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Dr. Phil Ayers - Supply, Evangelist/Bible Conference Speaker
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God dwells in the supernatural! He saves unbelievers by grace and calls them to ministry, and God wants His people to live an extraordinary life of phenomenal acts of servanthood through an uncompromising and supernatural mindset. God desires Christians to think and behave like Christians all the time. Phil Ayers explores the lives of the apostles of Jesus Christ. Each of the apostles were led by Jesus Christ out of the “rut of mediocre” into a life altering and world challenging commitment to serve, even unto death for the Way! God insists that all followers of His Son, Jesus Christ, finds their way beyond the ordinary pilgrimage of life, to be champions for Him! Tom Landry, the former championship coach of the Dallas Cowboys said, “There is only a half-step difference between the champions and those who finish on the bottom. And much of that half-step is mental.” Christ wants His followers to choose an amazing and exceptional walk with Him, and to be a world changing Christian, a beyond the ordinary servant! Christ needs you today! Purchase this book at Amazon books.

                                   My Personal Testimony

 

      I came from a dysfunctional family. My father was an alcoholic and because of that, my character and direction in life would be set for the next 30 years. There are not many childhood memories in my life that are pleasant. These experiences reflect how I related to God after my salvation. I will share a few major episodes that solidified my thinking. I remember one Christmas morning. I had received a "Roy Rogers ranch set". I was so proud of that toy. My father was terribly sick from a drunk and vomited all over it, stomped it, and cursed my mother when she came to my defense. He wounded my spirit, and hardness began to build within me. This was the start of my wrong understanding of relating to others.

     The next circumstance happened when I was five years old. My father worked on cars in the back yard. He cleaned parts with gasoline, which he stored in a large can. I was playing with matches. A gas can exploded catching my pants leg on fire. It burned my leg so badly that the doctors said I might not walk again. After many surgeries and the care of a loving mother, I was able to walk. It left me with two scars. It left a scar on my leg, which served as source of embarrassment. I would never wear short pants and tried desperately to hide the scar. Other kids made fun of it and called me names. This worked against whom God had created me to be, a people person. The second was my father's anger toward me, and his continuous attacks on my mother, as though she was at fault. The sinkhole formed from this was my hatred for my father, and my smothering love for my mother.

      The abuse of my mother increased, as I grew older. It was then that I turned to sports. Football was my thing but for the wrong reason. I could hit people and get away with it. I became good at hurting other kids. I had put false information of how to deal with others on my high ground. The sad thing was that I did not realize this; I was rewarded with a reputation and trophies that followed me on into high school. My father never supported me in sports, but my mother was always there. She would ride the public transportation to the games to watch me play. Again, she was standing in the gap for me. I later learned the toll it took on her.

      It was during this period that I first heard of a Savior. It was at Vacation Bible School. I remember that for a summer I really tried to be close to Christ. I did not know how to call upon Him, but I enjoyed the peace I felt when thinking of Him. The experience ended late that summer on a Friday evening. My brother and I were camping out in the backyard to get away from the gambling party my father had started. He became abusive to my mother. He cursed and slapped her several times. I had my rifle with me. I aimed it at him from the backyard fully intending to kill him if he struck her one more time. He did not, but the trauma of that night ended my short longing for God. If there was a God, he sure was not interested in me. Again, my actions deepen the sinkhole of not knowing how to relate to a father, which would carry over into my relationships with other people.

     The next few years took their price on my mother. She had several breakdowns, and underwent shock therapy. I remember her sitting at the kitchen window at night crying for hours. I felt helpless to do anything about it, but I knew she was my lifeline. I realize this is my trait of empathy, and desiring to have things happen in harmony. However, at that time I thought of it as a weakness. Everything I did in sports or school was to make her proud of me. She accepted me and I know she loved me. Again, this strengthened wrong skills for relationships.

     Then, one day I could not find her in the house. I knew she went next door a lot, so I went over to see if she was there. I found her in bed with our neighbor. My world, as I knew it, ended that moment. We never talked about it. I ran from the place and any close relationships from that time forward.                                     

     Soon after that, she and I fought one morning before school. She wanted me to go with her to my uncle's farm. It was in the fall of the year and in the middle of football season. I refused to go and made the statement "to do whatever she wanted because that's what people do."  I remember her standing at the front door as I boarded the school bus. She had a look on her face that I cannot explain, but I felt in my heart that I would never see her again. I wanted to get off the bus to say, " I love you." She had hurt me, so I was determined to hurt her.  That afternoon the neighbor's wife pulled me out of the locker-room, and she told me my mother had committed suicide by lying down in front of a train. My environment had so hardened me that I did not cry or show any emotion during that whole time or for the next 15 years. I was 15 years old. I had no trust in my father, and my trust in my mother was destroyed. I found myself very angry, and not wanting any relationships with people. This is opposite of my personality. I like and need people.

     The next year I spent in utter rage. I was in fistfights and worse. Finally, the school suspended me, and I joined the Marine Corps. Time does permit an explanation of this period in my life except to say I turned hateful and developed the attitude that, "I would hurt you before you could hurt me." I now know I had developed a desire to excel in everything, because it was my source of belonging. 

     While in Viet Nam I learned I had a license to kill. It was an awful time. I was wounded three times, and decorated for valor. During this time, the sinkholes of my life matured into a "seek and destroy" mentality. I came out of the Marines and played pro football for two years. After that, I raced cars on the NASCAR circuit, but all the time I was trying to fill a void in my heart.  I buried my feelings, shame, guilt and frustrations of life. I was so angry. I would hunt just so I could kill something. The Bible says, "the wages of sin is death." I was dying from the forces of the Outside-In Dynamic. I knew it, but I was powerless to do anything about it. I needed an Inside-Out miracle. Satan had a hold on me, and I did not even know it. The Bible says, "And you he has made alive, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of our flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others." Jesus gave me my miracle. He saved me.

      The Holy Spirit used my daughter. She prayed and begged me to go to church in the early part of 1980. II Peter 3:9 says, "The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some count slackness, but is long suffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance." During the same time, the Holy Spirit brought a man named Buddy Frie into our community. He started a Bible study at our local Methodist church. I had wrecked my short track car at South Boston Raceway, and we were just finishing my super speedway car for the race at Charlotte. My daughter was so persistent. I went to church to please her. Mr. Frie was teaching verse by verse, through the Gospel of John. The word of God pierced my soul. It had a drawing power. I fought it and refused to give in, but the Holy Spirit applied the Word to the very center of my heart. The Bible says, "For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intends of the heart." "And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to myself."

     The Bible was new to me. I knew no verses, including John 3:16, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life." I felt my world and the walls of protection I had built around myself were falling down. I was frightened and confused. The Bible challenged my philosophy about my existence. My concept of who I was had been challenged, and I did not like it. The Word of God started to take the high ground in my life. Now, I know the Bible says, "For faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God." Godly sorrow and shame began to build because of my sin. The void in my heart seemed to increase. Though I did not know it at time, God's desire for me to bear His image was being impressed upon my mind. Nothing I did relieved the pressure. Racing challenges increased. My family was moving on without me, and I was about to lose my job.

     On March 30, 1980, I fully intended to stay home. It was Sunday and Jesus had taken all my defenses away. I did not want to surrender my high ground, just to have it fail again. Nevertheless, I went. to church. Mr. Frie was preaching that Sunday in the absence of the pastor. He spoke on love, taking his text from I Corinthians 13. It broke my will. The invitation came, and I stood frozen in place. My knuckles turned white from gripping the back of the pew in from of me. I felt the power of my past trying to keep me. Then, within my spirit, I sensed a calling to come to Christ. It was as if Jesus would not bother me gain if I hardened my heart one more time. That was the most fear I had ever known because, by this time, I knew He was the Son of God. The Bible teaches Jesus had come into the world to provide salvation to all that call on him. The Bible says, "For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved."

      I received Jesus Christ that day. I cannot explain what happen to me nor would I try. It is so personal that only my Lord and I understand. However, I will say the penalty and burden on my sin left me.  I saw the weight of my sin leave my body and fly through the wall of that church, and it became as far from me as "the east is from the west." I knew that the Holy Spirit had grabbed all my garbage, and pushed it under the waterfall of God's love. The Holy Spirit in a moment in time had changed my desire. He brought me to the place of my creation, and began a new work in me. My conversion to Christ totally changed me. I never raced again, and my hate for people turned to love for them immediately. However, my relating skills were awful. The past influenced me for a long as I battled my old nature. I tried to draw upon the witness of the Holy Spirit, and my conversion experience when I faced those sinkholes of life. I am learning that God is able! II Corinthians 5:17 picture this, "Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are becoming new."

     My former wife is deceased, and I am re-married. My wife and I live in the Roanoke area where I have pastored a church for 23 years..

 

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"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life (John 3:16)."

Dr. Phil Ayers - Supply, Evangelist/Bible Conference Speaker

164 Chelsea Dr.

Roanoke, VA 24019 

(540) 309-1908