Ruby Novotny

I thank God for this marvelous Gospel that ever reached my heart, and for what He has done for me over the years. God dealt mightily with my heart after I tried to serve Him in my own strength for three years. He saw the earnestness in my heart and led me into contact with the Gospel. He sent a friend to me with an Apostolic Faith paper. When I read that paper, God began to talk to my heart.

I had been going to a prominent local church, but there was dissension in that church. I knew that there shouldn’t be. Something just kept saying to my heart, “Surely Christians should get along.” So I hurried away from that church.

Then, I was invited to some cottage meetings being held by the Apostolic Faith people in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I went and heard things that I had never heard before. God spoke to me and said, “These are My people, and this is what you want and where you ought to be.”

Evidently, I was not a very good prospect for the Gospel because one young man said, “She will never take the way.” He did not know that God had been talking to my heart for some time already. I knew there would be a price to pay, and there would be many things I would have to give up, but I thank God that He gave me the grace to do it.

I just marvel how the love of God found a way to bring me into the Gospel and among His people. The people of God mean so much to me. I thank God He ever sent a band of these Apostolic Faith people back to Oklahoma. There they lifted up the standard. They were praying that God would bring hungry hearts into those services, and my heart was truly hungry for God.

I went to the meeting and heard the people testify with such power. The glory of God was on their faces. I knew they had real salvation down in their souls. God planted such a desire in my heart to know that I was right with Him. At one time I had thought I was saved because there had been a certain change in me, but I really didn’t have that born-again experience. I tossed away the cloak of religion that evening, for I knew in my heart that I didn’t have what these people of God were talking about.

When I sought the Lord as these people of God told me, He gave me the same spiritual experiences He had given them. I humbled myself before Him that night. I prayed an honest prayer, and the Lord heard that prayer. I knew when the Blood of Jesus was applied to my heart, and I can take you to the very place where it happened. Such joy and peace flooded my soul! The Lord made a change on the inside and on the outside. I didn’t have to shake a preacher’s hand and have him tell me that I was right with God; I had the witness down in my heart that I was right with the Lord.

In a moment of time, God broke the fetters that had me bound. He changed my wardrobe completely when I became a Christian. I didn’t have much to wear for a while because I no longer wanted to wear the immodest dresses and jewelry that I had been wearing. I no longer wanted to go to the dances and picture shows. I no longer wanted to participate in the worldly amusements that I had loved before. God delivered me from the lusts of the world. I was seeking for something that would satisfy my heart, and that is what He gave me. I’m sure the Lord talks to the hearts of others as He did to me.

I thank God for a people who uphold the standard of the Word of God; I love it with all my heart.