A heartwarming clip of Freedom March co-founder and worship leader, Edward Byrd singing, ‘Nothing But The Blood Of Jesus,’ in Washington D.C, has gone viral on the internet.
Byrd, was once known to be homosexual, but has since changed path and sung this hymn which has garnered more than 1.5 million views and over 60,000 shares.
Standing with his fellow Changed Movement members, Byrd’s voice echoed as he sang “Nothing But the Blood of Jesus,” a hymn penned by 19th-century preacher Robert Lowry.
“I have a personal relationship with that song,” Byrd said, “When I first came out of the lifestyle of homosexuality, and things really became hard for me, as far as transitioning out of my old life and into my new life, the Lord spoke very clearly to me, ‘There’s power in the blood of Jesus.’”
Watch: Freedom March co-founder Edward Byrd Sings ‘Nothing But The Blood Of Jesus’
The Changed Movement offers support to previous members of the LGBTQ community who have since left it to pursue faith in Jesus.
Changed Movement members traveled to Washington, D.C., to speak with Congress lawmakers about H.R. 5, or the Equality Act which could be a threat to Christian business owners who don’t provide services to same-sex weddings and celebrations. They also raised concern about H.R. 3570, or the Therapeutic Fraud Prevention Act, which prevents conversion therapy for those opposed to their struggle with same-sex attraction.
Byrd sang the hymn while Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) was giving the Changed Movement members a tour of the U.S. Capitol. The lawmaker joined the singing with the worship leader at certain intervals.
Byrd said, there were several “holy moments” during the group’s tour with Gohmert, and that he felt God placing Lowry’s hymn on his mind.
He was asked to sing a worship song by the group leader when they entered the Rotunda, “I felt like it was the perfect place — one of the most powerful places to sing one of the most powerful songs that I feel will unite the parties and point to Jesus and really help bring us back to our first love, to ask the Lord to cover this nation with his blood,” Byrd said. “[I]t was very significant to me.”
Byrd revealed about his past in an interview saying that he had suffered years of sexual and physical abuse at the hands of a close family member, which changed the direction of his life. But he made the decision to leave his gay lifestyle after a woman prayed over him in a nightclub. She told him that there’s “a light inside of you” and “God has a purpose and a plan for you.”
He described his trip to the capitol as empowering and encouraging and said that he hopes the viral moment and the conversations he and others had with lawmakers would “point back to Jesus.”
“It’s so important for people with my testimony or people with my life experience to sit down with these people and say, ‘Hey, I know that you’re making laws based on this narrative, but there’s a whole other group of people that you’re excluding,’” he said. “So it’s extremely important for people like me to go into these places and say, ‘Hey, I know this is what you’re being told. But this is another part of the story.’”