My Testimony

My journey has been a testimony to the ever-increasing grace of the Lord Jesus Christ—grace that rescued me, disciplined me, formed me, sustained me, and continually called me beyond the limitations of the old life into the stature of Christ within.

From 1999–2001, I completed twenty-two months at Teen Challenge. Those years became a foundation of transformation. I learned that grace does not merely comfort us—it teaches us, strengthens us, and empowers us to walk in obedience, endurance, discipline, and excellence.

That formation continued through five years of Bible College, where I studied Pastoral Studies with a minor in Bible and graduated in 2006 with a 3.4 GPA. What began as deliverance was becoming discipleship; what began as survival was becoming preparation for ministry.

From 2006–2008, I spent eighteen months serving in inner-city missions on the front lines of the heroin epidemic. There, faith could not remain theoretical. I encountered brokenness, addiction, desperation, spiritual hunger, and the tremendous need for the living presence of Jesus Christ. Grace had to become something more than a doctrine—it had to become life manifested through a human vessel.

Then, in 2008, revival broke out.

A new dimension of ministry began to emerge, and with it came an increasing grace for preaching, teaching, media, and broadcasting. What started in small places continued to expand through the years into the work that is now RLM TV and Red Letter Ministries.

Yet I do not believe the story is ultimately about what I have accomplished. It is about what Jesus Christ has progressively formed within me.

The deepest revelation of my journey has become the mystery of the First Adam and the Last Adam—the nefesh and the Ruach. Christianity is not the rehabilitation of fallen Adam. It is the manifestation of another Life. The Last Adam, Christ, is the Life-Giving Ruach, and the Christian journey is one of yielding increasingly to His government, His nature, His grace, and His life within.

I believe there is still greater grace.

Greater grace for greater transformation.
Greater grace for greater obedience.
Greater grace for greater glory.
Greater grace until Christ is formed in His people in spiritual maturity.

The journey requires endurance. It requires obedience. It requires the perfecting of faith. It requires excellence and continual surrender. Above all, it requires an ever-deepening dependence upon the One who is greater than everything belonging to the fallen world.

I believe the divine life God has placed within His people is greater than the animal shadows of fallen nefesh. Darkness is not greater than His light. Death is not greater than His life. The First Adam is not greater than the Last Adam.

Christ within remains the hope of glory.

My testimony, therefore, is still being written.

From deliverance,
to discipleship,
to preparation,
to the mission field,
to revival,
to broadcasting,
to the revelation of Christ within—

it has been grace upon grace.

And my prayer for everyone reached through this ministry is that the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ would continue to increase within your spirit; that your inner person would be strengthened by His Ruach; that everything belonging to the old creation would increasingly yield to His life; and that you would grow into the fullness of the spiritual stature God has appointed for His sons and daughters.

May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ grow mightily within your spirit.

Amen.

— Brandon Barthrop
RLM TV | Red Letter Ministries
www.RLM.TV