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Hello Fellow Believers,

I will not bore you with my life story (again) because if you want to see it please visit my website @ Lightship Ministries.Org or my Pastors.Com Profile.

I am posting this page as a living testimony to knowing Jesus Christ on this side of our existence, because I have been dead shortly and Christ is the same God of our lives here on earth, as when we are dead!

The Bible teaches us He will never leave you, nor forsake you, once we have Salvation in Him. And this is certainly true, as I am about to explain in some of my testimonies.

You may or may not believe me, but I found it much easier knowing Jesus Christ when I died than was I was alive... Why; because when we are dead we can see Him, feel Him, and experience Him!  However, when we are alive in our physical bodies (earthly; being made of earth) we are trapped in these tents, and normally must rely on faith more so than personal experiences.

I have been fortunate in my walk with Christ, in that I was raised up in a solid Bible believing family; but was enough of a rebel to demand that Christ himself would reveal himself to me in my life!                                                                                                                                                 What nerve some may feel, that I would dare put a challenge to God like this, but that is who I was.

Although well taught doctrines on how I should live the Christian life, I always wanted more of Christ Himself than what somebody else taught me about Him.

I will interject here: That the Lord used my experiences and teachings while involved in “street ministry” from 1983-1989 under Pastor Michael W. Gross D.D., Th.D., Ph.D. to build on what I had learned as a child and young adult. I do not wish to be offensive to those that are certainly much more educated than me.

But I must say however, that I believe I learned more on the streets, than by any amount of book knowledge could have ever taught me.                 

I always wanted to attend Seminary in my life, and must confess that I struggle with my lack of formal education, because this is what my family and our society today deeply stress in being successful; and to be completely honest I see it in the Church as well.

Well if you have gotten past reading the prior paragraph, than I will continue working backwards from my Near Death Experience (NDE) to explaining my more difficult task in knowing the Lord as I live and breath.

On exactly my 20 years of Military training, my heart decided to stop while undertaking Water Survival Training at Ft., MD. A Warrant Officer CW4 Gunport, and my Commander immediately called in the Post Paramedics. These men were prior coworkers of my brother, now working at the National Navel Medical Center. These events would later be completely documented, and even submitted to Senator John McCain’s office, for some much needed assistance with Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Meade

Just before my heart stopped I pleaded with God to let me live, I was worried about my wife and my only desire was to tell the world about what Christ had done for me in my life! When my heart stopped; I could first feel and see an image of Christ lying next to me shoulder to shoulder! (Please take note of this sentence.)

As I regained consciousness it was as if I were under the Street, it was completely black and noise was all I sense.  Than it appeared to me as if someone was slowly sliding open a “manhole” cover above me. I could see the Paramedics faces looking down on me as they worked, than my total consciousnesses returned. On the way to the hospital my ambulance became stuck in traffic, I knew this was not good but only wished I could see outside so I would know where I was.

Moments later, I was floating above my ambulance looking down at it racing towards me in slow motion. I was struck by the perfect clarity, and complete sharpness of mind I was experiencing, and have never remembered being in such a good mood! I had forgotten nothing about my life, and knew it was my ambulance I was seeing. Yet this time no sound was present, only peace and happiness existed all around me. I was not expected to survive the night, and my poor wife was escorted out from behind my door, where she was hiding.

About a week later, I had another episode of a clog developing in my heart where the stent had been placed. I remember an African American nurse telling me: (Mr. Dell, the Enemy knows who you are, but this will not stop what the Lord has planned for you!) I had prayed this prayer the week before in the privacy of my car, knowing that Paul and Silos were known to Satan, but the rest of the Church was so ineffective in there walk with our Lord, that the Enemy never bothered with them.

I also remember hearing a sermon on the radio that week, about how no one knows how long they have to live!

Now working backwards: 

In 1999 one night in our old farmhouse, the Lord gave me a “Technicolor” vision of a heart beating with rich green grass about a year after my marriage. The next day early Pastor Alistair Beg was preaching on the radio about his Father, a Shepherd in Scotland. Pastor Beg explained that the word “Pastor” is derived from the word “Pasture” and that is only God who gives a man a “Pastor’s Heart”! It was than that I understood the meaning of my vision... But wait; (and I hope you remember the paragraph I wrote about Christ being next to me in death) well, that same image was sitting next to me that day in the car, only I hardly paid any attention to it! This is because most people are taught not to pay attention to shadows, images or light out of the corner of their eyes!

But, Like the Bible teaches us; the Spiritual World is all around us constantly, but we are so conditioned to living in a physical state (and with good reason, I might add) that we never hardly ever pay attention.

This is why undistracted private prayer with our Lord is so important, and we must deny our flesh when we really intend to fellowship with God. This is the one of the reasons fasting is important in prayer.

Not as some pious ritual or in trying to please God, but it is because we must work hard in prayer to get past our own “natural man”!

By grace we are saved, and we will continue to be Saved; but “walking in the Spirit” and not in the flesh takes discipline, not intellectual understanding, or simply “spiritual emotionalism” but real discipline in Christ.

When we can do this, and stop leaning to our own understandings (or what men think). Than we will all start having a closer relationship with our Lord and Redeemer.

I pray the Lord will bless your understanding, of what I have written.

In Humility, Roland Dell USA (Ret.)