Jeff's Personal Testimony

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  I was born to a Jewish father and a mother that was a Lutheran when she was a child.  When I was 4 years old my mother taught me how to pray.  It was not some great prayer, but a generic prayer like, “Now I lay me down to sleep.”  My parents did not know if I continued to pray, but I prayed every night.  When I prayed I lifted my hands.  I had never seen anyone lift their hands.  The Holy Spirit was teaching me how to pray.  I prayed for my parents, my brother, my sisters and even my dog spot!   I then began to pray for the kids down the street and their dogs and cats!  At four years old I began a personal relationship with God!  While in prayer one night at four years old, Jesus came into my room and called me into the ministry.  Well, Jesus coming into my room did not sit right with my father, even though we were not good Jews!  We did not practice Judaism and we ate pork!  When I told my brother that I had a vision of Jesus, my brother said, “Did you eat pizza last night that caused you to dream it."  But I knew Jesus really did come into my room and call me into the ministry.  I knew that I had seen Jesus and deep down I knew someday I would be a minister. Growing up, I had always wanted to go to church.  In my freshman year of high school a friend invited me to a Baptist church.  I was finally getting to go to church. Well, Baptists are very good at getting you saved.  They did not have a hard time with me.  I walked in there and they said how many want to get saved?  I walked down to the altar and officially prayed to become a Christian.  However, I never returned to the church and soon realized that I did not know the Bible, so I ran from the calling to be a minister.  I did not run from God, I ran from the calling.  I ran to Hollywood and for the next six years I acted in movies, television and dozens of commercials.  I also did stand up comedy in clubs and voiceovers for Disney.
   While I was in Hollywood, the Lord spoke to my spirit and said, “I didn't call you to Hollywood.  I called you into the ministry.”  Hollywood was all I knew.  I told Him," No".  He told me he would not prosper me in Hollywood, even though I had won awards for my acting while I studied at Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute. When I would have a line in a movie, most of the time it would end up on the cutting room floor.  He came to me a second time and He said, “Son, I called you into the ministry.”  Again I said "No."  God was working on me to surrender to the call I had on my life.  Hollywood was getting darker and darker and it was beginning to have a grip on my life. I was watching Pat Robertson on the 700 club and he said, " It's time to surrender."  I knew God was talking to me. Shortly after that a pretty actress invited me to church.  I was ready and wanted to go back to church.  So, I went to church with her, but it wasn't a Baptist church.  It was a full gospel church.  When I walked into the church, I saw the people raising their hands in worship and I said to myself, "I’m home."  Glory to God!  I had never seen people raise their hands before, but that is how I prayed!  They were raising their hands, and the glory of God came down.  You could feel the presence of God in that place!  The next week I returned to the church.  They announced there was going to be a water baptism the following Saturday.  When Saturday came I was ready to be water baptized.  I didn't know the time or the place, so I asked the Lord to guide me.  He guided me to the exact public park in that town where the baptism was taking place. It was the right place at the right time!  The following weeks the Pastor began talking about Acts chapter 1 and 2.  You know Jewish people are people of the book and what it says, you do.  I wasn't going to pick and choose what I was going to believe.  If it was in the Bible and apart of the covenant, I wanted it!  It says in the book of Acts, you are supposed to be baptized in the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in tongues.  I said, "How do I receive the Holy Spirit in my life?"  I immediately went down to pray at the altar to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit.   I wanted everything God had for me because I knew everything from God was good!  It was a short time later that I received the gift of speaking in tongues.  It empowered my prayers!  I moved into an apartment with a couple of Christian guys from the church.  We started inviting people over for a Bible study.  You have to understand, I grew up without studying the Bible.  I knew some of the Old Testament, but I didn't know the New Testament very well.  So teaching a Bible study was like the blind leading the blind.  I started watching Pastor Fred Price on television and my faith was growing!  Every week I taught a Bible study. You have to understand, at this time I was acting in movies during the day and having a Bible study at night.  I had one foot in the world and one foot in the Word.  I'll never forget, one day I decided I was going to have a city wide revival and I rented a facility.  We put flyers all over the area to let people know about it.  We had a tremendous turnout  that night at my first revival!  I told them everything I knew in about 5 minutes.  Then I just said, “Praise God, how many people want to get saved?” And people started coming forward to get saved!  I'll tell you what,  I’ll never forget the title of my first sermon, "The Gospel in a Nutshell" and seemed that it was about five minutes long. (Continues on Page 2)