Its been about 3 weeks now and I never thought I would say these words with the sincerity that i now say them, but I am SAVED! I have so much I want to tell you all about what has happened to me over the last few weeks. I turned from a skeptic, perhaps an agnostic to a true believer in Christ the Lord.
I hope the good Lord will direct people who have not yet been saved to this blog so they can see what i've gone through (and continue to go through) and where i've been. I hope this blog will serve as a source of encouragement to other Christians and especially to those who have not yet given their life to christ.
So how did this all start? Well, my girlfriend is a VERY devoute Christian. Quite honestly, my Christian walk started with her nagging. Of which i would get rather irritated. I've been "hastled" by Christians my entire life. Their values have been shoved down my throat for many years. Or at least that's how I felt. I had a lot of resentment in my heart towards people who called themselves Christians, told me I was bad and hell-bound for not believing in Jesus, then when to work on monday and stabed each other in the back. Suffice to say, I've gotten into some heated arguments in my time. I tend to get the most irate when I feld cornered, which is something most people of faith (Christian or not) tend to do to non-believers.
So what changed? Its my belief that the Lord showed my girlfriend the best way to reach me. Or perhaps it was the Lord himself that started to change my heart. It was probably the later, but at some point I started to open my *mind* to the possibility of His true existence. I say "mind" since that's all i could turn to the Lord at that time. Not knowing him very well, I couldn't truely turn my heart towards him .. yet.
Please understand, I had to make a purely mental decision to pursue the Lord. I took my first few steps in prayer and reading the Bible in blind faith. Actually, "faith" is too strong of a word to use for where i was at at that time. I was thinking to myself, "let's give this a try. if it doesn't work out then I really haven't lost anything". So forward I went, taking the time (as often as i could remember) praying to the Lord, and reading the Bible and books like "The Case for Faith" by Lee Strobel. At first, I felt a little funny praying by myself at the foot of my bed into thin air. I was literally going through the emotions with basically no heart involved. I spent more time reading "The Case for Faith" than I did reading the Bible. It is ABSOLUTELY IMPERATIVE to any non-believers out there reading this blog to understand that I was not overcome with the Holy Spirit at this time, nor did my heart pour out to the Lord, nor was my soul wailing in agony (that came later). I was going through the motions - nothing more, nothing less. I'm convinced that all you need is a somewhat open mind to start your life with the Lord. I'm also convinced that Jesus will do most of the work for you as he did with me. DO NOT let any body - especially those who call themselves Christians - try to convince you that when you start to pursue Christ you have to do it with "all your heart, all your mind, and all your soul". If that were the only way to be saved, how could anyone EVER be saved!??! For how can you love anyone dearly if you don't know him?? The great love you feel for the Lord will grow in you over time. Just take a couple of steps on your own, and He'll do the rest.
But i digress ...
As time went by (the whole time period for me starting out with pray and bible reading to this point was probably just over a month), i started to gravitate more toward reading the Bible and away from Lee Strobel's book. Nothing against Lee, but the Bible seemed to be a more productive use of my time (I'm sure Lee would agree). Then one faiteful night, my girlfriend and I were siting on her bed talking and she asked me where I was at with God. In my typical eloquent style i responded, "ah, hard to say". She then started to explain to me the "process" that one goes through to become saved. She explained that typically someone admits that they believe in Christ and/or admits that they want to give their life to Christ, then they become baptised in water, then baptised in the Holy Spirit. She was careful to explain that this did not all have to happen in this order, nor did any of it specifically have to happen to become saved. She was simply stating that there is a process that can loosely be applied to one's salvation. Then she asked me a question (no doubt prompted by the Lord now that i reflect on it), something along the lines of "have you come to a decision yet whether or not you are going to give your life to Christ?". Literally, my response to her was, "well, I think I've already made that decision". And that's when the real fireworks stared! That simple affirmation was all the Lord needed to hear. For the next couple of days I felt like my very heart was being pulled out of my body. I couldn't explain it. I was very weapy, I couldn't concentrate on work or anything else in my life. All I could think was, "God, why are you working me so hard?". I didn't realize that He was tugging at my heart. I was (and still am) very ignorant on what was going on. But i felt it was the Lord doing this thing to me. Understand that this was not a pleasent or joyous feeling at all. I felt like my entire mind and body was weaping .. for no reason!! It was agony.
Eventually the agony stopped. For me it lasted about two days. If memory serves, the next week is when the REALLY AWESOME stuff happened. My girlfriend invited me over to her house one night for dinner and some "gift" that she wanted to share with me. I figured that she wanted to pray over me or something like that. "Sure, no problem" I thought. I didn't think it was anything special, but in the back of my mind I was hopeing for something really cool from God .. and I got it! During dinner I started to get irritated at something stupid which is of no consequence now except to say that I was not in my best spirit when we went into her bedroom to pray. She prayed over me for about an hour. During that time I tried to shake myself out of my grumpy mood .. and I did get mostly out of it. After about an hour of praying, she started to pray to the Lord to the gift of tongues. This gift from what I was told allows you to speak (God willing) in other languages as well in Heavenly languages. Suffice to say for now, it sounds like giberish to us humans, but believe me, God understands what we are saying. I'll never forget the moment when I started to pray in tounges. At first I couldn't do it, then my girlfriend kept encouraging me and all of a sudden it was like something broke within me and my mouth and tongue were flying a million miles a minute. It was pure high pitched giberish coming out of my mouth, but it was the fastest, highest pitched giberish I have ever spoken. Instantly I was laughing histerically. I truely felt like i was having a conversation with God. It was like two friends catching up after being apart for a very long time. I felt like God was telling me some jokes and vice versa. In fact, I'm almost certain I interupted the Lord a few times with a few of my own jokes. It felt so good to be speaking in tongues like that!!
But that wasn't all! The Lord had even more instore for me that night. After a while, once the laughter died down a bit, my girlfriend continued to pray for me and asking God to baptis me in the Holy Spirit. I had NO idea what I was in for! We sat on her bed, her hands were on my shoulders I think, and my eyes were closed. All of a sudden, I had this vision of two men standing before me. One in front of the other. It was the Holy Father and his son Jesus Christ! The Father was standing behind the Son, and the Son was performing the cerimony. Quickly, I saw Jesus raise something in his hand. It was like a like a small hand-held mop (the kind like your school janitor would use to mop the floor only much smaller so it would fit in the palm of your hand). He raised this thing twice in his hand and "flick" it towards my head. Each time I felt a really strange sensation over my head. It was like warm water being splashed on my head, except it wasn't exactly warm, and it didn't feel wet. Its hard to describe, but it felt like two waves of *something* splashing over my head. I didn't need to be told that this was the annointing in the Holy Spirit.
Suffice to say, I went home that night in a really great mood! The next day something wonderful started to happen too. As the day went on I started to become more and more aware of the presence of the Lord. It was like I could sense his head and shoulders out in front of me as I walked down the hall, as I sat at my desk, even as I drove back home from work. It was wonderful! It was like I had a new best budy! It was very comforting and reassuring to know that the presence of the Lord was with me. And now as time goes on, that presense and increased and often it feels like I can see the full body of the Lord during my day.
Once i received this baptism, my prayer life took on a whole new excitement. I felt like my words were really getting through and being productive. It was almost like I had an audience with the Almighty himself! Wow! talk about exciting. I (perhaps He) put myself in the role of a student. I even told myself that I was going back to school after all these years and I was attending CU (Christ University). I can tell you from first hand experience, that Jesus is a Master Teacher! The best! Everything I asked for in terms of self improvement was granted! And still is! Even the words written in the Bible seemed to jump to life! The words of the Lord in the Gospel of Luke especially struck me. It was like I could read His word and know and understand. I felt like the Good News was even actually penetrating my heart and soul. My advice to you all is to ask the Lord himself to teach and minister to you. Who could do it better than Him!?
Before I end this blog entry, I should back up a little and bring to you some of the the Great News that was shared with me the night of my baptism. I left my girlfriend's house that night with the very distinct and certain impression that the Lord has things well in hand. I felt like He knows what has happened, what will happen, who's wronged you, who you have wronged, what good things lie ahead for you, and what traps lie out there for you and it is all known to Him and he has a plan for it all. I felt like He was saying to me, "Don't worry, everything is going to work out ok. NOTHING will happen outside of what I will allow. And its going to be Ok for you and everyone else.". That night I felt (and still do feel) very confident in the Lord and his will and abilities to work out everthing in our lives for the best. And to me, the best part of the Good News is that He does most of the work! So give Him the credit and praise and Glory for the good things that happen in your life! I think often in life, we don't act on our own accord as much as we like to think. I feel that God guides our steps more often that we realise! (NOT to say that we can slouch off of our obligations to the Lord by any means). But this is a topic for another entry. Good night. God be with you!
