Post by benlevi on Feb 12, 2008 4:54:10 GMT -5
Back in 1993 at age 16 I was considered a problem... Such a problem that teachers went to the school board asking to not have me attend class because they where scared of me... or my reputation to be more exact... since they had actually never met me... So how did someone like that turn into a pastor? Well let me back up the tape and start from the beginning;
I grew up in the southern parts of Sweden in a socialistic/communistic home (most people are). I soon rebelled against my family and my father who manhandled me and my brother daily. It resulted in me becoming friends with people that today either are dead or in prison... In my senior year of collage (13th grade) I was invited to a church-happening in the local pentecostal church by a classmate. Since they where having some Bolivian folk music there (which was something I was interested in) I decided to go in spite of my atheist/communist view on Christianity.
As I sat there the Pastor started to speak in tongues and that was the first time I heard that... Since I speak 6 languages more or less fluently and 6 others on a basic level I (with my language ear) realized that whatever he was speaking it was truly a real language with sentences, words and all... I did not at all understand or recognize the idiom which seemed strange to me (I know much about many languages and have heard and recognize hundreds of them) so I asked the girl next to me and she said that it was toungespeaking of the Spirit... It came as a slap in the face... because there was something in that language that felt like it was aimed at me... Like I somehow still recognized it but with a different sense than my language gift. I shrugged it off and concentrated on what was going on on stage in the huge church room (it was a church of 2000 members). What happened next wasn't that the pastor held a great sermond or that they brainwashed me...
As I sat there and the Bolivians started playing, the girl next to me (who knew who I was and prolly was a bit intimidated by my presence) started praying in an honest and personal way... I didn't hear it, but as the Spirit of the Lord fell upon her I too felt His presance... Mind bogging and completely unrealistic in my book. And as I departed I was still as unbelieving in God... but mostly surprised. I had met someone I did not believe existed... and still didn't believe existed. Impossible, and I refused to accept it!
During the days to come I thought about what happened and realized that if I cant trust my senses I cannot trust anything at all... They are my only means of communication with the world around me, and I have to trust them... So I decided to conduct a scientific experiment... In science you conclude a genuine result by repeatedly getting the same result a multitude of times, and I thought in my mind that IF this God existed the same thing would happen if I went back to the same place again.
I went to a meeting just a few days later and came a bit early... And as a 19 years old criminal young man I started praying for real for the first time in my life. I prayed something like this:
"God; if You really exist like these people say You do, I understand that Your purpose of letting me know must be that I should believe in You. IF you exist I understand that I have sinned and that Jesus Christ Your Son died because of my sin. I must ask Your forgiveness for that. IF You exist I understand that I must give my life to You, Jesus I put my life in Your hands! Amen!”
What happened next is beyond words... I cannot describe it, but the vail in front of my eyes fell off and with it my old life in sin. It was with the same conviction as brother Oral Roberts I could greet the people that came into church that night and say; "I know that I know, that I know, that I know, that I know, that I know there is a God!"
Thus I became a born again, blood bought, sanctified, charismatic, by grace forgiven deciple of Jesus Christ.
I grew up in the southern parts of Sweden in a socialistic/communistic home (most people are). I soon rebelled against my family and my father who manhandled me and my brother daily. It resulted in me becoming friends with people that today either are dead or in prison... In my senior year of collage (13th grade) I was invited to a church-happening in the local pentecostal church by a classmate. Since they where having some Bolivian folk music there (which was something I was interested in) I decided to go in spite of my atheist/communist view on Christianity.
As I sat there the Pastor started to speak in tongues and that was the first time I heard that... Since I speak 6 languages more or less fluently and 6 others on a basic level I (with my language ear) realized that whatever he was speaking it was truly a real language with sentences, words and all... I did not at all understand or recognize the idiom which seemed strange to me (I know much about many languages and have heard and recognize hundreds of them) so I asked the girl next to me and she said that it was toungespeaking of the Spirit... It came as a slap in the face... because there was something in that language that felt like it was aimed at me... Like I somehow still recognized it but with a different sense than my language gift. I shrugged it off and concentrated on what was going on on stage in the huge church room (it was a church of 2000 members). What happened next wasn't that the pastor held a great sermond or that they brainwashed me...
As I sat there and the Bolivians started playing, the girl next to me (who knew who I was and prolly was a bit intimidated by my presence) started praying in an honest and personal way... I didn't hear it, but as the Spirit of the Lord fell upon her I too felt His presance... Mind bogging and completely unrealistic in my book. And as I departed I was still as unbelieving in God... but mostly surprised. I had met someone I did not believe existed... and still didn't believe existed. Impossible, and I refused to accept it!
During the days to come I thought about what happened and realized that if I cant trust my senses I cannot trust anything at all... They are my only means of communication with the world around me, and I have to trust them... So I decided to conduct a scientific experiment... In science you conclude a genuine result by repeatedly getting the same result a multitude of times, and I thought in my mind that IF this God existed the same thing would happen if I went back to the same place again.
I went to a meeting just a few days later and came a bit early... And as a 19 years old criminal young man I started praying for real for the first time in my life. I prayed something like this:
"God; if You really exist like these people say You do, I understand that Your purpose of letting me know must be that I should believe in You. IF you exist I understand that I have sinned and that Jesus Christ Your Son died because of my sin. I must ask Your forgiveness for that. IF You exist I understand that I must give my life to You, Jesus I put my life in Your hands! Amen!”
What happened next is beyond words... I cannot describe it, but the vail in front of my eyes fell off and with it my old life in sin. It was with the same conviction as brother Oral Roberts I could greet the people that came into church that night and say; "I know that I know, that I know, that I know, that I know, that I know there is a God!"
Thus I became a born again, blood bought, sanctified, charismatic, by grace forgiven deciple of Jesus Christ.