How did you become "Oneness"?

[Esaias]

Did you get the Revelation? Or were you taught some doctrinal points and propositions that needed to be affirmed and maintained?

Here's my story:

I was living in sin, until Christ began to call me through his Word. All my objections and excuses were broken down and demolished, and I was left with nothing but conviction. convicted that I was in sin, a sinner, a rebel against God. Convicted that Christ died for my sin, and took judgment upon Himself that I might escape that judgment. Convicted that if I did not repent and flee to Him for mercy and grace I would die in my sins and suffer eternal judgment.

So I repented of my sins. I began praying and fasting. I knew very little of the Bible, but I knew enough to know I needed whatever salvation those Christians in the Bible had. I prayed for God's Spirit. I had no idea what that meant, I had never met a Pentecostal or charismatic person, I just knew that reading the Bible God's people had something I desperately needed - God in them. A REAL genuine bona fide salvation.

I wound up homeless at a very small independent Baptist church-run mission for street people. I was in service one night, at the tail end of the service, when everyone was "standing with eyes closed and heads bowed" for final prayer. I had been praying and fasting for God to save me, really truly and genuinely save me, to make Bible salvation a REALITY in my life. I clung to His promises in the Word, and this night something happened.

While praying I eventually ran out of things to pray. I just surrendered myself to God. I cannot describe it too well, it was just a simple and yet total surrendering of myself to God. And something fell out of Heaven into my very soul, my very inner being. It exploded inside and shot out like a geyser. The distinct impression I had at the time was like Old Faithful blowing up and gushing forth, only instead of actual water gushing out it was the most marvellous prayer, in another language. I could sense what the prayer involved, but not specifically word for word, just the general import. I was totally overwhelmed with DIVINE LOVE, the Love of the Saviour towards ME, me personally. The Great God of Heaven knew me personally, and loved me personally, and somehow had expressed His love to me in a most direct and personal way. God Himself had literally come inside of my very Being, and I was crying, shaking, and praying in some other language.

I had never heard "Oneness", knew nothing whatsoever about theology, or theology disputes, or "Godhead issues". But one thing I KNEW the moment it happened, and while it was happening: It was JESUS CHRIST who was now inside me. Inside my innermost being. Spirit, soul, heart, whatever you want to call it, it was JESUS CHRIST who came to me and took up residence in me. I knew that I knew that I knew it. And what was startling was it was not at all what I expected. I had no expectation of Jesus himself taking up residence in my soul. I was just praying to get good old fashioned bible salvation. I was praying for God to give me His Spirit... and He gave me JESUS!

From that moment on I KNEW who God was. I knew He was JESUS CHRIST, the One who suffered and died on a cross for me, who came out the tomb alive and victorious because death had no hold on Him - because HE IS GOD ALMIGHTY.

A couple days later I met a man who invited me to visit his church. I went and discovered there were other people who had experienced this overwhelming, mind blowing immersion in the love of JESUS CHRIST. This brother showed me three scriptures - Matthew 28:19, Isaiah 9:6, and Acts 2:38. It made perfect sense to me. JESUS CHRIST is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. He is GOD. Later that week I was baptised in His saving Name in obedience to the scriptures.

It would be a couple years before I ever heard the term "Oneness" or had any clue what it meant. If you had asked me "do you believe in the trinity?" I would said "Of course! Father, Son, and Holy Ghost! And His name is JESUS CHRIST!!!!" It would be years afterwards that I would discover what trinitarianism actually proposed, and that there was an alternative view called "Oneness" that seemed to express what I had not only experienced but confirmed in the Scriptures. Whenever I would hear preachers say "you need a Revelation!" and "It's a Revelation!" I knew EXACTLY what they meant, because I had it!

And I got it independently of man, before I ever heard the term "Oneness" or ever even met a Oneness apostolic believer or even knew they existed.

In the years since God brought me this precious Truth by direct Revelation and Experience, confirming His Word with signs and wonders following, I have met an increasing number of people who seem to be Oneness as taught to them by flesh and blood. I don't mean they were given a Bible study and saw the Truth, I mean something else. They seem to have an academic understanding of being a "Oneness adherent" but they do not seem to have had an actual Revelation from God. Oneness is just a convenient theological explanation that, in their minds, is somewhat more satisfactory than say trinitarianism or some other -ism. And so I wonder how they ever became Oneness to begin with, because from a philosophical point of view Oneness doctrine is foolish and rather low-brow. It's not nuanced and technical enough, it's "theology for dummies and hillbillies", or so it seems to the mass of the theological illuminati.

Anyway, I always wonder... when I meet "trinitarian Pentecostals", I like to ask them: "When you got the Holy Ghost, just exactly WHO DID YOU GET?"

I cannot even fathom receiving the Holy Ghost and not knowing intuitively and immediately by direct knowing that JESUS CHRIST is the Alpha and Omega, Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace, Jehovah God Himself, King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Son of God, firstborn of Creation, and all of it. It's All In him indeed.

So... how did YOU come to be "Oneness"?

[CC1]

Born into a Oneness Pentecostal family as the 3rd generation on my father's side. Raised UPC from birth and remained so until almost 24 years of age when moved and began attending an exUPC oneness church.

[Esaias]

Originally Posted by CC1

Born into a Oneness Pentecostal family as the 3rd generation on my father's side. Raised UPC from birth and remained so until almost 24 years of age when moved and began attending an exUPC oneness church.

I don't understand. You can't be "born Oneness" anymore than one could be "born trinitarian"??? You were raised by parents who were Oneness etc. but how did YOU become Oneness?

Or did you? Are you Oneness?

[Esaias]

Some 40 views and nobody wants to give their testimony?

Weird...

[CC1]

Originally Posted by Esaias

I don't understand. You can't be "born Oneness" anymore than one could be "born trinitarian"??? You were raised by parents who were Oneness etc. but how did YOU become Oneness?

Or did you? Are you Oneness?

I thought I was pretty clear.I am Oneness but then the vast majority of Christians are monotheistic including trinitarian doctrine.

[Esaias]

Originally Posted by CC1

I thought I was pretty clear.I am Oneness

I was just asking "how you became Oneness", not "are you Oneness".

but then the vast majority of Christians are monotheistic including trinitarian doctrine.

What in the world does that have to do with anything?

[Amanah]

God has had his hand on me since I was a child. My Mom was raised Catholic but we almost never went to church.

One morning when I was in kindergarten I was late for the buss and I missed it. My Mom was upset and mad, she was mentally ill. She asked me if I remembered how to get to the Kindergarten and I said yes. I asked God to tell me how, and he did. So I told my Mom how to get there. Later, she asked me how did you know, I said *God showed me* At first she believed me and she would ask me to pray for my Dad to come home and stop running around with other women. But I was a kid and wanted to play, and Did didn't change because of my prayers, so then she said I was a liar.

I was mildly autistic, people never liked me because I didn't make eye contact and had no social skills, and my mother always said I looked like I was guilty about something. I was very isolated. But I always knew there was a God that I could turn to.

I had never heard of the Holy Ghost. When we were living in Virginia my mother was invited to visit an AOG church, and she took me along. When the preacher gave an altar call, I stumbled to the altar with a broken heart, I was the only one who went. God filled me with the Holy Ghost, speaking with tongues. The Church was amazed. I was Eleven.

My Dad was in the Army and we moved a lot. When I was 15 we moved to Melbourne, I was at the mall and young preacher walked up to me and showed me Acts 2:38 in the bible and asked me if I wanted to be baptized. Brother Joel Velie from the Pentecostal Lighthouse baptized me in Jesus name.

God was merciful to me, even though I had the Holy Ghost and was baptized, I was a thoughtless teenager and I didn't live for God.

But, I told my Sister about the Holy Ghost and baptism in Jesus Name, and told her when she grew up she should be baptized and get the Holy Ghost. She did just that.

When I was 24 my Mom and my Sister had met a young preacher, Pastor McClure, who was also 24 and was holding revival services at the Melbourne auditorium. They were both baptized and received the Holy Ghost.

This little church was having services at the Eau Gallie Women's Club. They invited me to come. He preached on the Oneness of God. His words burned into my soul and about 15 minutes into the sermon I abruptly stood up and walked to the back of the room and was intently looking through the literature on a table they set up in the back.

I was the only visitor, there were less then 30 people there, He chuckled and said that church was dismissed and walked back to me to ask me if everything was ok. I told him I was looking for more literature on the Oneness of God because the Trinity had never made sense to me. It came through a preacher, but it was a revelation in my soul.

Because of this revelation, I could never be happy in a church that didn't preach oneness and baptize in Jesus name.

John 8:24 I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am he you will die in your sins.”

[mizpeh]

In 1982, I just moved to a small town in England with my husband who was in the USAF. I met an American girl from Indiana whose husband was also in the USAF who told me about Jesus. As she began talking about Jesus she started to speak in other tongues...the words just flowed out of her and she seemed a little embarrassed by it. She had only been converted 6 months earlier before coming to England. I wanted what she had, an experience with God. The catholic churches I had attended had been boring and dry. I was baptized in Jesus name by a baptism minister on the air force base and I received the Holy Spirit in my apartment where we were praying. I attending some Trinitarian fellowships for about a year until I was in the hospital after giving birth to my first child and a nurse saw my bible on the bed stand and asked where I went to church. She invited me to her fellowship which was led by a Oneness pastor from South Carolina who fellowshipped with the UPC churches in England.

I devoured the Bible as an early believer. I read it through in a couple of months. It was the OT that convinced me that God was one personal being and that God became a man. My pastor didn't teach on it very much. The passages in the NT with Jesus praying and talking about his Father confused me but I didn't see the trinity in the OT so I prayed for God to give me understanding. I read DKB's book on Oneness which helped a little.

It wasn't until 2006 when discussing with Trinitarians online that the confusion about Jesus prayers and relationship with his Father returned that I fasted and prayed and God showed me that the doctrine of the Trinity was a false doctrine. Since then I have set out with the understanding/presupposition that the God of the OT was one person and He became the man, Jesus Christ. I look at the NT with that light and have tried to find explanations for the things in the NT that confused me. This is where Jason Dulle's writing have been helpful and the teaching on kenosis (which I understand in a modified way) which explains why God in human form did not know everything (the time of his second coming), had to be taught by his Father, grew in wisdom, and did not have the glory he once had, and was able to have a relationship as a man with his Father. The discussions I've had about "person" have helped me to realize that God is a different type of person than we are and is more than capable of functioning through two distinct modes, spirit and man, with two distinct associated consciousness simultaneously.

By no means do I think I understand everything about God and his becoming a man but I have found answers that satisfy me with the basics.

[Evang.Benincasa]

Originally Posted by Esaias

I don't understand. You can't be "born Oneness" anymore than one could be "born trinitarian"??? You were raised by parents who were Oneness etc. but how did YOU become Oneness?

Or did you? Are you Oneness?

He was born into a religion. Just like if he was born in India and had a Hindu father and mother. He would of turned out Hindu for the most part. When the individual moved at the ripe old age of 20-24 he/she attends a masjid, or a cathedral, or a hippy church. While still keeping to some of the Hindu ideologies. They can smoothly make the transition from Hindu to whatever religion now. They are older been doing it for years, and can talk to their Hindu buddies while living a Muslim, Eastern Syrian Orthodox, or Coffee House church existence. Raising children, especially teenagers in this take a lot of being a Teen whisperer. I let the church family know your children aren't born Apostolic, they aren't born Christians or any other religion. They are little souls soon to be teen souls, 24 hit the road souls, eventually married souls. From the day of their birth you have to win them. If you want them to remain in your religious process, whatever that may be, you have to set the example and win them. They have to love what they are doing. Many are dutiful and are willing to obey the party line because you are Ultron. But sooner or later they figure out that Ultron can't be everywhere all the time.

They end up slipping, they end up getting a stern lecture, instead of love, prayer, and stillness. Not everyone is going to follow mom and dad. Some may never even stay as a Christian, either Hippy Church or Pennycost.

We all know this is about Jesus and us, I can only cooperate for me. I can only work with Jesus myself. I cannot make anyone do anything they don't want to do. Whether it is the guy pumping concrete into the walls of my building, or the guy sitting in the mixer. They do what I say because I am paying them. But if I'm late building my form boards, it will now take a whole lot of cool kindness to keep them waiting in the hot sun. Not every young person is the same, they are all different. All with a plethora of thoughts and feelings. As they were growing up they bumped into the religion and stubbed a toe real bad. Some never notice the broke toe, but others hang on to it as their struggling bleeding cross. You need to make a loving attempt to talk them down to the landing strip. Some will land the plane, while others won't. Yet, they can't receive the religious shunning treatment.

Some young people get shunned while at home because they didn't light incense, wear a certain garment, kiss the mezuzah before walking through the threshold. I had a friend growing up whose father was a rabbi. We were close, but the father was super strict, and didn't like Italians, more so didn't like Roman Catholics. One day we were riding our bikes, and my friend had a twisted chain. So I gave him my bike, and carried his to my house. my friend got off my bike and walked it as I carried his. We got to his house and he directed me to go across his lawn. I walked across the lawn, and my friend's father had a nuclear blowout! My friend's father put me on full blast! Then he locked on photon torpedos to his son. My friend's father noticed that my friend wasn't wearing his kippah. I watched the scene go down. My friend's face turned from fear to loathing. Not for his dad, he loved his dad. But for the situation. How the situation went down, what the situation was about, and for something he really never liked to wear, or loved to wear. Want and need are two vastly different things. Need is a powerful word, you may want all sorts of things, but needing is life or death. If the young person doesn't understand a need of a head covering, Kippah, turban, long uncut hair, or authority, they just won't comply. I remember a youngster replying to me in this way, I asked him to do go get me a tool, he asked "why?" I replied "because I need it" You replied back, "do you love the need?"

Young people need to be won. Not at all implying that a young person who leaves the fold doesn't love the parents. Or doesn't respect the religion they happened to be dropped in. If you take for granted that all your little indians are going to grow up hindus, then you might be let down. Don't EVER look at someone who has 17 children or 100 all living as holy as Moses. The Apostle Paul sad that was unwise ,2 Corinthians 10:12. Your young people are your young people, the father is the pastor of his home, and the mother his helper. Both have to be unified in utter wisdom on how to win the most precious souls given to them, their children. Will this always work in every case? No, because people are people. We are just called to do our part. Pray for the optimum. Have faith that Jesus will help, but if we do this, we can't be kicking His legs out from under Him. Yet, don't be discouraged if they leave, because you have to always keep the faith for a return.

[Michael The Disciple]

I accepted Jesus as a hippie in 1974. I devoured his word day and night and April 3 1974 I had an experience with tongues and prophecy. I had not starting attending Church yet and the only Christians I knew were my Grandma and Aunt. I had never been in a Pentecostal Church in my life. I did not realize this was the baptism of the Spirit.

Eventually I started going to Church in various groups. Everyone believed in Trinity so I assumed I did too. After all it was taught that if you did not believe in it you were a cult person. One day my cousin came by who was married to a Oneness Pentecostal. He gave me a few scriptures on Oneness.

It had the ring of truth to it but I think I did not understand Trinity enough to see a lot of difference. Several years later I accepted baptism in Jesus name because I could see thats how the Apostles baptized. This was in a Charismatic Church. They were not Oneness at that time so I was baptized still not knowing the full revelation.

I moved on to another Pentecostal/Charismatic group in 1979. Also Trinitarian. Around then my wife was invited to a UPC Bible study. She went a few times and brought back some Eddie Jones tracts a Oneness Preacher from Linden Louisiana.

I started studying them and to my shock I had never really understood the Trinity was 3 co equal co eternal persons each distinct from the other!

As I poured over the tracts I began to wake up to the truth. I was almost convinced at that time and knew I was not Trinitarian. I called the Pastor back in the Charismatic Church where I was baptized to see what he was teaching.

He had himself just come under the Oneness teaching as presented by John Eckstat of the UPC. He presented it at Church shortly after and I attended. It was altogether glorious and magnificent! The tracts from Eddie Jones had been strong enough to help me see Trinity was wrong and Oneness had to be true.

But when this Pastor brought out the revelation about the LOGOS being the invisible God himself in the Old Testament it just nailed it so powerfully I fully embraced it.

To this day I would rather teach on Oneness than any other topic. It just magnifies Jesus to the highest place in the Universe....exactly where he should be!