Dennis Jernigan is a living example of a fresh start. He willingly lives, composes, sings, and retells his story for literally thousands and even millions of people. If you haven’t heard his testimony, find one of the websites or a book listed at the end of this entry…they tell it much better than I can write about it here. Look at one of his songs, “Nobody Fills My Heart Like Jesus”, with me for a few minutes, and his life experience and how he has reacted to God’s influence jumps, and even dances right off the music score.
He cannot help celebrating God’s mercy and grace. It’s a message that we can take to others whom our culture misleads, to people trapped in lifestyles that our holy and compassionate God can help them escape. Do you know someone, maybe even several people, who need that, people who feel hopeless? Read just a little of Jernigan’s story here, and pass it along.
Dennis Jernigan came out of a life of homosexuality in 1981 when he graduated from Oklahoma Baptist University (OBU), a graduation in his life in more than one way. Although raised as a churchgoer , and schooled by his grandmother to play the piano – a skill which he honed at the church – Jernigan says he had became unbalanced in trying to please everyone, including his own father. He felt rejected by his father, which Jernigan says was the root of his gay lifestyle, even though his father’s (and his mother’s also) actions were not unlike most other parents of the time. Jernigan’s escape from homosexuality began shortly after his OBU graduation, when he went to a concert by the group Second Chapter of Acts. Jernigan was attracted to the group’s message, which he says was more genuine than what he had seen in other Christian entertainers. The group’s message was that God is real, and that He can lift burdens, even those we haven’t shared with another soul. Perhaps it shouldn’t have surprised Jernigan – after all, he was a musician - but the music’s words articulated something that he wanted deeply - - God’s love and hope. Other events turned Jernigan’s life around, in fact 180 degrees around (see the websites or books below), so that today Dennis and Melinda (his wife) have been married for 26 years and have nine children.
Dennis Jernigan could have believed our culture’s lie, that homosexuality is OK, that God made him that way. Instead, Jernigan is now one of the most vivid examples of God’s power to change a distorted life into a fruitful, exuberant existence. “Nobody Fills My Heart Like Jesus”, written in 1991, was one of Jernigan’s first songs in a recording career that was launched the same year with his first two albums. The song’s first few words ‘..from the start…’ hint that Jernigan was still celebrating his emergence into a new life. Although the precise origin of the song is not known, its words underscore his feelings of redemption about which he writes and speaks freely. His book Giant Killers echoes what we sing in the chorus-refrain, when he writes ‘Relationship with God fills our hearts and precludes relationship with any evil…’ (p. 134). It’s a very personal statement Jernigan makes in the song’s 2nd verse, which he also expresses in Giant Killers, proclaiming that God loves us even when we’re wrong, and that we can cry out to him, calling upon him and asking to hear what he says about us (p. 111).
Other Jernigan songs communicate the message about his life reversal, and now celebration, too, so there may be other stories are out there to discover. Looking back, it might seem that even while Dennis Jernigan was in bondage, the Lord was preparing him to spread a message. That’s hope for even the hopeless, a place where Dennis Jernigan saw himself once.
Information on Dennis Jernigan obtained from the following: websites: http://www.dennisjernigan.com/
http://www.okbu.edu/news/2006-10-27/dennis-jernigan-speaks-at-obu-beyond-the-hill-chapel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Jernigan
books: Giant Killers: Crushing Strongholds , Securing Freedom in Your Life, by Dennis Jernigan. WaterBrook Press, 2005. The Complete Book of Hymns: Inspiring Stories About 600 Hymns and Praise Songs, by William J. and Ardythe Petersen, Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 2006.
He cannot help celebrating God’s mercy and grace. It’s a message that we can take to others whom our culture misleads, to people trapped in lifestyles that our holy and compassionate God can help them escape. Do you know someone, maybe even several people, who need that, people who feel hopeless? Read just a little of Jernigan’s story here, and pass it along.
Dennis Jernigan came out of a life of homosexuality in 1981 when he graduated from Oklahoma Baptist University (OBU), a graduation in his life in more than one way. Although raised as a churchgoer , and schooled by his grandmother to play the piano – a skill which he honed at the church – Jernigan says he had became unbalanced in trying to please everyone, including his own father. He felt rejected by his father, which Jernigan says was the root of his gay lifestyle, even though his father’s (and his mother’s also) actions were not unlike most other parents of the time. Jernigan’s escape from homosexuality began shortly after his OBU graduation, when he went to a concert by the group Second Chapter of Acts. Jernigan was attracted to the group’s message, which he says was more genuine than what he had seen in other Christian entertainers. The group’s message was that God is real, and that He can lift burdens, even those we haven’t shared with another soul. Perhaps it shouldn’t have surprised Jernigan – after all, he was a musician - but the music’s words articulated something that he wanted deeply - - God’s love and hope. Other events turned Jernigan’s life around, in fact 180 degrees around (see the websites or books below), so that today Dennis and Melinda (his wife) have been married for 26 years and have nine children.
Dennis Jernigan could have believed our culture’s lie, that homosexuality is OK, that God made him that way. Instead, Jernigan is now one of the most vivid examples of God’s power to change a distorted life into a fruitful, exuberant existence. “Nobody Fills My Heart Like Jesus”, written in 1991, was one of Jernigan’s first songs in a recording career that was launched the same year with his first two albums. The song’s first few words ‘..from the start…’ hint that Jernigan was still celebrating his emergence into a new life. Although the precise origin of the song is not known, its words underscore his feelings of redemption about which he writes and speaks freely. His book Giant Killers echoes what we sing in the chorus-refrain, when he writes ‘Relationship with God fills our hearts and precludes relationship with any evil…’ (p. 134). It’s a very personal statement Jernigan makes in the song’s 2nd verse, which he also expresses in Giant Killers, proclaiming that God loves us even when we’re wrong, and that we can cry out to him, calling upon him and asking to hear what he says about us (p. 111).
Other Jernigan songs communicate the message about his life reversal, and now celebration, too, so there may be other stories are out there to discover. Looking back, it might seem that even while Dennis Jernigan was in bondage, the Lord was preparing him to spread a message. That’s hope for even the hopeless, a place where Dennis Jernigan saw himself once.
Information on Dennis Jernigan obtained from the following: websites: http://www.dennisjernigan.com/
http://www.okbu.edu/news/2006-10-27/dennis-jernigan-speaks-at-obu-beyond-the-hill-chapel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Jernigan
books: Giant Killers: Crushing Strongholds , Securing Freedom in Your Life, by Dennis Jernigan. WaterBrook Press, 2005. The Complete Book of Hymns: Inspiring Stories About 600 Hymns and Praise Songs, by William J. and Ardythe Petersen, Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 2006.
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