The "Changed by Jesus" series features stories about how Jesus is working through the ministry of Mars Hill Church to change lives. If God has used Mars Hill to transform your life, email your story to testimony[at]marshillchurch.org. Alexander Banks, Australia When I first heard the gospel, my hard heart didn't accept it without a bit of a fight. As a teenager, my younger brother and I were both into violence, sex, and substance abuse. It was my brother who began to change first. After transferring to a Christian school, he met a young lady there, and after a while I started to see him change. When I met the lady who would become my brother's fiance, I began to think that perhaps there was something that I had been missing in my destructive and dissatisfying life.

Transformation from Brokenness

Because of my previous experiences with hypocritical Christians, I had turned my back on the gospel, but now I began to seek it out. I even started to watch some of those preachers on TV. During this time of searching, I began to recognize that I wasn't as great as I had once thought, and that I was seeking love in all the wrong places. I fought against this truth until I was broken; and from that place of brokenness I made some of the toughest decisions of my life. I tried to share my new realization with my girlfriend of five years, but her rejection moved me to break up with her. When I looked to my friends for support they abandoned me, and the girl I had cared about most became bitter and turned her animosity on me. These began some of the most emotionally difficult times I've ever experienced. For eight months I cried to Jesus, trusting Him, even sometimes wondering why I chose to follow Him. Through all of this, Jesus was there, picking me up, pulling me through, and giving me a hunger for scriptural truth.

New Life, New Motives

Since that time I have been single, concentrating on what God has planned for me. I have a new core group of friends, and attend a great church in Adelaide, Australia. God currently has me leading a young adults group and even some Sunday meetings. Since being saved by Jesus, I wound up giving up a construction business that I ran, I no longer booze up on weekends, and I haven't punched anyone out. I still play "Aussie Rules" (rugby), but where this had been the very picture of my attitude towards life before, now I use it as a chance to show Christ to the other players. I heard about Mars Hill by accident while looking through other podcasts. Hearing the doctrine and the passion of the preaching made me aspire to be active within my own church; that passion for the truth and for the lost has been a great blessing! By Ryan Edwards