sthatting
10th August 2007, 04:24 PM
Before I went to this conference, I had no idea why I was or what to expect. I was happy as a Mormon Fundamentalist (or Mormon Polygamist) and as a Scientologist. Because I had achieved a fairly high status in the United Latter-day Church of Jesus Christ, I was able to pursue my own interests (the Church of Scientology).
When the conference was first mentioned to me, I didn't really think I could go, but after talking with Isaiah and Denise, I was actually looking forward to going.
I am soooooooooo glad I went now. Let me explain to a little as to why.
Thursday afternoon at the conference, several individuals were sharing about visions and experiences they had had in going to heaven; all of them similar down to the detail. I just knew that something really special was happening, but I had no idea what was going on. I knew that if I had prayed that I were to have a personal encounter with God that I risked my world being turned upside down and I didn't want to experience that. I guess you could say I was pretty rebellious.
I had been raised in the Nazarene church and the Church of God (HQ Anderson, Indiana), so I was somewhat familiar with churches. I had left both churches over spats and “church dramas” that had taken place and was just sick of church, Jesus, God, etc. I hated anything Christian, and I tried everything to work against Christianity calling it conceded, sex driven, etc.
That Thursday, though... things seemed to change. I felt deep down inside that I wanted to have a personal encounter with God, but I didn't want to because it might change everything. For those of you that don't know, you can't crush that voice inside you for very long. Not without feeling very VERY depressed or heartbroken.
The worship songs hadn't even started yet. As Linda Macintosh opened up prayer for us to have an experience, the second she opened prayer I was on a beach. I had received a vision previously and both were in nature. Anyway, I was on a beach and I saw a figure in the distance that I instantly knew it was Jesus Christ. No one spoke to me saying it was him, I just knew it was him. He was walking toward me and I to him. As we were getting closer to each other I heard him saying, “Come. Come here. Come follow me. Follow me. Come.” I was so broken I could NOT stop crying. I felt my arms shaking and my legs and feet just shaking. I felt embarrassed. I was crying. I hated crying. I asked, “Why? Why are you doing this? Why now? What are you trying to do?” He kept on repeating, “Come. Come follow me.” Then as quickly as I was in that vision, I was out of it.
Let me give you an idea at how distressing this was. I was pretty much depressed for the rest of the day and on Friday until that night. I was a Mormon. I hated Christianity and Jesus, and Mormonism was based on following the words of the prophet. I didn't care about Jesus. Yeah, we just closed a prayer with his name, and that's it, but nothing really big. Not like Jesus was God or anything. Mormons don't believe in the trinity. Well, I asked God to show who he was and then had that vision. I didn't ask Jesus to show who he was. I asked God. So, I pretty much realized from there that I knew God and Jesus were the same.
I then saw myself sharing this vision with others in my future. People I knew and recognized and others I didn't. This was also distressing to me because, I didn't consider myself a Christian. I was, at the time, a practicing and somewhat faithful Scientologist. That's right... Tom Cruise. I had been introduced to the Church of Scientology in 2002 and it took off from there. The same year (coincidentally) that I was introduced to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
So, Friday afternoon, I'm still feeling very distressed. I don't know what to believe anymore. I had known Scientology for so long, it seemed, and yet, here I am with this “Jesus thing” in my other hand. I wasn't even sure I wanted the “Jesus thing” to be a part of me. So, Friday, I'm talking with Denise Schauer. I tell her what happened and how upset and distressed I am over this whole thing and she says, you just need to start over and let Jesus be your focus or something similar to that. At that point I just couldn't take it anymore. The whole Jesus thing was driving me crazy. I told her that I hated Jesus. Jesus was everything I didn't want to be. Jesus was oppressive, always told you how to do things, told you what you could and couldn't be, who you could and couldn't hang out with, etc. If that's what Jesus was/is, I don't want to have anything to do with that Jesus. That's the Jesus I was raised with.
Then, Friday evening rolls around. I remember what Denise had said about just starting over. I didn't feel that I could do that, but if I was going to try, I was going to sit away from everyone else. I started looking for seats away from our youth group that I could sit at. To my astonishment, all of the seats were taken already. As I was walking up the last row towards the main entrance, a man (whom I had never met, mind you) put his hand on my left shoulder. I thought he just put it there as people do when they are trying to get around someone, so I was trying to move more to the right as he would move down the left. To my astonishment, he leaned over to my ear and said, “The banquet table is not full tonight.” I looked at him like, “What planet are you from? What are you talking about?” He says again, “The banquet table is not full tonight.” I'm just sorta stunned. I have no idea what he's talking about and he looks at me and says, “It will come clear.” And he just moves on through the crowd. I do a couple double takes and don't think much more of it.
I finally find a place to sit around the area our youth group is. I'm a little upset because I didn't want to sit next to them, but I figure it will probably work out. As I'm standing in the aisle, Isaiah walks up and asks if the seats were taken (there were only 2 seats). I asked him which one and he says both. “No.” I said. He kinda looks a little baffled and asks, “Um... well... can I sit here?” A little annoyed, I'm like, “Okay. Fine.” Then he just kinda moves on after setting his stuff down.
So, worship starts and I'm trying to be really unresponsive because I didn't want another one of yesterdays episodes happening. I was still getting over everything that was going on. At one point during worship, I'm said, “Okay God. If you really love me and think that I'm special enough to take this step, give me a sign.” And I thought, “Gosh, I've got to be specific, right?” So I say, “Give me 2... no! Give me 1 person to come over and give me a Bible verse or something to say or something. Oh yeah! And do it before worship ends, God.”
Well, it wasn't too long before worship was almost over, and I was getting more and more impatient by the second. I prayed it again. “God, give me someone to show me a Bible verse or something before the worship started.” I swear, when I prayed that, I heard something, whether it was me, or God, and it said, “Even if I did, would it be enough?”
I can't really explain what happened next. I felt this anger, hatred, resentment, etc. just coming back from all these past churches and the dramas associated with them, all the feelings just came back. I walked out. I was so angry I had to go walking somewhere. I had to do something; anything but sit around. I walked into the bathroom and caught a glimpse of myself. “What am I doing? Why am I here? What's going on with me?” It all seemed like a terrible nightmare, but I didn't know how to wake up.
I walk back in about 5-10 minutes before worship is ending. I remember think to myself, “Gee... maybe if I just start convulsing on the floor, God will hear me and send someone.” Then I remember saying, “God, this is your last chance. Give me a Bible verse” and immediately Matt. 6:7 pops into my mind. I literally see a vision of it. “Matt. 6:7” in bold arial white on a black background. I didn't know what it was, so I turned to the scripture. I read, “And when you pray do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do.” I swear... I did NOT see the word pray that night. I could swear by my life that I had seen the word “worship” where pray was. I was actually a little weirded out. I then remembered at a banquet dinner about how Luke said to start praying if you had any feelings of hostility, tension, etc. that came up out of nowhere. By now worship had ended and Isaiah was sitting back down next to me. I figured it wouldn't do much harm in asking him to pray for these feelings I was having. The worst I would feel would be happiness, right? So, I nudged him and asked him and as he started praying, I'll tell you what, it was like the walls of Jericho in my heart just started to crack. I was really quite confused as to what to do next. I sort of thought about what just happened and I asked Isaiah more about his Jesus. Who was Jesus to him?
I don't remember a whole lot of what he said, but I remember him saying “Jesus was love.” That must have echoed 15-20 times in my head, just “Jesus was love.” “Jesus is love.”
I don't remember how I arrived at this exactly because of the long pauses in between, but I was saved that night, August 3, 2007. I prayed a very simple prayer of my own, and said, “Lord Jesus,” and I remember chuckling because I recalled the conversation earlier telling Denise how much I hated the name Jesus. “Lord Jesus, I don't really know who you are anymore, nor do I know what you want with me, but I know what I have seen, I know what I have heard, and I know what I have experienced, and I want to know more of you.” Well, let me tell you something... those walls of Jericho in my heart that were cracking earlier?... It was like someone just dropped a nuclear bomb on it and it blew the wall into pieces faaaaar away from where it was before. It was like, Jericho was no longer part of me.
Right after I prayed that prayer, Chris Hill, the speaker for that night, was only minutes away from the countdown. We were supposed to move from 1 to 7, stepping into a new life with God. On the count of seven, we were going to dance and go crazy for Jesus and it kinda represented becoming revivalists for the Lord. I think I can justify this when I say that I was able to worship more that night than any other night of the conference.
After the service was over (maybe even before) word was getting around that “Steven got saved.” Isaiah mentioned that sharing what happened would really concrete my testimony a bit more. I did.
Incidentally, this all wasn't based on a feeling. I felt nothing when I prayed that prayer where I opened with “Lord Jesus.” This was a conscious decision.
Before leaving, Jerry (my ex-Mormon driver) and a friend of his were calling me back into the conference building. We were helping in taking down the equipment and taking it back to Bethel Church. They were calling me back in and this friend of Jerry's said that as I was leaving, he felt like the Lord was telling him to say some things to me. He asked if that was okay, and I said it was fine. He mentioned a few things. All except one were fulfilled within 3-4 days of this event.
He said that I would received spiritual gifts including tongues, prophesy, and healing. I received them during Saturday morning worship right before outreach (August 4, 2007). He said I would have another personal encounter with God that night (August 4, 2007, as it was midnight). I did, as I was practically worshiping God for the rest of the evening to right before I went to bed and was later baptized Saturday evening in Lake Whiskeytown. He said that I, myself, would experience healing. I received it Monday night (August 6, 2007) when I felt like I was going to throw up, and my feet were bothering me. The next thing he said was that I would show personal encounters with God to friends and family. That pretty much started happening from the get-go and the moment I got saved.
The last prophetic word given to me Friday night/Saturday morning was that I had an evangelist spirit and would be leading others to Christ through my testimony. He wasn't real specific, but he mentioned that many would be affected.
To make things even MORE interesting, Saturday night (August 6, 2007), as I was looking over pictures from my baptism downstairs at Bethel Church, as two women walked by. One remarked (her name was Lori) that I was glowing and that the Holy Spirit was very strong around me. I began bearing my testimony that I had been saved last night (Friday) and baptized that evening. As we were carrying on conversation, 2 other women walked up looking for a place to stay. Their names were Heather and Jerrica. Lori offered to pay for a room at a local hotel. Lori then asked to look at some pictures on my camera of the Jesus conference because she said she had seen angels there in the past. We scrolled through them, but there were none.
She then ushered all of us into a room that the Saturday morning worship was in earlier. There were paintings on the left side of the room and she explained a few encounters with these angels she had seen. I found it interesting, and right before they were leaving, they asked if they could say a blessing over me. They asked if it was okay, and I said, yes. After saying the blessing, Heather (on my left) says, “My gosh! You are just flowing with the Holy Spirit. I feel like God is just telling you that you are so special to him and that you are going to do amazing things.” Then the other girl (I can't remember her name) says, “Yeah... I feel that too, and God just loves you so much.” Immediately I remember my “deal” with God to send me 1 person with a Bible verse or something to say that relates with how I felt.
This only concreted my already strong testimony. Luckily, God doesn't work on our watch. We work on his watch. If he was working on mine, he would've sent me 1 person in 15 minutes that I probably would've rejected anyway. Instead, God sent me 4 people within 24 hours. Keep in mind, I didn't know any of these women.
When the conference was first mentioned to me, I didn't really think I could go, but after talking with Isaiah and Denise, I was actually looking forward to going.
I am soooooooooo glad I went now. Let me explain to a little as to why.
Thursday afternoon at the conference, several individuals were sharing about visions and experiences they had had in going to heaven; all of them similar down to the detail. I just knew that something really special was happening, but I had no idea what was going on. I knew that if I had prayed that I were to have a personal encounter with God that I risked my world being turned upside down and I didn't want to experience that. I guess you could say I was pretty rebellious.
I had been raised in the Nazarene church and the Church of God (HQ Anderson, Indiana), so I was somewhat familiar with churches. I had left both churches over spats and “church dramas” that had taken place and was just sick of church, Jesus, God, etc. I hated anything Christian, and I tried everything to work against Christianity calling it conceded, sex driven, etc.
That Thursday, though... things seemed to change. I felt deep down inside that I wanted to have a personal encounter with God, but I didn't want to because it might change everything. For those of you that don't know, you can't crush that voice inside you for very long. Not without feeling very VERY depressed or heartbroken.
The worship songs hadn't even started yet. As Linda Macintosh opened up prayer for us to have an experience, the second she opened prayer I was on a beach. I had received a vision previously and both were in nature. Anyway, I was on a beach and I saw a figure in the distance that I instantly knew it was Jesus Christ. No one spoke to me saying it was him, I just knew it was him. He was walking toward me and I to him. As we were getting closer to each other I heard him saying, “Come. Come here. Come follow me. Follow me. Come.” I was so broken I could NOT stop crying. I felt my arms shaking and my legs and feet just shaking. I felt embarrassed. I was crying. I hated crying. I asked, “Why? Why are you doing this? Why now? What are you trying to do?” He kept on repeating, “Come. Come follow me.” Then as quickly as I was in that vision, I was out of it.
Let me give you an idea at how distressing this was. I was pretty much depressed for the rest of the day and on Friday until that night. I was a Mormon. I hated Christianity and Jesus, and Mormonism was based on following the words of the prophet. I didn't care about Jesus. Yeah, we just closed a prayer with his name, and that's it, but nothing really big. Not like Jesus was God or anything. Mormons don't believe in the trinity. Well, I asked God to show who he was and then had that vision. I didn't ask Jesus to show who he was. I asked God. So, I pretty much realized from there that I knew God and Jesus were the same.
I then saw myself sharing this vision with others in my future. People I knew and recognized and others I didn't. This was also distressing to me because, I didn't consider myself a Christian. I was, at the time, a practicing and somewhat faithful Scientologist. That's right... Tom Cruise. I had been introduced to the Church of Scientology in 2002 and it took off from there. The same year (coincidentally) that I was introduced to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
So, Friday afternoon, I'm still feeling very distressed. I don't know what to believe anymore. I had known Scientology for so long, it seemed, and yet, here I am with this “Jesus thing” in my other hand. I wasn't even sure I wanted the “Jesus thing” to be a part of me. So, Friday, I'm talking with Denise Schauer. I tell her what happened and how upset and distressed I am over this whole thing and she says, you just need to start over and let Jesus be your focus or something similar to that. At that point I just couldn't take it anymore. The whole Jesus thing was driving me crazy. I told her that I hated Jesus. Jesus was everything I didn't want to be. Jesus was oppressive, always told you how to do things, told you what you could and couldn't be, who you could and couldn't hang out with, etc. If that's what Jesus was/is, I don't want to have anything to do with that Jesus. That's the Jesus I was raised with.
Then, Friday evening rolls around. I remember what Denise had said about just starting over. I didn't feel that I could do that, but if I was going to try, I was going to sit away from everyone else. I started looking for seats away from our youth group that I could sit at. To my astonishment, all of the seats were taken already. As I was walking up the last row towards the main entrance, a man (whom I had never met, mind you) put his hand on my left shoulder. I thought he just put it there as people do when they are trying to get around someone, so I was trying to move more to the right as he would move down the left. To my astonishment, he leaned over to my ear and said, “The banquet table is not full tonight.” I looked at him like, “What planet are you from? What are you talking about?” He says again, “The banquet table is not full tonight.” I'm just sorta stunned. I have no idea what he's talking about and he looks at me and says, “It will come clear.” And he just moves on through the crowd. I do a couple double takes and don't think much more of it.
I finally find a place to sit around the area our youth group is. I'm a little upset because I didn't want to sit next to them, but I figure it will probably work out. As I'm standing in the aisle, Isaiah walks up and asks if the seats were taken (there were only 2 seats). I asked him which one and he says both. “No.” I said. He kinda looks a little baffled and asks, “Um... well... can I sit here?” A little annoyed, I'm like, “Okay. Fine.” Then he just kinda moves on after setting his stuff down.
So, worship starts and I'm trying to be really unresponsive because I didn't want another one of yesterdays episodes happening. I was still getting over everything that was going on. At one point during worship, I'm said, “Okay God. If you really love me and think that I'm special enough to take this step, give me a sign.” And I thought, “Gosh, I've got to be specific, right?” So I say, “Give me 2... no! Give me 1 person to come over and give me a Bible verse or something to say or something. Oh yeah! And do it before worship ends, God.”
Well, it wasn't too long before worship was almost over, and I was getting more and more impatient by the second. I prayed it again. “God, give me someone to show me a Bible verse or something before the worship started.” I swear, when I prayed that, I heard something, whether it was me, or God, and it said, “Even if I did, would it be enough?”
I can't really explain what happened next. I felt this anger, hatred, resentment, etc. just coming back from all these past churches and the dramas associated with them, all the feelings just came back. I walked out. I was so angry I had to go walking somewhere. I had to do something; anything but sit around. I walked into the bathroom and caught a glimpse of myself. “What am I doing? Why am I here? What's going on with me?” It all seemed like a terrible nightmare, but I didn't know how to wake up.
I walk back in about 5-10 minutes before worship is ending. I remember think to myself, “Gee... maybe if I just start convulsing on the floor, God will hear me and send someone.” Then I remember saying, “God, this is your last chance. Give me a Bible verse” and immediately Matt. 6:7 pops into my mind. I literally see a vision of it. “Matt. 6:7” in bold arial white on a black background. I didn't know what it was, so I turned to the scripture. I read, “And when you pray do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do.” I swear... I did NOT see the word pray that night. I could swear by my life that I had seen the word “worship” where pray was. I was actually a little weirded out. I then remembered at a banquet dinner about how Luke said to start praying if you had any feelings of hostility, tension, etc. that came up out of nowhere. By now worship had ended and Isaiah was sitting back down next to me. I figured it wouldn't do much harm in asking him to pray for these feelings I was having. The worst I would feel would be happiness, right? So, I nudged him and asked him and as he started praying, I'll tell you what, it was like the walls of Jericho in my heart just started to crack. I was really quite confused as to what to do next. I sort of thought about what just happened and I asked Isaiah more about his Jesus. Who was Jesus to him?
I don't remember a whole lot of what he said, but I remember him saying “Jesus was love.” That must have echoed 15-20 times in my head, just “Jesus was love.” “Jesus is love.”
I don't remember how I arrived at this exactly because of the long pauses in between, but I was saved that night, August 3, 2007. I prayed a very simple prayer of my own, and said, “Lord Jesus,” and I remember chuckling because I recalled the conversation earlier telling Denise how much I hated the name Jesus. “Lord Jesus, I don't really know who you are anymore, nor do I know what you want with me, but I know what I have seen, I know what I have heard, and I know what I have experienced, and I want to know more of you.” Well, let me tell you something... those walls of Jericho in my heart that were cracking earlier?... It was like someone just dropped a nuclear bomb on it and it blew the wall into pieces faaaaar away from where it was before. It was like, Jericho was no longer part of me.
Right after I prayed that prayer, Chris Hill, the speaker for that night, was only minutes away from the countdown. We were supposed to move from 1 to 7, stepping into a new life with God. On the count of seven, we were going to dance and go crazy for Jesus and it kinda represented becoming revivalists for the Lord. I think I can justify this when I say that I was able to worship more that night than any other night of the conference.
After the service was over (maybe even before) word was getting around that “Steven got saved.” Isaiah mentioned that sharing what happened would really concrete my testimony a bit more. I did.
Incidentally, this all wasn't based on a feeling. I felt nothing when I prayed that prayer where I opened with “Lord Jesus.” This was a conscious decision.
Before leaving, Jerry (my ex-Mormon driver) and a friend of his were calling me back into the conference building. We were helping in taking down the equipment and taking it back to Bethel Church. They were calling me back in and this friend of Jerry's said that as I was leaving, he felt like the Lord was telling him to say some things to me. He asked if that was okay, and I said it was fine. He mentioned a few things. All except one were fulfilled within 3-4 days of this event.
He said that I would received spiritual gifts including tongues, prophesy, and healing. I received them during Saturday morning worship right before outreach (August 4, 2007). He said I would have another personal encounter with God that night (August 4, 2007, as it was midnight). I did, as I was practically worshiping God for the rest of the evening to right before I went to bed and was later baptized Saturday evening in Lake Whiskeytown. He said that I, myself, would experience healing. I received it Monday night (August 6, 2007) when I felt like I was going to throw up, and my feet were bothering me. The next thing he said was that I would show personal encounters with God to friends and family. That pretty much started happening from the get-go and the moment I got saved.
The last prophetic word given to me Friday night/Saturday morning was that I had an evangelist spirit and would be leading others to Christ through my testimony. He wasn't real specific, but he mentioned that many would be affected.
To make things even MORE interesting, Saturday night (August 6, 2007), as I was looking over pictures from my baptism downstairs at Bethel Church, as two women walked by. One remarked (her name was Lori) that I was glowing and that the Holy Spirit was very strong around me. I began bearing my testimony that I had been saved last night (Friday) and baptized that evening. As we were carrying on conversation, 2 other women walked up looking for a place to stay. Their names were Heather and Jerrica. Lori offered to pay for a room at a local hotel. Lori then asked to look at some pictures on my camera of the Jesus conference because she said she had seen angels there in the past. We scrolled through them, but there were none.
She then ushered all of us into a room that the Saturday morning worship was in earlier. There were paintings on the left side of the room and she explained a few encounters with these angels she had seen. I found it interesting, and right before they were leaving, they asked if they could say a blessing over me. They asked if it was okay, and I said, yes. After saying the blessing, Heather (on my left) says, “My gosh! You are just flowing with the Holy Spirit. I feel like God is just telling you that you are so special to him and that you are going to do amazing things.” Then the other girl (I can't remember her name) says, “Yeah... I feel that too, and God just loves you so much.” Immediately I remember my “deal” with God to send me 1 person with a Bible verse or something to say that relates with how I felt.
This only concreted my already strong testimony. Luckily, God doesn't work on our watch. We work on his watch. If he was working on mine, he would've sent me 1 person in 15 minutes that I probably would've rejected anyway. Instead, God sent me 4 people within 24 hours. Keep in mind, I didn't know any of these women.