Let me be candid with you: I have no credentials. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I’m a child of missionaries, but I was the black sheep of the family. I come from a big family of eight children: seven boys and one girl. My dad, who was a teacher, resigned from his teaching job when there were six children in the family and started his missionary work. Actually, my parents passed away. The Bible says, “It is faithful and worthy of all acceptance that Christ Jesus came to this world to save sinners, of whom I am the chief.” That’s one title I just want to have: “Chief of Sinners.” When I say that, I really mean it.
In the 1980s, the name Reny George became very notorious. October 6, 1980, became the darkest day of my life. That’s the worst day that has happened in my life. I was 27 years old, and I became a murderer on that day. Me and my three friends travelled from Chennai to Kerala and committed the murder of an elderly couple. They were not strangers to me, but they were my uncle and aunt. All four of us were drug addicts, and my three friends were from three different countries. One was a Kenyan, the second was Malaysian, and the third was Mauritian. We were birds of the same feather. We needed drugs and alcohol, and during our student life, we were getting only some money from home, and that was not enough to support our habits. Since I was the leader of the gang, I told my friends, “We need to have a lot of money to have drugs and alcohol every day. So, why don’t we start getting into peddling, pushing drugs, and selling drugs?” That’s when brown sugar had just entered the Indian market, and me and my friends decided to start procuring brown sugar from the place where it was available, selling it, and using it for ourselves while making money. We needed some capital for this. So I told my friends, “Let’s go to Kerala. I have a plan, and we can come back with money.” My friends were really innocent guys and I was the real bad guy among them. I took my friends in the car that I was using, which was stolen. You can imagine my life. There is nothing that I haven’t done in my life; I was that kind of person. I was such a wretched person. Before we went to Kerala and committed this heinous crime, we managed to get some gold, and we went back to Chennai and sold it. My friends were terribly frightened, and my African friend wanted to go back to his country, so he said goodbye and went to Delhi to catch his flight and go back to his country. The other two friends were with me, and this happened on October 6. On October 16, we were arrested in Chennai, and I ended up in police custody. From there, they took me to Kerala, where a one-year, three-month-long trial took place, and finally, the session judge gave us a life sentence. I remember the words of the session judge in the verdict. He stated it like this: “The crime these youngsters have committed is eligible for capital punishment, but considering their young age and the other antecedents, I give them a life sentence, hoping that they will come back from prison as reformed people.”
I had friends from all walks of crime to help me. So, I became the leader of all these guys. I had that leadership quality in me.
When the verdict was pronounced in the courtroom, we were not at all bothered. The reason is that at that time we were also high on dope. Even in judicial custody, we managed to get what we needed and were not bothered. Then we were sent to a maximum-security prison in Trivandrum, Kerala, and we started our prison life. My initial six years were the same as when I was living outside. By the time I got some extra money, one film producer made a movie based on our crime, and that film producer gave me a lot of money. So with the help of that money, I lived lavishly in prison. In a prison where all kinds of criminals are living together with all the people involved in different kinds of crime, all we did inside the prison was just get together and exchange our expertise. The big timers tell the juniors not to worry about anything and that no matter what has happened, we can make it. That’s what’s happening inside prisons. No prison has the ability to transform criminals. So, I also lived like that in prison. I managed to get what I needed, and I gave it to others. We would all sit together, and I literally did research on crime for the first six years: how to do bank robbery, how to do counterfeit racketing, how to do gold smuggling, you name it. I had friends from all walks of crime to help me. So, I became the leader of all these guys. I had that leadership quality in me. I became the Prime Minister of the school where I was studying. You must know one thing: I was rusticated from school after school, and I had to study for three years in the 9th grade. So you can imagine my academic level. In 10th grade, I was taken to my mom’s place, and the school was very close to my mom’s house, and that was a village. I was shifted from a town to a village, and I excelled in studies and became the school’s Prime Minister of everything, and I passed my matriculation. Then I went to college, and again I entered politics. I was kicked out of one college after the first year itself, and the second college from there also kicked me out. I was that bad, so I’m a dropout. My qualification is just matriculation. I’ve only completed the tenth grade. Even though I went to college, I could not get any degrees or anything.
When I think about myself, if that man had 2000 demons in him, I had maybe 6000 in me. I was that terrible.- Reny George Share on XThen I ended up in Chennai. In Chennai, no one knows who I am, what I am, or the way I am moving around. I had a car to drive around. I had a nice, modified motorcycle to ride around on. People thought I was the son of a big-time businessman or something. No one knew that I was a missionary’s son. I had some rich friends who used to lend cars and bikes to me in those days. Then, after they left, I needed my own car, so I started lifting cars. Whenever I wanted a car, I would go and lift one car. I have lifted cars at different times, but no one knew what I was doing. I would steal a car and put my dad’s car number plate on it, and I’d put my dad’s car’s tax token on it. No traffic cop has ever checked me, and finally the worst happened. Why am I telling all these things in all these short stories? You must understand what kind of person I was. In prison, while in police custody, when the cops were taking us from Chennai to Kerala in the police van, me and my Malaysian friend were handcuffed together. Suddenly, in the police van, I thought about Saibaba. I’ve heard that Saibaba does miracles. So I told my friend Gunasekaran, “Look, Guna, this is what we will do. We will pray to Sai Baba so that something will happen on this way and we’ll be able to escape.” So me and Gunasekaran, with one handcuff, started praying. Both of us started praying to Sai Baba. Just imagine a boy from a missionary home, a Christian home, praying to Saibaba. Nothing happened. Then, after being imprisoned, all prisoners of various religions are granted permission to engage in religious activities. So the Sabarimala Ayyappa festival is going on. All the prisoners were doing that Sabarimala prayer. This missionary’s son also joined that group. My prayer was that I would get an acquittal in this case. So I also put on that Sabarimala Mala, and I started growing my beard. I’ll sit with my Hindu friends, and I was praying to Sabarimala Ayyapan for an acquittal in my case.
Our God is a God who is specialized in building our people, lifting people in the same places where they were destroyed.
Such a wretched person in my life. When I was in Chennai, we were high on dope during the midnight hours. Me and my friends used to sit in different places and sing with guitars. We’ll be singing in the midnight hours, and we’ll be literally praying to the Prince of Darkness. We knew that only the Spirit could help us thrive in our activities. We were involved in all kinds of things like that. We used to think of ourselves as the Princes of Darkness. So you can imagine the kind of demonic spirit that I was having in my life.
In the Bible, there is a character called the man of Gadara. Jesus walked into the place where he was lying down, a graveyard, and that man had 2000 demons in him. When Jesus Christ saw him and spoke to him, 2000 demons escaped and entered the pigs. The pigs rolled out into the ocean and died. The man of Gadara, that man who was later healed, was the first disciple of Jesus Christ. Other disciples ran away when Jesus was crucified, but they were anointed by the Holy Spirit and became the real missionaries. This man of Gadara, in fact, had gone back to his native place, and he had already started talking about Jesus Christ. He did not have a name, but he started the ministry of Jesus even before the disciples started Jesus’ ministry. When I think about myself, if that man had 2000 demons in him, I had maybe 6000 in me. I was that terrible. I was so wretched. Six years passed, and all the money this film producer gave me got spent. It was my responsibility to take care of my friends and the other friends I had in prison. So I told my friends, “Don’t worry, now I know how to make money. I will go out and come back with money.”
I said no to my former boss, Satan, and I said yes to Jesus. That day, 33 long years of my demonic bonds were completely broken.
I managed to get parole. Parole is the permission granted to prisoners to return home. So I managed to get parole, and I went out. I went home. My parents had come to Kerala by then. They took voluntary retirement from the ministry that they were doing, and they had come to Kottayam, Kerala. You can imagine the situation. My parents were totally broken. Being the parents of Reny George, my entire family was completely broken. Just imagine that. Seven siblings and all the relatives from my mom’s and dad’s sides were affected because my case was such a sensational one. Everybody knew about it. The heads of my dad and mom had gone down. They were ostracised by society. Everybody pointed fingers at them and said, “These people were trying to save the whole world. They could not save their own son.” That was my parents’ situation. So when I went home, I could see my dad and mom crying and praying for me. I had the audacity to tell them, “You don’t have to pray for me. I have no plans to become anything like you guys. I don’t have any intentions to pray or have anything to do with you and your family.” They did not say anything. I had come out of prison with the plan of robbing a bank, and I knew how to do that.
As I was preparing for the bank robbery, something miraculous happened. There is a verse in the Bible that says, “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God and to them that are called according to His purpose. For whom He foreknew He also did predestine. Moreover, whom He predestined them he also called, and whom he called them he also justified, whom He justified them He also glorified. What shall we then say about these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?” This is our God’s plan for his children’s lives. That was happening in my life. God sent a person to my house. It was a young man. When he came to see me, I just looked at him. He was wearing Levi’s jeans and a T-shirt and had a beard. So I thought he was another underworld guy who would come to see me and recruit me for some job. But to my surprise, he said, “Praise the Lord!” When I heard that greeting, I knew he was another spiritual guy trying to convert me. I just smiled within myself. Who can change a person like me? Many people have tried to talk to me, advise me, and counsel me, but nothing has worked out. And this young man is having high hopes. But he took me to a place far from my home, the same town where we committed the murder in Kerala.
I went back to prison, and all my friends were waiting for me to come back with dope and money. But I went back to prison with a Bible in my hand.- Reny George Share on XOur God is a God who is specialized in building our people, lifting people in the same places where they were destroyed. He took me to the same town where we committed the murder. He took me to a prayer meeting. I thought to myself, “What a place for me to go!” I never liked any prayer meeting those days, but it was God’s plan. As I was sitting in the prayer hall, as the man of God was ministering and the people who gathered there were worshipping the Lord in truth and spirit, something started happening in my life. I have never felt like that in my life. I have never felt guilty about anything in my life, until that day. I was a psychopath, a person with no guilty conscience. But when I was sitting there, the Holy Spirit started moving in my heart. The Holy Spirit started convicting me that I was a wretched person. I’m a terrible sinner. I started experiencing such a great burden in my heart. That is what happens in anyone’s life when the Holy Spirit is touching them. I could not control myself; scenes started coming into my heart and mind that had happened in my life from a young age—from the age of ten to the age of 33. I was 33 years old that day. The life that I have lived, the things that I’ve done, I felt so terrible in my heart. There is no one like me. I’m the most wretched person. Suddenly, a Word of God came into my heart, “What profiteth a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul?” I’ve heard this Word of God a couple of times before, but that day, when the Holy Spirit was moving in my heart, this Word literally pierced my heart, and I was touched. I started crying bitterly. I started breaking down completely. The Holy Spirit started working so powerfully in my heart. Then the man of God who was ministering said that such a person was here; he noticed what was happening in me. And he asked me, “Reny, if you have anything to say, you can say it.” That day, I just stood up in the presence of God and in the midst of everybody and I said, “I want to give my life to Jesus Christ.” I said, “Jesus, I don’t know how you are going to change me, but if you are going to do that in my life, I will serve you.” I said no to my former boss, Satan, and I said yes to Jesus. That day, 33 long years of my demonic bonds were completely broken. Whoever is in Christ is a new person; the old is gone and the new has come. It became a reality in my life that day. I walked out of that place as a brand new person. It was the 15th of August, 1987. The Independence Day of India became my Independence Day. 33 long years of serving Satan was stopped that day and I started serving my master, Jesus Christ that day. I did not have to rob any bank, but I inherited all the riches of the bank of Heaven that day.
If you trust in Jesus Christ, he is able to do exceedingly abundantly in your life too. I do not know whether I have done my duty the way I should have. But one thing I know: Jesus has done what he had to do.
I went back to prison, and all my friends were waiting for me to come back with dope and money. But I went back to prison with a Bible in my hand. I told my friends, “Sorry to disappoint you, but I have given my life to Jesus Christ.” They could not understand what it was like. They called me bad words, and they all left me and went away. I started my Christian life all alone in that maximum-security prison. I did not have any friends to sit with and pray with or anything, but Jesus was with me. Weeks and months passed by, and these friends who left me and went away have noticed the change that has happened in my life. Even the officers and everybody else considered me an incorrigible person. I was such a deadly guy. But once I got Jesus in me, everything changed, and everybody noticed the change in me. Some of my friends came back to me and said, “Reny, if this is true, we also want to experience that.” I told them, “Please try Jesus Christ. This is all done by Jesus Christ in my life.” Some of them started sitting with me, and I started singing songs with them and reading the Bible with them. Slowly, one by one, prisoners from different walks of crime came forward to try Jesus, and they surrendered before Him. We started having a prayer group in that prison. We used to have fellowship in the prison chapel starting with 10, 20, 30, and 40 like that. Miracles started happening one by one in my life. In 1992, God blessed me in holy matrimony. When I got transformed and when I gave my life to Jesus Christ, everybody said, “This is all some gimmick. He is trying to do all these things to get an early release and to get married.” But my Jesus started doing His miracles in my life.
The Independence Day of India became my Independence Day. 33 long years of serving Satan was stopped that day and I started serving my master, Jesus Christ that day.- Reny George Share on XThe Bible says, “The one who honours God will be honoured.” Every opportunity I got, I started witnessing to the power of Jesus, the blood of Jesus Christ, and the name of Jesus Christ, and that did the job. I did not know any other things to say. Wherever I went, I used to tell my testimony. In 1992, my wife, Tina, was a successful person working in Bahrain. She too got born again in the same year in Bahrain, and she decided to share her life with me. I came out of prison on parole, got married to Tina, and went back to prison after one month of parole. She went back to Bahrain, but she could not continue her profession in Bahrain because she had become Mrs. Reny George. Everybody started looking at her as if she were a madwoman who married a hardcore criminal like me, but she started trusting Jesus more than me. She came to Bangalore, resigned the job, and came to Bangalore to start the Prison Ministry in 1994.
What we need today is total surrender and submission, and at that time, God is going to help us.
In 1995, I got released from prison, and I joined with Tina, and we started the Prison Ministry in Karnataka. God blessed us with our daughter in 1996. Her name is Rhema, and she is 22 years old. God has helped us visit prisoners in Karnataka and share the gospel with the prisoners. God has helped us start a children’s home named “Precious Children’s Home” to help prisoners’ children. We started with 15 children in a small rented house, and God blessed us with a three-acre facility with buildings, dormitories, and everything. We used to have 150 children every year. God also helped us start a rehabilitation centre for the born-again prisoners when they come out after their release to help them in their vocational training. All these things happened just because Jesus Christ was in my life. So that’s what I want to tell you: God is able to help all kinds of people. But if any of you are thinking that you don’t have any credentials in life and you don’t have any opportunities like others, what I want to tell you is that my Jesus is able to provide you with everything that you need in your life. Only one thing is required of you, and that is obedience, which is better than sacrifice. If you trust in Jesus Christ, he is able to do exceedingly abundantly in your life too. I do not know whether I have done my duty the way I should have. But one thing I know: Jesus has done what he had to do. It is not the eloquence of my talk. It is nothing of mine that is going to help you, but the presence of God and the presence of Jesus Christ, and that presence is able to perform miracles in your life also. You may be thinking that you have not committed a crime like Reny George. You haven’t done any bad things like Reny George, and that is true. But what we need today is total surrender and submission, and at that time, God is going to help us.