Hell Lost Another One…I Am Free!

Easter holds a special place in my heart. I have always enjoyed Easter and what it represents to me, but especially considering my history and testimony, and for the purpose of this time together, the short version.

My Easter Testimony

I never tire of speaking about what God has done in my life. A rebellious prodigal running as fast as I could from God, I was as far from God as I could have ever been. My grandparents and parents were pastors…I knew the truth. I just didn’t like religion, and I didn’t understand relationship. Religion was the model I grew up with.

• The rules and regulations of religion somehow didn’t match with who God said He was. I knew He was about relationship but I could never be perfect enough to have a good relationship with Him. I was a confused and angry person.
• I want to encourage all of you to have prodigals running faster and faster from God. There is a timing in the heart of God that supersedes all our intentions, and IT WILL LURE us into a place of surrender and submission.

Why Easter?

What is so special about this particular day?  As a young child, spending most weekends with my grandmother, who helped me memorize scripture after scripture. I would recite them over and over again, not knowing I was planting His Word in me. Another thing I didn’t realize…on Easter Sunday each year I could remember in my childhood, I went to my room early in the morning and got on my knees, thanking Jesus for dying for me, saving me, and loving me. As religion became more formidable in me, I soon outgrew this practice. Instead, I found myself in my teenage years and early 20s drinking, and so rebellious and angry. Running from God like it was a sprint, it seemed as if the enemy had stolen the call of God upon my life.

God Spoke A Word

As a ten-year-old boy at my dad’s ministerial ordination service, Bishop Bill Hammon prophesied over me and said I would have a vision that would change me forever. Even though it excited me down deep inside, I never really thought about it after the first year…although I always remembered it.

• When God speaks a word over us, He is actually saying, “I have an eternal moment of My timing coming in which I will change you into the person I created you to become in a moment. It won’t matter how fast and far you run.”

Easter Sunday, March 26, 1989

Easter Sunday, March 26, 1989, became His eternal moment of timing. After drinking myself into oblivion every night for over 15 straight years, that weekend was my eternal appointment…the time of His divine intention came after me.

After my mother’s begging, pleading, and crying for me to come and go to Easter Sunday service with them at a church where my future wife, Nancy, was working (hmm…not fair), I was at a vulnerable moment. I went…but only to appease the tears of my mother. She prayed for me continuously, knowing I was the McDaniel wayward son…No hope, actually. But she never gave up…

Hungover and with a mouth full of chewing tobacco, I was escorted to the second row of the church between my parents and Nancy, and in front of 500 praying people. Telling myself to “not listen” and not pay attention to the worship music (my weakness), and especially not listen to the Easter message, I began to sweat and become nervous. There was no escape. I felt trapped. All I could do was “wait” it out.

I don’t remember much of that service except when the Word came forth and how I was feeling something I had never felt before.

And then it happened.

Pastor Johnny Bunch gave a simple, loving altar call by saying anyone who wants to accept Christ, raise your hand. My hand immediately went up involuntarily, and it seemed the whole church was there to keep it from coming back down. A decision had been made. But I was angry. How can I be perfect enough to live a life worthy?

God Remembered Even When I Didn’t

After my history of running, cursing God, and living an evil lifestyle, God remembered all of those Easter Sunday morning prayers from my childhood. God knew back then I was just old enough to understand I was giving myself to Him; looking back, I was foretelling a loving God who would meet me at my lowest place. I have taken great comfort in this inheritance scripture: “He who began a good work in me is faithful to complete it (Phil 1:6)…HE would be faithful.

• He didn’t say I had to be the one who must be faithful…That would be religion. He says He will be faithful…that’s relationship.

Eternal Truths For You

• The enemy never comes after ineffective people. What’s the point? If God has a call on our lives, the enemy will always come after it. But he cannot thwart it when God’s eternal moment of timing arrives.
• The enemy does not have the power to cancel the eternal timing of God. God’s love for us is greater than all the attacks the enemy can bring.
• If God promises, He always comes through. Always.
• He is never, ever early about anything. But He is always on time…His ways and timing is perfect.

God Knew What He Was Doing

Thank you, Bishop Bill Hammon. That very word you spoke over me has been in its moment for some 37 years.

• It’s the Word of God that never comes back void and the prayers of His people that create miraculous opportunities for prodigals.

I pray that every prodigal will hear the voice of Holy Spirit as it muffles the noise of the enemy. “You are coming home! It may even seem like you have a choice…but you don’t…Not when God says it is time. You are coming home into a whole new relationship with Abba Father. And there’s nothing the enemy can do about it.”

The Fruits of The Number 37

Finally…I would like to leave you with what I believe is God’s sweet kiss to me. Giving away what God gives me makes room for greater capacity to house more of His thoughts toward me. I am celebrating my 37^th spiritual birthday. The biblical number 37 has some interesting meanings:

• Divine intervention
• Divine completeness
• Divine perfection
• Spiritual growth
• Completion
• Faith
• Wisdom
• Moments of profound revelation

I release all of these to you and over all the prodigals this Easter Season. Intervention, completeness, and perfection are divinely orchestrated by God, His plan, His timing. HE will interrupt it all to accomplish the divine appointments of His heart. It is a time in which faith, wisdom, and revelation will be found in the growing, saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.

This year is a turning point for the prodigals and their families…The theme of this year will be “Hell Lost Another One…I Am Free!.”