Spiritual Birthday

Today is my spiritual birthday…28 years.  Let me tell you about it.  It was a Monday afternoon in 1983 in Montgomery, Alabama.  I was 21 years old and a backslider.  I had recently started attending a Pentecostal church and on this particular day, I was helping out in their daycare.  The night before, the pastor had preached about the second coming of Jesus.  Afterwards, I stayed awake all night long from fear and conviction, knowing I would not be saved if the Lord Jesus indeed did return.  All day on Monday, I was feeling out of sorts and finally at 3:00 pm in the afternoon I began to shake and cry under the continual conviction.  My pastor’s wife inquired what was wrong.  I told her about my fears of not being saved.  She and I went into the sanctuary area and there on the front pew, I began to repent and ask God to forgive me.  He then filled me with the Holy Ghost with evidence of speaking in other tongues just like they did in the book of Acts.

I had been filled with the Holy Ghost once before when I was 15 years old.  When I received the Holy Ghost the first time, it was during a church service where the music was playing loudly and the people were worshipping God exuberantly.  I doubted my experience, contributing it to the emotional hype of the service.  This second experience solidified me.  There was no music; no one was present but my pastor’s wife, me and God.  This time I knew it was God and not an emotional hype.

A few weeks later, I was baptized in water in Jesus’ Name.  I was one of the last people to be baptized in the horse trough the church used temporarily until they built their own baptistry.  Water baptism completed my salvation experience according to Acts 2:38, Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.  My salvation was not obtained by anything that I had done.  I was merely obedient to the work Jesus Christ performed through His death, burial and resurrection (I Corinthians 15:3-4).

After my initial salvation experience, I continued to grow spiritually through faith and obedience to His Word.  Looking back over the last 28 years, I am so AMAZED at God’s mercy and grace in my life.  Early in my walk with Him, God gave me many dreams and visions, yet there were times when I doubted they could ever be reality because I was such a mess.  Today, I am actually living many of those dreams and visions.  And yes, in some ways, I am still a mess.  I am so thankful for His mercy and grace as I look expectantly ahead to living out the remaining dreams and visions. God is so good!