Rodney Radcliffe

Profession: Business Consultant

A HOLIDAY ENCOUNTER!

After being instructed in my personnel role to bring the sales force of a well known multi-national up to required levels through UK interviews the American owners announced shortly afterwards that we needed to cut our staffing levels. My motivations for starting a personnel management career were shaken. I took a charter holiday in Elba to get away from it all. On the beaches I met attractive girls who invited me to join them for morning bible studies and coffee. This was not on my agenda and I politely declined, though I kept their company! On returning to the UK they invited me to week-ends away to explore their faith. Disillusioned by my work experience, attracted by the girls and questioning life I succumbed to their invitations. Those I met seemed so peaceful and happy. The speaker showed how God was not able to hear my prayers until I acknowledged Christ as my Saviour and Lord with a commitment to follow him. He pointed me to Isaiah 59 verse 2 which says ‘ my sins (passed down from Adam) have separated me from God and he cannot hear me ‘ and Rev Chapter 3.verse 20 ‘ Behold Christ stands at the door of my heart and knocks, if I open the door of my heart to him he will come in. I needed the preacher said to acknowledge that Christ has paid the price of my sin as shown in Romans Chapter 6 verse 23. ‘ For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord ‘. Some six month later, having reached a point of conviction and surrender, I confessed my sins, invited Jesus to come into my heart, to be Lord of my life and I experienced conversion.

JESUS MAKES THE DIFFERENCE

With only very limited academic success at school I was particularly conscious of my personal limitations which caused me to feel inferior to others. But I remembered a verse my father, who tragically died of an accident when I was sixteen, gave me at my school confirmation ‘ I can do all things in him who strengthens me ‘ in Philippians Chapter 4 verse 13. No longer did I feel in awe of those with greater capacities and abilities around me. Practically I found new inspiration and ability for the company magazine I edited and for the tasks I had to tackle.  My work has since involved personnel management roles in the North and South of the country, including overseas responsibilities, top consulting in London, training and lecturing in London business schools. Often I have found that at the end of my own resources, situations have turned round for best results to be achieved with God’s help.

ALL OUR NEEDS ARE MET

Three years after my conversion I encountered young Christian people with a power and freedom in their lives that I had not yet experienced. They said they had experienced a Baptism in the Holy Spirit as shown in Acts chapter 1 verse 8. I knew I needed this baptism and received within a week after prayer from another. Through my overseas trips and the Full Gospel Business Men’s Fellowship I have been privileged to witness healings and life transformations of all kinds, including through young teenagers immediately following conversion.  I left my full time employment in 1979 and all my needs have been met since. At 40 I married Judy and God gave us a son Timothy who married Lucy. They are both Christians, seeking to practically apply their faith, and are supporting a new start for an FGBMFI chapter in Guildford, Surrey.  In 1997  I was told I would need a heart bye-pass operation after six months of tests. The consultant decided to delay the operation . I have not had the operation and 11 years later I feel fit and well. Two years ago I had an emergency prostate operation . With prayer before after the 4.30pm operation  I was back home at 8.30pm without any pain or complications following. We thank God for our house and for the ways all our needs have been met in far greater ways than we thought possible.

FAITH ESTABLISHED

After my conversion I went on to read the book of Isaiah chapter 53 in which it most accurately describes Jesus,  the Saviour who was to come, and how in verse 10 it says He would made an offering for sin. In Micah Chapter 5 verse 2  I read his prophesy that a Saviour would be born in Bethlehem. These books have been historically validated. How were the prophets able to speak forth so accurately ahead of time about the coming of Jesus ? My faith was further established seeing even more clearly that the bible is truly the Word of God. Ephesians Chapter 2 verse told me that faith is a gift of grace, not of works lest any man should boast. I thank God for his saving grace made possible through Jesus’s death and resurrection for you and for me, that He truly is ‘ the Way, the Truth and the Life ‘ as I found in the gospel of John chapter 14 verse 6 and that  no one can come to the Father but through him, who has paid the price of my sin!