poured out upon Jesus Christ in in the life of his ministry as he led up to the cross. And which which which is the reason for our salvation. The reason why you and I are speaking today is because what Jesus did at the cross because he he bore that rejection and that pain and that hurt from this cold and cruel and heartless world that that we find ourselves in the only the only goodness in this world is the love of Jesus Christ that set both you and I free because I too suffered from addiction. And I didn't have a child I had a good childhood growing up.

So just tell you it can happen to anybody. It all and it took you and I to the both the same place, a feeling of pain and rejection. Because of the because of the lives we were living, we chose to live when we decided to start using drugs and trying to cover up that hurt and pain in our lives and that disconnected we have disconnectedness that we had from God.

I want to go into this segment of the podcast. Tell me about what led you to your surrender to Jesus Christ. I know you went through a lot. I know you lived the gang banging lifestyle, drug dealing lifestyle.

For many years, you were able to get married and have some kids and stuff. Tell us about that period of your life that transitioned to when you started to get into a relationship with your wife and then have children and then what led you to your ultimate surrender in Jesus Christ. Okay, what I'm going to do, I'm going to show you what led to my transition. And then I'm gonna go ahead and explain to you how the transition became good. What happened was, it was actually was getting worse, man, you know, I was thinking I was introduced to the love of God, you see, and then it was crazy because I found the church, you know, and I remember one time just there praying, you know, I was there already for months and I would, I would feel so much peace.

So that's what kept me coming. And I was seeing people surrender to God, you know, fall in the spirit, you know, and talking in tongues. And this is even the Bible tells you that people who don't understand, they get kind of weirded out, you know, because they don't know what's going on, you know, so I'm watching these people speak in tongues fall in the spirit and I tell God like, you know, I'm tired of this Lord, you know, that by this time, I'm already in the projects, my own mother told me, you know, she finally came back, but she didn't have her sanity right. So she finally just told me, here's some money, you know, we're not eating, go ahead, you're gonna have to, you're gonna have to sell drugs, because this is the only way we're gonna get a meal.

You know, by that time, I've already was losing it, you know, pretty much I was in and out of the juvies, you know, then I'll end up in and out of county, you know, pistol cases, dope cases, assault cases. So I was just begging God, I was I was seeking that love, you know, I was passed by the mirror, and I wouldn't even see myself no more. So I go to this church, and I tell God, I want what these people feel.

If you're real, I need you to touch me, you know, and I see people falling in the spirit, and it looks so peaceful. So I went ahead and fell down as well. But you see the Spirit of God didn't make me fall down.

It was me just wanting what they wanted. So I fell down. And I felt humiliated.

I was embarrassed because I knew I didn't feel anything when I was on that ground. You know, so I opened my eyes, and I looked to the side, and I see everybody in the spirit laid out. And me not feeling anything, just the emptiness of brokenness, you know, I felt like surrendering, like I was throwing in the towel was done for, you know, but it's when I try to get up, when I try to get up, there was something on top of me that it was the only word I could ever explain was phenomenal.

It was out of this world. It was a supernatural feeling that could not come from man. It was the Holy Spirit. And I felt whatever I was going through was taken away for that moment, that it don't even make sense.

It's not logical that anything I ever been to, anything that ever endured, that burden that was on my shoulders was lifted, you know, and that's when I knew that the presence of God was real, that he was there, that he was with me, and that he loved me, you know. But then I later get confused by the churches, you know. Nobody told me about the Word of God, and this is very important because the Word is a weapon. God says his Word is a double-edged sword.

God says that I'm my Word and my Word is me, you know, and God says first seek my kingdom and my righteousness and everything will be added to you. The streets are lacking love and nobody's telling them. They're going to church, but they're not receiving God's Word.

They're not seeking the Lord. And they say if you're not planted on a solid foundation, the devil's gonna come and snatch you right out of your roots, you know. So this is what I was experiencing during that time. You know, when I finally surrendered, I had, before I surrendered, I had kids. I was taking love still from a human form, the same way the people saw the King, they thought Saul instead of God, you know. I was looking for love in a human form, and I went and had kids, and I end up showing them that life as well.

I end up what they call graduating and selling drugs and moving bricks and making more money, and I started idolizing that money, but I was playing the harlot the whole time. I had turned my back on the Lord and see the Lord pulled me back in. He never forgot me because it never leave me nor forsake me. God says you will turn your back on me and I will turn my back on you, but when you are faithless, I will remain faithful because I do not deny myself. So it drugs me going back all the way through it, falling all the way back down again for Him to rescue me once more when I called upon Him.

The Word says that if you call upon the name of the Lord, those who call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved, and sure enough, when I called upon the Lord, He saved me. It took me losing my kids. Going through that, I was abusive, you know.

It was horrible, you know what I'm saying. I was a horrible person. I was committing adultery, fornication, you know.

So I end up leaving that relationship, so therefore my kids had to suffer the same suffer I did, but not as hard, you know, and then I met this new friend of mine, and we end up getting together throughout the process. She was with me throughout all the struggle as well, you know, and then it took God taking them away from me as well, you know, and I didn't want my, this is my third son by this time, and I didn't want my son to experience what I had already done to my other kids. So what God did is He made me submit. He made me submit to Him completely and fall to my knees, and I had to pray and to gain my family back. He had made me come to completely surrender to Him. It took me going through the fire for Him to be able to mold me, you know, and then He gave, then I gave my life fully to Him, and I've been serving Him ever since. It's been going on two years right now, and God's blessed me with home.

God's blessed me with, He brought my family back. My wife wasn't trying to hear it. She was trying not to surrender to God at all.

I would text or send her messages to go to church, and she wouldn't even answer me. When I'd go visit my son, the cops were there waiting for me, but see, the doors that she wouldn't open to me, because she wouldn't even open the door. So for me to see my son, them doors, God says that He holds the key of David. See, God opened them doors to me. He gave me access to my life back. He gave me access to my family back. He gave me access to my child again.

That's when I surrendered. Thank you, Lord Jesus, man. That was powerful. You were preaching to all of us there.

Did you guys hear that? Let me tell you, this man is spirit-filled, and he has a testimony. This is amazing. I was at David's church a couple days ago on Sunday, and I shared my testimony and preached the Word, and I was able to meet his family, his children, and his beautiful wife, and the Lord. She is awesome, and she is powerful, and she helps him in his ministry. She actually is a Spanish-speaking church, and she was the translator for my message. And I thought we worked well together, so I'm really happy to have met your family, and I know the Lord is working through you. And I just want to end this podcast talking about what the Lord's doing in your life right now. I know you have a powerful testimony, and He's called you to go back into the same place that He pulled you out of and rescued you from into the projects in the city of Houston.

And there is a project called the Fifth Ward, and the Fifth Ward is called the Bloody Nickel because of its history of violence over the years. And David is going to go with the Mountain of Salvation Church, Iglesia Mont de Salvacion, and he's going to be doing a revival. It's called the Precious Blood Revival 2022, February 26. God has ordained that day for David and his church, and I'm going to be over there, too, and some of the other brothers and sisters that God has called to help with this event. February 26 at 11 a.m. at the Fifth Ward Jam Park, which is located on 3705 Lyon Street, Houston, Texas, is going to be the Precious Blood Revival. And we are going to turn up the music, we're going to worship and praise, and the Holy Spirit is going to invade the Fifth Ward because Jesus is the blood in the nickel now. Hallelujah. David, real quick, tell us what your connection with the Fifth Ward is and why God has called you back to the Fifth Ward to preach the gospel and spread the word.

Oh wow, that's definitely amazing, definitely amazing, and I'm glad that Michael Bowen as well is going to be a part of this one. Yes, I actually lived in the Kelly Court Project in Fifth Ward. Yes, they do call it the bloody nickel for its history and violence. A lot of drug addiction, prostitution, it is horrible, you know. That was one of the most darkest days of my life, you know, roaming the streets, peeled out, you know, looking for a place to go, you know, at times I would come outside and there'd be people getting killed over dice games, you know, the cops would harass them, come out on Thursdays, lay everybody down. If you were in the midst, you're going to jail as well, you know, there was no love there.

Everybody's fighting, just horrible, you know, and while I was living there, I built it up so much hate, but I felt barricaded, like I would never make it past those walls in there. Someone's like, if you were in jail or something, you know, and I noticed that everybody struggles in there, and I know they feel like they can't ever make it out, that this is the life that's chose for them, and there's no way out, so they learn to deal with it, they learn to live with it, what they call survival, you know, survival of the fetish, you know, it's either you or me, and that's a lie, you know, it's definitely a lie, and praise God because since I found Christ, even when I first went to church and experienced his love, I remember there was days where I would go out in the street, actually, and put my hands on people and pray for them, you know, even the people that didn't like me, they rejected me, you know, and I would pray for these people. Well, God never let me forget that. He always inserted this vision of me that one day I was going to go back to preach to the people, and I was like, well, how am I going to do that, God, you know, look at me, I struggle, they're not going to want to hear from me, you know, it was kind of a Jonah thing, so I kept walking away from it, walking away from it, you know, but that was my Nineveh, you know, God wanted me to go back to Nineveh, and he wanted me to share the love of God with him, he wanted me to share the repentance, and the repentance that was forgiveness of sins, you know, so God's been leading me that way, and sure enough, God's made it all possible, we've got churches united, willing to give back to the people, people who are hearts that are willing, you know, and these people are just, they're ready, you know, we're ready to install that love of Christ, we're ready to get back what the devil stole from us, we're ready to inject the love where he tried to inject hate, you know, and we believe that people will be delivered and revived, and there'll be deliverance all through Fifth Ward, you know, and I guarantee you in the name of Jesus. Hallelujah, it's going to be an incredible day in the Fifth Ward, I'm so excited to be a part of this, anybody out there listening to this podcast, you need to come on February 26 at 11 a.m. to the Fifth Ward, there's a place called the Jam Park, we're gonna set up a sound stage and we're gonna play worship and praise, we're gonna preach the word, and we're gonna feed the people hot dogs or hamburgers or whatever we got, and we're gonna share the love of Jesus Christ with you, it's at 3705 Lyon Street, Houston, Texas, and it's gonna be David with his pastor, Jose Medellin, myself, and Tracy, his wife, and Julissa Medellin, and the whole church family, where David goes to church, Monte de Salvacion, the Mountain of Salvation Church, and just come join us, and it's gonna be a mighty move of God, and one thing I want to do, this is going to conclude our time with David, we're so honored and blessed that he could be a part of the Jesus Breaks the Change podcast series, and I'm gonna go into this time, David, as I told you before, has a gift of music, the gift to create songs that touches the soul of everybody who listens, and it's about, his songs are the salvation of Jesus Christ, the message of the gospel are in his songs, from his own unique perspective, from the pain, you can hear the pain and anguish and the redemption and the transformation in the lyrics of his songs, and I was very touched when I listened to the song, so I'm gonna play now for you the song that I first heard on a New Year's Eve service this past New Year's Eve, I was at a church and David was singing, and this song is called The Greatest Love, and before we go into the song, David, why don't you say your parting words for everybody on the podcast, and then we'll go into the song, The Greatest Love. Yes sir, I want to thank y'all for tuning in, we thank y'all for accepting me as my testimony, and let the glory of God move in your life, and I thank y'all so much for having me, and may God bless all of y'all.

Amen. And so, brothers and sisters, friends of mine, I love you all, and I pray that you too can find the freedom that David and I have found in Jesus Christ, Jesus Breaks the Change, he is our Lord and Savior, and the only power that was ever able to deliver these two former drug addicts, and set us free from the captivity, darkness, and hell of our addiction. David and I overcame the enemy by the blood of Jesus, by the word and power of our testimonies. Today, we both live our lives in victory over addiction, the devil and the demons that used to torment us continually.

We love God, we love people, and we share Jesus with everyone we meet. Now I want you to enjoy this song by David called The Greatest Love. Thank you. Yeah, when I walk through the fire, it won't burn me. Yeah, when I walk through the rivers, they won't drown me. Then I tell everyone I know, I tell everyone I know that you are my greatest love.

Right now, all I see is the rain, wondering when will it ever go away. Even though I'm free, I still feel like I'm in chains. In the sin, I got a Satan, but I held on to your name. Throughout the life, when I wish that I would die, the bottom of the barrel with the apple of your eye. At the peak of my hustle, then you caught me by surprise.

I go on by appearance, but the heart that's inside. Walk on water, and I don't drown, because your love keeps me from sinking down. You were by my side when nobody was around, blind for a little, but I'm glad to see it now.

The enemy of God then adopted as your child. You put me on love, some I never knew about. Love of a father, even through all the doubts. You took me from the pit, and you put me on the clouds. When I was lost, you never let me, you never let me go. When I walk through the storm, you go with me. When I walk through the fire, it won't burn me. When I walk through the rivers, they won't drown me.

Then I tell everyone I know, I tell everyone I know, that you are my greatest love. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. But we thought he was smitten by God, stricken by God, afflicted by God. But he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquity. The chastisement for our peace was upon him, and by his stripes we are healed. This is the Truth Network.