I came to God in 1961 after three weeks of heavy conviction, I fell to my knees in my apartment in Heidelberg, Melbourne, and surrendered my life to His Son Jesus. It was a private decision. No one knew about it until I told them, a few days later. I did not “find” Jesus — he found me!
I was baptized in the Holy Spirit when David Kennedy Snr. a godly pastor, laid his hands on the back of my head and I spoke in a language I hadn’t learned. I knew nothing of the experience of those who had gathered in the “upper room” (Acts 2:1-4).
Soon after, while viewing a Billy Graham documentary film featuring that evangelist’s ministry in Australia, I heard the voices of many angels overhead calling me to the ministry (although I didn’t realize that until years later). I often remind myself how privileged I’ve been for the Lord to have used me to heal the sick at home and overseas. (I will never forget seeing an elderly gentleman revived by the Spirit of God after he had been dead for at least ten minutes.) I can witness to the fact that Jesus Christ is Saviour, Healer, Baptizer in the Spirit and Coming King.
In Acts 11:17 the apostle Peter authenticates the experience of Cornelius and his household to the Elders in Jerusalem. (Acts 10). He linked it to that of those who received the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost. The reality of Peter’s witness to the outpouring legitimized it, since what had taken place in the house of Cornelius was unrelated to the annual Feast celebrated by the Jews. His testimony convinced the apostles that God had granted non-Jews the same experience that they had received a decade earlier on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2:4).
The authenticity of personal experience should not be dismissed. I’ve no idea as to what readers have experienced in Pentecostal meetings, but for the greater part scriptural integrity has been backed by a desire — more, a determination, to see all things done decently and in order”.
This is the ‘Pentecost’ that I love and respect today as much as I did in my first encounter with Pastor Thomas Foster and other godly leaders in the old Kelvin Hall in Russell Place, Melbourne, back in the early 1960s.
There is a missing dimension in the lives of those Christians who do not believe that Jesus heals today, just as he did 2,000 years ago. The only difference is that he does so now through the hands of those who believe, by the power of the same Spirit of God that healed through his hands.
The “powers of the coming age” (Hebrews 6:5) are experienced today by those who believe thatJesus is the same, yesterday and today and forever.” (Hebrews 13:8) It’s good to search the scriptures to be sure that this is true. Any such search for truth will always lead to Jesus Christ and the experience of being “born again” — “from above” — by the Spirit of God and the subsequent “baptism”in the Holy Spirit.
We are saved when the Holy Spirit reveals to us and we then state to others that Jesus is the Son of God. The lack of this experience of Christ’s saving power drives many to fill their spiritual vacuum with a ‘head’ knowledge of the Bible. But this puts the cart before the horse.
Saul of Tarsus (later known as Paul the Apostle) began his personal experience of Jesus on his face in the dirt of the road to Damascus. Absolute surrender is a good start to a life that will likely end well. Until it does, we need to walk closely with Jesus in the power of the same Spirit of God that filled him.