[captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] >> for a dvd copy of this program called 877-662-- programs are also available as c-span podcast. >> next, our road to the white house coverage continues with michele bachmann. after that, mitt romney in iowa. after that come another chance to see q&a. tomorrow on "washington

journal" a look at the republican presidential campaign in iowa. the campaign chair for rick perry's campaign. a discussion about newt gingrich's campaign strategy in iowa. later, i was governor jerry ofndstadt gives a preview the caucuses. watch washington jerrold live at 7:00 a.m. eastern. now, michele bachmann at the jubliee family church service. this week, bachmann picked up the endorsement of 22 pastors. her campaign is facing troubles after her iowa campaign chairman quit and it endorsed ron paul. a day later, her political director of blood that he was leaving.

>> let's give him a big hand this morning. the former house of representatives rep. the head for the state of iowa. we are glad to have her with us. i hope i am not missing anyone. we are so glad you are all here. we are glad you were all here to hear the words of the person i believe to be a great christian person who love scott. i have gotten to meet senator bachmann. -- rep bachmann. i was able to spend some time with doctor marcus as we traveled around.

we had some injuries and did some press releases. it was a remarkable time. >> you get to meet someone who understands where we are coming from a and we are so thankful for that. i do not want to take a lot of time here, but there is something about when you have a candidate that you can speak with and the on the same page with. and you will come to your church and get your testimony. that is a great thing. let us get congresswoman bachmann a great big hand and she comes up. we are so painful. got bless you. -- we are so thankful. got bless you. [applause] >> this is the day that the

lord has made. [inaudible] we are ready and anticipating a bright new beginning for the new year. i love new beginnings. i am grateful for what we have available to us today. if you do not mind, let us go ahead and pray. turning on the power. [applause] [laughter] that is what we are going to do this morning. [applause] what you have just seen demonstrated is that it is not by human might, it is by his might.

and when you plug into the power source, there is no end to how far and wide his word and goes. [applause] because you cast your bread upon the water and it does not come back. let us go to the lord in prayer. father god almighty, i think you so much for this faith a congregation -- faithful congregation. i am thankful for the man who leads this church and for his wife who is so strong in the lord and stands behind him. father god, there is no end to you and what you do. we are limited. we are dust. we are clay. father, when you greet your breath of life in to us, that is when life comes. father, we are totally dependent upon you. we are dependent upon your word, we are dependent upon your

will. father, we trust you. we have faith in you. we know without a shadow of a doubt, father, that you keep us as your words says in the palm of your hands and there is nothing that can snatch away from your love and from your will. we invite your holy spirit to be here. we invite your holy spirit to fill every part of this building, of our lives, of our being, and lord, anyone who is watching this today, we pray as well for them. that your holy spirit will be there with them this morning. even though it is the new year, they may not feel any hope. i pray that as a result of this service today, people will feel whole. and they will know that there is hope because you are the same yesterday's comment today, and tomorrow. your will indoor plants do not come back -- and your plans do not come back.

take my words today, killed them with your spirit, let toor message come through these words this morning for your praise. for your glory. all of us join together and say as one voice, a man. amen. thank you so much for allowing us to be here today. marcuses with me. i am so grateful for him. god brought a godly man into my life. he is not only my husband, but a father to my children. i am thankful that all of you are here today. i wanted to be able to share my testimony with you and some words of encouragement that i want to give you, as well because we serve a mighty god. we serve a big dog. -- god. he is more powerful than any of

us can imagine. i think sometimes, when we look at our situation and our problems, it seems overwhelming. yet, all we have to do is open up the scripture. in fact, you do not have to go very far. you can open it up and you can take a look at the very first chapter and at the very first verse in the first chapter of the bible -- i can get to this page. i know it is there. if you look at it, you can see how great this guy is. it says, in the beginning, god created the heavens and the earth. if you have a god who is responsible for everything you see and everything that you hear and everything you touch and everything that is all of your senses, doesn't that tell you something about how great this guy is? how big this god is?

it does not say that there was a king that created this happen and this earth. does not say that it was a locksmith or that this was anyone else who created this heaven and this earth or that it was god, a multiplicity of god's that created this heaven and earth. it does not say that this just came into existence. at one point in time, there was someone who created this have been and created this earth -- have been -- heaven and this earth. he has something to say to each one of us. it is powerful for us to listen to it. that is why i am going to ask you to turn with me to rahman iii -- roman iii. the scripture is what we call

the constitution of our faith. it is the constitution, just like the american constitution is a constitution of our nation, it lays out for us what this nation is about and what this nation will accomplish. the book of romance does the same thing in the word of god. it rose -- it lays out for us what our faith is about. turn to 23. this tells us something about ourselves. it says, this righteousness from god comes through faith in jesus christ to all who believe in jesus christ. there is no difference, for all have sinned. that is every person. remember, going back to genesis i, that was the creator.

he created heaven and earth, but that means that he created everything in the earth, as well. that is all of us. all of mankind. when we talk about all, that is all of mankind. let us go back to that. there is the difference, for all have since. let me ask you, who in the service could? no one wants to go in that column? no one wants to admit it. after last night. all have sinned. everyone. everyone falls short of the glory of god. think of that. god has glory and he wants to put his glory on his creation. what are you? we are his creation? how do we know that? his word that says that we are

main in the image -- made in the image and likeness of a holy god. he created us to look like him, to reflect and, to be his messenger. why? why? he wanted us to be able to demonstrate to a world in which all have fallen short. that would be a sad letter to all of us if that was the end of the store, a but it is not. go to roman vi, verse 23. for the wages of sin -- we just heard that all of san -- sin, but what is the result?

for the wages of sin is death. that is the end result. the gift of god, there is no better promise and all of scripture than what i am about to read you right now. this is to -- the key of what our potential can be. the gift of god is present right now. not in the future, right now, today. at this moment. it is active and alive. the gift of god is this. eternal life. in who? the jesus christ. our lord. think about this. a god created this world. he created it, but something happened along the way.

as you read in the very beginning chapters of janice, as it does not take very long to see that god and his creation -- mankind sinned. they disobeyed a holy god who told them to live in this beautiful place, the garden that he created for them. live in this beautiful place, but do not do one thing. what was that? do not eat of the tree. he said, all of these magnificent trees, you can eat from except for one. what was the one tree that adam and eve could not stay away from? it was the one thatgod said, do not eat. they fell short. they disobeyed god. all of the world changed.

at this end of the san creation -- this magnificent creation. how many of you have been to the grand canyon? you have a sixth chance of earth and there is a huge gap between the strength of this and expenses. think of it. do you all remember years ago there was a tamer -- famous motorcycle rider and indeed loken evil and he was going to get on a motorcycle and do what no one else was going to do. you want to take that and to reverse a big gap. you can ask someone to jump across the grand canyon. he would say, oh, what a fool. it could never happen. he can never get across it. that is essentially what we have sinned. our personal ability to be able to get one to jump across one side of the grand canyon to another on our own feet, never going to happen. there was a way that was made

for us. when there could be no way. that way was the perfect sacrifice of jesus christ. god's son, who god became a likeness exactly like us. he came to earth just as we celebrated at christmas in a form of a bright new being. he lived a sinless life and yet it went upon the cross for one reason. to be able to make a way when there was no way. he laid himself down as a bridge from one side of, the grand canyon and became the steppingstone to a -- for us to traverse that gap.

he paid that price so we could walk on his body to get to the other side, which is eternal life. if you look at the two first chapters of the bible in the book of genesis, that is the story of god creating heaven and creating earth. if you flip to the back of the bible and you look at the final two chapters of revelation, that is when you see where god has also prepared a new heaven and a new earth. that is what roman vi talks about. a lot of times when we think about having, we think about clouds, white robes, arps, wondering how this is going to

go on for internally. is not necessarily the picture of a new year's eve, where everyone had a lot of fun last night. you think, i am not so sure this is where i want to go. take a look at what god has planned for us in eternity. we cannot even begin to think the word or imagine the scriptures. the wonderful plan that god has for us in eternity. one would want to miss what got plans for us? i want to encourage you that eternity will be a place that you do not want to miss. that is something that he has planned for us. let me give you a little good of my own personal background. i wanted to talk to you togod and how big he is and what he has done for us.

this story is a story about him. it is not a story about me. the story that i am going to give you today about me is only to be a pointer towards this great god and what he has planned for you because the story is not about me. it is about him. it is also about you and those who are watching this morning, about how you can come to him and know him. and the fulness and the abundance that he brought for every one of his creation. i was born here in iowa to a wonderful family and i am so grateful for them. i am actually a seventh -- iowan. generation i went. our family came here back in the 1860's and when my husband and i were going through a family reunion in northeast iowa, we stopped in the lutheran

church that sits across -- i can make fun of lutheran because i have been one for most of my life. there is nothing in this town except two lutheran churches. now, there is a small population. it is called turaco, iowa. baldheaded norwegians are people who engage in conversation, but have strong opinions. they had to have to churches -- two churches. we went to visit the church where our family came in the 1850's. kreuk -- created by norwegian immigrants who had come to this country. we saw my great-grandfather's grave.

we saw a lot of the lineage. that is one side of the family. inside the church, we saw a church records that demonstrated that these were faithful believers in jesus christ. they have a living prayer life. a living devotion to the word of god. the elevated holy scripture and saw that this word is what they wanted to base their lives on. after the church records and through various things in the church, -- through the church records under various things in the church, this was not going through the motions. it was something that meant something in the lives of these people and after all, it would be. our forbearers, unless you are a native american, all of us are immigrants to this country.

our forbearers that came here, did that necessarily come on luxury liners with lots of money in their pockets and with wealth and position and ability. they came here with the clothes on their backs. and just a willingness to work. that is my family's story. when they came here, they can be withheld. that is the -- they came here with hope. my family record of the story about how one winter here, and this is very unlike that, the coldest winter that everyone had remembered in iowa and the most snow. another year, the worst famine. then another year, the grasshopper's came and everything that they had planted. it was five years in a row that would turn anyone away from

coming to this land. you can see, they had to depend upon god for sustenance. that gave me such a to see that for generations, those are the parents and grandparents that god had given me. when i was a little girl, growing up in our lutheran church in waterloo, iowa, i have no shadow of a doubt that the gospel was preached from our pulpit in, , but i never heard it. it went one ear and went out the other. i remember one time thinking so clearly when i was hearing a sermon about heaven, thinking, oh, i am so glad i am lutheran because i know that i am going to happen. that is what my basis was on. my parents were in church and i could look down the row and there is my grandparents and we were lutheran so we were good to

go. check that box. it was later, when we moved away from iowa and up to minnesota, we were fairly middle-class. something happened in our family that happens to millions of families, but it had never happened in our extended family by parents were divorced. when my parents were divorced, are lives changed dramatically. my father had left. i thank god that he gave me the parents that i did. i thought the move that the state and we went below poverty almost overnight. we lost everything we had. our house had to be sold. a lot of our things were put in the driveway. she sold her wedding gifts. i remember going around to all of the card tables that were set up in the garage and thinking, these are the things i have looked up for my whole life.

these are prized possessions and they are going or 25 cents -- for 25 cents. my mother was a woman of faith and she said to us, life is not always going to be this way. hold on. our circumstances were less than favorable, but we did push through. my mom could not afford to buy my lunch, my glasses, my clothes. we held on and we made it. at that time, i was involved in everything in high school. every activity there was. some friends and invited me to go to a prayer meeting that net before school started in the morning and so i went to that activity and one thing that my friends do that i did not know

is that i did not have a living relationship with jesus christ. i did not realize that. they started praying for me. they started praying that i would come to know the lord. through the course of their prayers, at one point on october 31, 1972, i was with three other friends and we had gone into my lutheran church that night. we thought there was going to be a party in a church that night. we went in and the church doors were wide open. as we were walking down the aisle, the holy spirit reached in and grabbed our hearts and literally pulled us up to the altar. i was 16-year-old. we know down in front of the altar and the lord convicted does of our sense. remember, all have sinned. the holy spirit convicted me and the other friends that i was

with of our sins. for about an hour, we started pouring out our hearts and confessing hour since before the lord at the altar. we had tears flowing down our face because we recognize that we were sen -- senseless. i was not involved in drinking, drugs, boys. i had not been rebellious. it did not matter. i still was a sinner. even though i did not have big sins, the word of god tells us that all have sinned every single person. even though i had been a good girl, i was still a center. i still needed a savior.

at that point, i begged the holy god to save me. at that moment, he did. he came into my heart and the holy spirit to cleansed me and gave me peace. it was as though i felt like i had spent my whole life living in a closet with the door shut and he had opened. if you have seen a black-and- white movie and all the sudden interest technicolor. my spiritual eyes were open. i was not better than any other person. i was just read for the first time in my life. -- free for the first time in my life. i didn't even recognize that i had sinned.

i went back that night and i got down by my knees and i said, lord, when i left the apartment tonight, i did not know you. when i went to the church, i do not know what happened. all i know is that i was lost and now i am saved. i was blind, now i see. not out of anything i have done, but would you, that innocent holy god, have done for me. i abandoned myself to jesus christ and i said, i have no idea what your plan is for me, but i know it is better than mine. i put my life and my will in yours. he did. he made it mind. our life circumstances did not change. i still was out working and i was still supplying for the needs that could not be supplied for me. for a long time, we live is