Fortunately, Josh has chosen the latter.<\/em> And w<\/em>ith his awesome testimony, along with the many battle scars from his victories, there’s no doubt that this brother will inspire countless others who are experiencing similar circumstances.<\/em><\/p>\n Chief Editor~ Ricky Jean<\/em><\/p>\n Ricky: Tell me a little about yourself. Where did you grow up, stage in life, working, going to school, are you from DFW originally?<\/p>\n Josh: My name is Joshua Chintapali. I\u2019m twenty seven years old. My birthday is on 10\/17\/1994. I\u2019m a disciple of Jesus Christ and my Spirthday is on 7\/11\/2021 . I was born in Dallas, TX, but I grew up in Plano for most of my life. I graduated from UTD with a finance degree and I\u2019m currently looking for a Finance job right now. I\u2019m living at home with my parents in order to save money while doing everything I can to serve the Lord.<\/p>\n Ricky: What are some of your favorite hobbies and something you would consider unique about yourself?<\/p>\n Josh: My main hobby is playing video games. I have an Xbox 1. I play a lot of shooting games, fighting games, and sports games as well. My other favorite hobby is watching anime. I\u2019ve watched over one hundred different anime. I\u2019ve been watching them since I was a kid\u2013 like Dragon Ball Z, Pokemon, Yu-gi-oh, and Naruto.\u00a0<\/p>\n I also really love music. I make music. I don\u2019t really produce music that much. But I play the guitar, I sing, and I also write a lot of songs. I\u2019m a writer too; I\u2019ve published a book. It\u2019s called Hope Against Hope and I want to be a Chemical ministry leader because of what it describes about my life. I\u2019m going to start working on a new book this upcoming year (2022). My last book was about my old life, but my new book is going to be about my new life as a disciple.<\/p>\n Ricky: Tell me how you were met\/invited to Church?<\/p>\n Josh: My brother is actually the one who invited me to church. He became a disciple three months before he introduced me to the church. He came back from Houston and was like \u201cHey, what\u2019s up bro! How\u2019s your life going?\u201d And I was like, \u201cI\u2019m doing great.\u201d I was with my Ex Fiance at the time. Then he told me about the church and how it was different. Then he invited me out.<\/p>\n That night he came home around ten, and we just talked for a few hours about our lives. I was telling him about what I was going through, and then he got open with me as well. We got really close\u2013 which inspired me all the more to go and check out the ICC church. When I got there everyone was very friendly, and that impressed me right away. After that men\u2019s midweek service I started studying the Bible\u2013 and the rest is history.<\/p>\n Ricky: Describe your relationship with God prior to studying The Bible and how it has changed?\u00a0<\/p>\n Josh: I was actually on the opposite end of the spectrum. My relationship with God was negative. I was listening to death metal, I was borderline satanic, but not really. Because I wasn\u2019t worshipping Satan. I did a lot of drugs and alcohol. One time I overdosed and felt like I went to hell, and then I started to believe it was my destiny to end up there. I knew there was a God, but I had a false perception of who he was.<\/p>\n I only knew about the \u201cjudgmental\u201d God. He judges you and your life, and he doesn\u2019t actually love you. I didn\u2019t love God for most of my life, but whenever I went to the ICC church\u2013 I saw how the scriptures actually came from the Bible, that made me do a complete 180. Now I\u2019m in love with God.<\/p>\n Ricky: What are some of your favorite scriptures and why?<\/p>\n Josh: Definitely Psalms 34:2 \u201cMy soul shall\u00a0 make his boast in the Lord: the humble shall hear and be glad.\u201d I said that as part of my testimony when I got baptized in the DFWICC. My dad actually made my brother and I memorize that scripture when we were kids, along with several other chapters in Psalms. But I always favored that particular chapter because of how much I love the Lord, and I feel that it perfectly encapsulates that.<\/p>\n The other scripture that I love is Ephesians 6; about the full armor of God, it urges me to read my Bible and pray so I can be ready for war like a true soldier. I like to think of myself like a Viking and I like to imagine being in battle against the enemy. Which leads me to another scripture in Matthew 28, it talks about making disciples of all nations.<\/p>\n I like that scripture a lot because it\u2019s like our creed in the church, it\u2019s our mission to go out and make disciples. Saving souls is such a wonderful thing, it gives us a purpose in life. That\u2019s what keeps me going now because beforehand\u2013 I used to lack purpose.\u00a0<\/p>\n Ricky: What advice would you give someone who has started studying the Bible or is considering it?<\/p>\n Josh: Don\u2019t doubt what you can do, don\u2019t think that studying the Bible is a hard thing to do. Just because you\u2019re being challenged to spend more time in your devotions, or that you\u2019re being called to attend meetings of the body (church), and they\u2019re asking you to share your faith with people. Don\u2019t be scared of that. Get out of your comfort zone.\u00a0<\/p>\n I believe it was our lead Evangelist Fernando Chavez who said: be comfortable with the uncomfortable. People love this idea of comfortability, and it\u2019s really empowering to get out of ourselves in order to follow God\u2019s words. The norm now-a-days is not to follow the norm, but they don\u2019t realize that\u2019s still being comfortable; but being a disciple is truly the most uncomfortable thing you can do in your life.<\/p>\n I think its awesome to witness how much our lives can change when we study the Bible, and apply it to our lives.\u00a0<\/p>\n Ricky: What do you love about the Kingdom?<\/p>\n Josh: Definitely the people and being around people that love God as much as I do. In my old life I was always around people that loved drugs and alcohol as much as I did. But now it\u2019s the exact opposite. Now I’m around people who want to go to the same place in the afterlife, and being able to know I\u2019m going to see these people for the rest of eternity is amazing. We all have a common goal\u2013 which is to spur each other on towards love and good deeds.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Birth by Fire When we go through hardships in life, we are often only presented with two choices: give up or persevere. Fortunately, Josh has chosen the latter. And with his awesome testimony, along with the many battle scars from his victories, there’s no doubt that this brother will inspire countless others who are experiencing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":36083,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"single-fullwidth.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[102],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog-post"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/tribechurches.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/IMG_1998-300x300.jpg\")
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