By Michael Ashcraft –
In the very same city where he once roamed the streets barefoot, shirtless and out of his mind because of drug use, Mark Lara now pastors a church.
“I used to be on the streets, demon-possessed, without shoes, out of my mind,” Mark says. “But Jesus Christ came into my heart and set me free. He gave me my dignity back, and he gave me hope and destiny for eternity.”
His transformation through Jesus is astounding, one more piece of clinical proof that the solution to society’s ills are in a return to the Bible, not a distancing from the Bible.
Mark grew up in Barstow, CA, where he fell into drugs and alcohol. He wandered the streets, a standout dropout known of in the town of 30,000 in the Mojave Desert. He was released from jail, working a job but falling back into drugs and alcohol, when someone showed up at his door with a flyer inviting people to church.
Mark told his wife (he was doing better at that time) to save that flyer. One Sunday morning, he was hung over when his wife announced she was going to church with or without him. He decided to go 2002.
“I bowed my knee in an altar and Jesus changed my life,” Mark remarks.
By continually attending church and participating in Bible study and outreach, Mark continued improving himself until finally he was ordained pastor of the church that rescued him off the streets. It’s the Potter’s House Church of Barstow.
Mark’s testimony underscores the truth that no one is too far gone, too hopeless for Jesus to rescue and restore.
Michael Ashcraft is the editor-in-chief of Pilgrim Dispatch.
