Hello again. Summer break from driving a school bus is coming to an end in a couple of weeks. I keep forging ahead.

Today, I feel the need to take stock of where I am with God. I think we all need to do that occasionally. This is how I do this.

I’ve never considered how others think about God or themselves. Over my lifetime, I have found myself amazed at people who claim to be Christians but say they have never heard God speak to them. From my earliest age, about twelve, God began speaking to me. I didn’t think of it as being unusual. I just thought it was supposed to be that way. He told me when I was about thirteen, He was calling me to be in the ministry. My mom’s dad, my granddad of course, was a Baptist mnister. He was a small man of stature. He may have been five feet tall. Having heard him preach and being raised in the Baptist church filled me with the vernacular and culture of the denomination. I told God I would accept the call and I would lie in bed at night and preach with all the furvor I could muster up. I kept my voice at a whisper to keep from alarming everyone in the family. It was hell fire and brimstone preaching. Then something else fell upon my thinking. I needed to make a statement of salvation. Sounds a bit out of sync doesn’t it? God does, what God does. I don’t question it. He then began to impress upon me my need for a confession of my sins and ask for His forgiveness. That required me to step out of my pew row and walk to the front and tell the preacher I why I was there. That struck fear in me, as I was not one to do things in front of people. From the age of thirteen until sixteen I held myself back from doing this. Then one week in June of 1967 during a week of revival meetings, the spirit of God came to me in such a way I decided my old life had to end. The last day of the revival I planned out my walk to the front. When the song started for the invitation to come forward, I slipped out the far left side of the pew and walked down the outside aisle to the front and came across to the preacher and gave myself to God for the remission of my sins. A weight came off of me. My mom was proud of me. My dad said nothing. I was baptized that Sunday with others and became a church member.

My side note here was when I went to bed that Friday night, I can only say I started with such a negative thought of what lay ahead. My first prayer to God that night was pitiful. My bedroom window was above the headboard of my bed, so I put my knees on my pillow, my elbows on the top of my padded headboard, and looked out my window into the stars. Then I said. “God, come get me tonight, because I know I’m not going make it.” That was meaning I knew I was not going to be the stellar person required to get to Heaven. God did not come get me of couse. He wanted to refine me.

I had been saved. I came to know many years later that Jesus wrote everyone’s name in the Book of Life when He was crucified. He made atonement for all men and women. So how is it we don’t know this, and why is it some will not find their name in the Book of Life? If one does not accept this fact, then upon their death, their name is removed from the Book of Life. When we are saved, it is an acknowledgement of Him, whom God sent, and our name is recognized as being in the Book of Life. We are then sealed to that confession.

That confession and birth of our spirit (reactivation) is just the beginning. The Spirit of God then comes into us via connection to our spirit and begins the process of bringing the soul into submission to God. He put a bridle on us so He could lead us on the right path. So begins the salvation of the soul, which is ongoing and completed upon our bodily death when we are finished with our salvation process.

The whole process throughout life is to marry the soul to the spirit. I think it would be beneficial to study to marriage of Christ to His bride, the church. This is a mystery. The ultimate goal of God is to become one with us in this marriage. The teaching of the Bible says that when a man and woman marry, they become one. But it is indeed a process. I believe in the confession of sins for their remission unto salvation, but I don’t stop there.

The Pentecostals found the next step. The Baptism of the Holy Spirit with evidence of tongues is a step further towards God. This is where conversation with God increases. I knew the voice of God, but when I experienced this stage of growth, it was like God’s voice became magnified. My understanding was increased. God gave me my own personal phrase in tongues. To this day, when I say this phrase, my whole body feels it from my head to my feet. It rejuvenates me when I’m in need.

At this point in my life occurred when I was about twenty-seven. I had been to Sunday evening service after a week of fasting. I had felt an overwhelming presence of God all week. After that service I had to go to work on the graveyard shift. I found myself without that presence. I started to work, but that feeling became stronger and I began to cry to God. He did not answer. I had to cross a bridge going to work that was over the Cape Fear River. For a few moments, I contemplated killing myself as I got to the middle of the bridge. The fall over the rail in my car would have plummeted over 100 ft to the water below. As I was about to snatch the steering wheel in a hard right towards the rail, it was like God grabbed it at that moment, and I drove on to work, but I was crying uncontrollably. When I got into the building at work, I was trying to compose myself, but I wasn’t doing it very well, so I decided I would go back home. I went to my supervisor and told him I did not feel well and was going home. He took one look at me and said I did not look good either and agreed I should go home. I cried all the way home. When I entered the living room at home my wife got up to see why I was home and I sat on the floor in front of the couch with my head in her lap and just did the “ugly” cry. I tried to explain to her what I was feeling or not feeling, but she remained quiet and finally said she was going back to bed. A few minutes later after she’s gone back to sleep, I lifted my eyes up and God met my gaze. His Spirit then flowed down into me all the way to my feet. I felt super engergized. It was like electricity and then it began. The Heavenly language. I spoke in tongues. I kept this up for some time. God had come back to live inside of me through his Spirit. I became possessed by God.

In the Bible, its speaks of God saying to those who thought they were saved, He told them to depart from Him because He never knew them. This is a very deep thought. He is saying to them that He never had a relationship with them. Just as Adam knew Eve and begat children, so God also wants to and knows His. It is a mystery, and sounds unusual to some, but to know God in such an intimate way assures your eternal life. You must know God intimately. I did that evening have that intimate time with God and have felt His presence in my life for the vast majority of my walk with Him. I know I’m saved by the birth of my spirit and the indwelling of His spirit in communion with me in this manner where my spirit and His are conforming my soul to become like Him so the marriage between Him and me would completely cosummate our union. Upon my leaving my physical body the salvation of my soul will be said with a final “I do” in marriage.