Positively positive.

[Sam]

I was 17 years old when I asked Jesus Christ into my life. This was Monday night March 28, 1955.
I had been in some trouble with the law, was considered a "punk," was into smoking (just cigarettes--the other stuff was nowhere around us in our small town back in the 1950's) and liked to drink beer which we either stole or were able to buy under age at certain places. I was not much different than lots of people my age who did not know the Lord. I did have a hungering in my soul which I thought might be for God. I actually started going to a formal church where my family had some ties. One night I went to the local Baptist Church and afterward I asked Jesus Christ in and committed myself to Him. I was a new creature. Old things passed away and I began to live completely different. There was no more drinking. The smoking stopped soon afterward. I began to attend a Baptist Church and there I became a member. Listening to some radio preachers like A.A. Allen, Jack Coe, Bishop S.C. Johnson, Glenn Thompson, and C.M. Ward on Revivaltime (radio voice of the Assemblies of God) plus reading my Bible and praying plus reading some magazines I became aware that there was something more for me. I began to pray (plead) for the experience called the Holy Ghost Baptism. Some of my reading led me to the "Oneness" side of Pentecost. I read about water baptism and wondered if my recent Baptist baptism was Scriptural.

I had completed a couple correspondence courses with Moody Bible Institute and had gone to a series of Bible training sessions at a nearby Baptist Church that were designed to train Sunday School teachers and Church workers. I had heard about the "trinity" but there was no explanation. I was told that just as the ocean was too vast to be contained in a teacup so God was too vast to be contained in the human brain. I was told that the Bible teaches that God exists as three eternal persons and not to try to understand it, just accept it by faith.

I went to a meeting in Milwaukee, Wisconsin with some folks from our town. They went to a UPC church in Racine, Wisconsin. I had gone to school with their oldest son since first grade and we were now in 12th grade. I went to the altar and was seeking the Lord for the Holy Ghost Baptism. My friend asked me if I wanted to get baptized in Jesus' name. I was not convinced about the water baptism thing yet but figured I may as well go ahead with it because I probably would any way sooner or later. I was baptized on October 27 just 7 months after my salvation experience in March.

After that I still had questions about how Jesus and God could be separate and yet the same or just what the relationship between them could be. On December 6 (my 18th birthday) I knelt at my bed and prayed. As I was getting into bed it was like a light was turned on in my mind. All of a sudden i knew that
--God is a single invisible Spirit who is every where present at all times
--this invisible Spirit caused the virgin Mary to conceive a son, a human child
--God, the invisible Spirit indwelt that Son.
--Jesus was a sinless human and He was also the invisible Spirit
--He could act, perform, react as a human and he could act, perform, and react as God.
--As a human He had to grow and develop like any other human. He got tired. He slept. He prayed and was limited by time and space. As God He was eternal, omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient and had no limitations.
--Some how Jesus Christ was perfect man and perfect God. He is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.

That did not answer every question but some how I knew that Jesus Christ was God in flesh among humankind and that He lived in my heart as the Spirit of God or Christ in me the hope of glory.

I consider that a revelation and think that God answered the cry of my heart for understanding on my 18th birthday. That revelation was His birthday gift to me.