Well, my name is Luis West. I’m a Torres Strait Islander. I’ve been passionate about Jesus for a long time, but over the last few months, I’ve been really passionate about people knowing their identity in God, people becoming aware of who they are because that’s what’s going to help people.

I was growing up in church, but I had an understanding that I still had a sinful nature and it affected every area of my life. It affected the way I saw God. I didn’t see God as a loving father. I saw him as someone I had to please and work for. I was able to go to church on Sunday, but then still go and look up pornography and go steal from the shops, you know, with my other friends and stuff.

I’m going to have to spend the rest of my life discovering what happened on that day.

But I didn’t feel bad about it because I’m forgiven and stuff. A few months ago, me and my friends started playing with the idea, like, what if we don’t have a sinful nature? We started searching the Scriptures and Romans 6 says that the sinful nature was shattered. You know, there’s all these Scriptures saying that we’ve become righteous, and we’re pure and we’re clean and so we’re, like, let’s test it out!

So I’ve decided to believe that. And that day something happened to me and I’m going to have to spend the rest of my life discovering what happened on that day.

Like pornography. I didn’t get free from it because I tried; I got freed from it because I am free from it. It’s simple because it was so simple. I just want everyone to know who they are. I want people to know their identity. And I’ve had a glimpse of it in the last few months. Like even with Indigenous people, we just came back from community and just seeing people understand who they are. And then the fruit of it is crazy. You get people’s addictions being broken naturally, just straight up!

This guy in Adelaide, he had a knee problem, and we were praying for heaps of people at this youth event and we saw 30 healings; but on this kid, his knee just wouldn’t budge. It just wouldn’t get healed. So I just explained to him, you know, when Jesus died on the cross, he didn’t just die for your sins, [but also] your sickness, your anxiety, your depression – all of it – got nailed to the cross. So that’s why your knee can be healed. And as soon as he believed that, he knew who he was. I didn’t even pray for his knee – you could just hear it clicking back into place. Because the Bible says the truth will set you free. And that’s why I know it can work because not only have I seen it, but it’s in the Bible as well.

I caught up with him two days later and talked to him. He said, “The pain hasn’t come back since.” The next day he got to play basketball with his friends for the first time without being hospitalised. He didn’t get healed because God was in a mood and decided to heal him then. He got healed because Jesus died as a sickness 2000 years ago. So it kind of just became manifest – so simple, the gospel.

I don’t even have to pray sometimes. I can just become aware of God inside of me.

I love just reading the Bible and stuff. I can sit in my room and I don’t even have to pray sometimes. I can just become aware of God inside of me. God, there’s nothing separate here. You know, like, I’m always with God. God’s never closer or farther away. Like, I’m walking through school and sometimes I’ll just be like, “Whoa, I’ve got Jesus living inside of me.”

And it’s a beautiful thing just spending time with God. I feel his presence every day, but that’s not the best bit – just knowing who I am and what’s going on inside of me and then going out and telling people and releasing people and seeing knees get healed and neck braces come off.

I remember on the mission trip in the communities, I just started bawling my eyes out over those kids that I saw that day. And I feel His heart for them and it’s so real. So that’s what my walk with Jesus is like. It’s so fun now, you know, because I know who I am and I know my identity; life is good. You know, I’ve got God living inside of me.

I think God sees me the same way he sees Jesus; we’re able to do the same things that Jesus did. God’s love for me doesn’t change by what I do. And he sees me the same way he sees Jesus and he gives me the same stuff that he gave Jesus because he wants himself to become manifest on the earth again through us.

He sees me the same way he sees Jesus and he gives me the same stuff that he gave Jesus,

So I haven’t got bits of Jesus. I haven’t got a bit and I need to fight the flesh away to have more Jesus. I’ve got the full person of Jesus living inside of me, so we’re like one.

The truth is, and what’s gonna work, and what I’ve seen work in my life, it’s all about knowing God. And knowing who we are, our identity. I think that’s what I would say to Australia because that’s what set me free. And that’s what set a lot of my friends and a lot of people I’ve met on the streets free.

I don’t have to fight the flesh because once I make that decision with Jesus, I’m co-crucified with him and I’m risen with him. So that means dead and let’s walk in freedom. Let’s go. If we were to do that and choose to accept that we don’t have a sinful nature and know God, then all the hospitals would be clear. There’d be no sickness, there’d be total freedom. There wouldn’t be injustice. There wouldn’t be a difference between me and a white person. It would be as if Adam never ate that apple; it would just be life before the fall of man, really. That’s what we’ve been purchased back to.

I don’t have to fight the flesh because once I make that decision with Jesus, I’m co-crucified with him and I’m risen with him.

God is so good. He’s changed my life. I feel God’s love for people who don’t know him yet. And I know that God wants you. What I’d say to the younger generations in Australia is, “Don’t be condemned. You can be free from your sin. You don’t have to keep struggling to get free. You can be free and it’s so simple. All you’ve got to do is repent. You’re walking this way. You find out about Jesus. You turn around. The old person’s gone. You’re a brand new person. You’re righteous and you’re clean before your Father. And then when you do go, and when you stuff up, instead of letting it bring you down, you just confess your sins to God and say, ‘God, this is not who I am, right?’ Because you know who you are now. And then walk free.”

Watch the video of Luis West here. It’s by 40 Stories, licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.