Finding the Path to God

By T. Montisé Peterson

In this book I share my personal testimony of how I was born, raised and baptized as one of Jehovahs Witnesses. I spent my entire youth going door to door, conducting Bible studies, converting people to the Jehovah Witness faith. I served at various Kingdom Halls and even helped build Kingdom Halls. As one of Jehovahs Witnesses, I was happy and believed I had the truth until I was literally Tapped on the Shoulder by God, told to leave the Kingdom Hall and I started down The Path He paved for me.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Mar 10, 2018
• ISBN: 9781504970730

T. Montisé Peterson

Montis Peterson is an entrepreneur and business owner considered by many to be a modern day renaissance man. He is an accomplished professional musician and magician and has performed across the U.S. and Internationally. He has earned four black belts and holds the rank of Grand Master Professor. Montis is a public speaker and has taught Bible classes, served as a Sunday school teacher, youth minister and has inspired and mentored both teenagers and adults. The Lord has also used him to bring many former Jehovahs Witnesses to a new life with Christ and he is also teaching many others how to find their spiritual Path. Montis currently resides in Michigan with his wife and four children.

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© 2016 T. Montisé Peterson. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 03/07/2018

ISBN: 978-1-5049-7072-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5049-7071-6 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5049-7073-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015921229

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Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

The Three Wise Men

Preface

Chapter 1 - Childhood

College Years

Chapter 2 - Road to Damascus

Chapter 3 - Tapped On The Shoulder

You don’t belong here!

Father

Ask, Seek, Knock

Chapter 4 - Spreading the Good News

Trial of Apostasy

My Disassociation Letter

Chapter 5 - Straying from the Path

Off the Path

Chapter 6 - Dark Path

The Discipline of God

Samson and Delilah

Chapter 7 - The Path Out

The Power to Choose

Chapter 8 - Ordered Path

Jonah and the Big Fish

My Prayer of Reconciliation

My Revelation

Understanding the Revelation

Chapter 9 - Religion vs. Relationship

Chapter 10 - Learning to Walk Your Path

The Five Excuses of Moses

Power of the Holy Spirit

Led By Holy Spirit

Learning to Be Still

Chapter 11 - My Path

Acknowledgments

I would first and foremost like to thank my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, for the favor, mercy, and grace He has blessed me with. He has been with me since childhood, and when I strayed from the Path he paved for me, He made a way back for me. I praise and thank Him for showing me the image He has of me—an image of righteousness after being washed clean by the blood of Christ. I thank You, Lord, for the inspiration to write this book to share my life story with others.

To my beautiful wife, Kristen: I thank you for loving me and being my support system. I look forward to the future God has paved for us and I also look forward to loving you in the same way Christ loves me. As we learn to pray and grow together, I know there is nothing we can’t accomplish.

To my children, Norielle and Rylan: I am so proud of you guys and love you more than anything in this world. In both of you I see the Greatest Part of Me, and nothing will ever take your place. You guys are the greatest blessing I have ever received and I love you both dearly. To my new daughters, Jailyn and Paige, thank you for allowing me to be your dad. I love you and look forward to the future.

To my friends Elena, Richard, and Dave: You guys have stood by me through some of the most difficult times in my life. I value and appreciate our friendships very much. I will always love you. To my family who have stood by me and loved me despite my flaws, I thank and love you all.

I want to thank my mother for being a strong single parent who imparted that same strength to me and my siblings. She has always been my biggest fan and supporter and over the years has become my confidant. I love you dearly, Mother, and I thank you for being the woman you are. To my dad, James R. Lewis: You are in God’s care now and I miss you dearly. I know you would be proud of the man I have become.

God Sent Angels

I must thank Mr. Henry Jenkins for his patience and humility. God placed him on my Path to show me the true humanity of Christ. He was one of the best ambassadors of Christ I have ever had the pleasure knowing. Also, many thanks to Pastor Raymond Saxe, for his guidance and Biblical wisdom. Through him, I learned how to intellectually read and understand the Scriptures. Both men have gone to be with the Lord, and have left an impression on me and countless others who had the pleasure of knowing them.

Over the years, the Lord has placed many pastors, teachers, and men of God on my Path and I am thankful to them all. However, I must give a special thanks to Pastor Roscoe Belton of Middlebelt Baptist church. I thank you for teaching me, counseling me, supporting me, and for providing me a platform on which to grow and expand as a teacher of the Bible. I pray the Lord continues to cover and bless you and your family.

Pastor Karl Reid, thank you for our many conversations which have inspired me spiritually and motivated me to strive to be the man God has called me to be. You are also a great husband and father and I hope one day to be half the man you are. When I was inspired to write this book, who would have known that you would officiate my wedding and become my brother-in-law at the same time? I love you and your wife, and I am very happy to be a part of the family.

In my book, I detail my encounter with a Catholic Priest who prayed with me. I have since gone back to thank him and I learned that he is actually a Deacon at the church. So I want to thank Deacon Dan of Sacred Heart. God put you on my Path to be a blessing to me and to give me the revelation I needed to begin my renewed life with Christ.

The Three Wise Men

I must thank and acknowledge my brother, Bishop Clarence Langston. I am so proud of how the Lord has taken you, once a broken boy, and transformed you into a mighty man of God. Your church Word in Action Christian Center, is doing great things for the Kingdom of God. During some of the toughest times in my life, you were there praying for me and with me. It was through you that I first saw the power of God and the operation of the Holy Spirit. You were the first to lay hands on me, and for the first time, I felt the power of the Holy Spirit in my life. You have given great advice over the years and have had a big influence on me spiritually. So I thank and honor you, man of God, my brother, Bishop Clarence Langston.

Professor Keith Hafner, you are truly one of the wisest men I have ever known. Over the years you have offered me business, life, and spiritual advice. Your insight and understanding are only exceeded by your kind, gentle heart. It was during one of our many conversations that you shared something with me that would be the catalyst for this book. I thank you for challenging me and opening my mind to greater possibilities and for helping me receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit. I appreciate our friendship and you for being a great mentor and Man of God.

It has been an honor serving under you, Pastor Reid. You have taught me so much about new creation reality and operating in the Holy Spirit. You have also taken my belief in having a relationship with the Lord versus legalistic religion to a whole new understanding. Several concepts I have shared in this book have been made clearer to me under your tutelage. I hope I have done your teachings justice. You are an anointed man of God, and I pray God offers me a tenth of the anointment with which you have been blessed. I thank you for your epignosis and for allowing me to be a part of your quantum entanglement. It’s been enlightening.

Preface

In this book I share my personal testimony of how I was born, raised, and baptized as one of Jehovah’s Witnesses. I spent my entire youth going door to door, conducting Bible studies, converting people to the faith. I served at various Kingdom Halls and even helped build Kingdom Halls. As one of Jehovah’s Witnesses, I was happy and believed I had the truth until I was literally "Tapped on the Shoulder" by God, and told to leave the Kingdom Hall, which started me down The Path He paved for me.

On this Path, I would learn what it meant to actually have the Holy Spirit as a teacher and guide. With the guidance of the Holy Spirit, I took three years to study and learn God’s word from an academic, apologetics perspective. Apologetics being a reasoned response to justify or defend one’s beliefs. I studied everything from church history to Biblical history, both pre- and post-canonization, I did a comparative study of Bible translations, hermeneutics, the origins of dominant Christian doctrines, cults, and various religions of the world. After all the research and studying, Jesus revealed to me that while all my studies were good, what He required was for me to simply come to Him so that I may have everlasting life. With that revelation, I got down on my knees and accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior.

From that point, I was on fire for the Lord. I joined a church and taught Sunday school classes, helped teach new member classes, conducted Bible studies, and co-headed the teen ministry. I also got involved with a Jehovah’s Witness outreach program and every fourth Sunday served food to the homeless in one of Detroit’s most impoverished areas. The Lord used me to rescue many from the clutches of the Jehovah’s Witness organization, thus bringing them to Christ. As life presented its challenges, I didn’t turn to God for strength and guidance but rather leaned on my own strength and understanding. This eventually led to me straying from my Path and finding myself on a very Dark Path, a Path that lacked God’s protection and lacked the provisions God made for me.

After running from God, I found myself wandering in a proverbial wilderness for years. I experienced and saw things I was never meant to see or experience. Like Jonah, I was chastened by God, shown The Path out of the dark place I was in and led back to The Path God paved for me. A Path where my provisions were plentiful and the peace of God transcended all understanding.

Subsequently, Finding The Path to God is a detailed account of my testimony, both my failures without God and my victories with God. Through it all, I have learned many lessons and received revelations from the Lord that put me back on The Path He intended me to walk.

My prayer is that you will be as encouraged and edified by reading Finding The Path to God as I was in writing it.

1.   Childhood

Direct your children onto the right path, and when they are older, they will not leave it.

Proverbs 22:6 (NLT)

I was the oldest of three children. My mother was divorced and raising us with little to no help from my father. Interestingly enough, I can’t seem to ever remember him living with us or even the two of them being married. Maybe I was too young to grasp what was going on around me at the time, but my early memories of my father are of him living with his mother, my beloved grandmother Catherine. He lived with her until the day he died.

Before my parents divorced, my sister La’Dawn was born two years after me. One month after I was born, Clarence was born to my aunt Dorothea, my mother’s sister. When Clarence was about two or three years old, Dorothea was brutally murdered, and my mother at the age of twenty-three adopted and raised him as her own child and my brother. I never knew any different until we were older and able to understand the dynamics of our family.

My mother worked very hard and always made sure we lived well and that we had every luxury she could afford, despite being a young single parent. We lived in a nice, well-furnished home on the west side of Detroit and our home was always full of toys and nice clothes. There were times I know my mother felt guilty because we didn’t have a father in our lives, so she sometimes gave us double everything. She didn’t want us to feel as though we were lacking anything by not having a father around. One of my mother’s younger brothers wasn’t getting along with my grandfather, so he came to live with us and we were all very comfortable together.

Early on, my brother Clarence was getting into mischief and causing my mother lots of grief. He was fighting with kids in the neighborhood, sneaking out of the house, and dragging me along with him. I remember one day we sneaked out of the house and he beat up a little girl. Being a very passive child I didn’t want to participate but felt pressured to by my brother.