Rejoicing in the Lord

Isaiah 61:10 “I rejoice greatly in the Lord, I exult in my God; for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation and wrapped me in a robe of righteousness.”

What a beautiful verse. The NIV Life Application Bible suggests that “me” in this verse could have been the Lord Himself or Isaiah writing about his own experience. Either could apply but today I’m leaning into it being written about Isaiah’s experience and also ours today when we are in Christ.

This verse explains why, in the meeting system, we never rejoiced greatly in the Lord and in my God. We didn’t and really couldn’t because, like the rest of the verse says, dare fully believe we were actually already clothed in salvation and we were already righteous because of Jesus. (2 Cor 5:21 “He made the one who did not know sin to be sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” We can put on our new clothes – right relationship with God – by putting our trust in Christ. To believe we were already saved and righteous in God’s sight all because of Jesus. THAT’S the Good News of the Gospel!

So much of the True Gospel was left out. We were cheated and deceived on so many levels. It will take all eternity for me to be thankful enough for the revelation of the True Gospel.

Resting in Him

That oh so familiar and beautiful invitation Jesus gave us as recorded in Matthew 11:28-30 where He said He would give us REST, and in Him we would find REST for our souls….has a deeper meaning to me this morning.

All my years in the meeting system and even some of the years away from that, I don’t remember consciously resting in Him. Resting as in the feeling when you sink into your favorite chair or into bed. You can finally rest and cease doing and being. But Jesus wanted us to REST in HIM. In the meetings, we spent so much time doing for Him (but mostly doing to meet the expectations of the group), and so much time and energy into ‘trying’ to get into His presence and get His attention, that we could never rest. Just simply come to Him and rest there. HE is the one pursuing us….constantly….yet we thought it was our job to pursue Him instead. Yes, we do that, but only because He relentlessly pursues us because He wants to have fellowship with us.

This morning, I want to just rest in Him. No words. Just rest in His love and His grace.

Focus! Focus!

Once the Lord opened my eyes and removed the scales from my eyes regarding what the meeting group really was based on (the workers without a home and the meeting in the home), everything about that doctrine they hold to seemed so crazy and almost bizarre.  That they would hold to what William Irvine decided was going to be a new church based on those two items.  Irvine just wanted something new and different than all the denominational churches the world knew at that time.  He took some verses and made a whole church out of them.  So did other groups who focused on other things.  

That the workers went out poor and walking the back roads of North America, appealed to some people.  Folks then, and now, don’t want their preachers to be rich or have much in this life materially speaking, so these men and women who were homeless and not asking for money, was fascinating, and appealing to some. 

Fast forward well over 100 years later, and the workers have become the MAIN focus of that group.  WAY more important than Jesus.  If you asked anyone still in that group if that is the case, of course they would deny it.  But after watching a workers funeral a few weeks ago, it was SO obvious to me again where their focus is and who gets the glory in that group.  It’s not Jesus.  To proclaim that you have to have a ministry like that and meet in homes in order to get to heaven is crazy making.  Jesus said nothing of the sort. 

Reading Matthew 10 again, where Jesus sent out the 12, he told them to “proclaim the kingdom of heaven has come near.”  I can just hear those guys saying that very thing…. excitedly!  And then sharing some of the things Jesus had been doing and teaching and how wonderful it all was.  I can’t imagine them spending 5 minutes talking about what they left behind for those few days/weeks….they had way too much else to share! 

I’ve said this many times before, and I will say it again, that one of the most tragic doctrines of the meeting group is how small they have made Jesus through the years.  The workers are far more important. 

Give your Bible a second chance!

I found myself this last week spending my quiet time looking for something to say on the blog.  Sound familiar?  i.e. testimonies in meetings….looking for something to say!!  Always, always especially when I was in the Work. Not good. I didn’t want the blog to be like that, to read like that.  Recently I read an author share her experience in getting ready to speak at a church event.  She wrote, “God did not tell me what to say, He simply inclined my heart in the direction of what I needed to study.”  I really liked that and wished I had used that approach while studying for countless meetings.  I am, however, going to use it for preparation in writing posts for the blog.  I want what I share to be an overflow of my quiet time, or my prayers or journaling. Not the goal of those things. 

I have a framed picture of an open Bible that has this quote beneath it: “Get lost in the beauty of God’s word.”  One of the things I am the most passionate about is awakening in the heart and mind of individuals who have left the meeting system, a love for the Word of God.  The Scripture.  It’s a land mine for many of you, I know. And for good reason.  What you heard, and what some of us taught, was so limited.  So surface for the most part and so downright wrong.  And no wonder when we hadn’t yet heard the True Gospel for ourselves. And the Jesus we heard about was one dimensional.  The KJV we were raised on is beautiful as far as poetry goes, but the language is not how we talk nowadays, and so it’s hard to make it relevant to our here and now. 

That being said, I would encourage you to get a hold of several other versions of the Bible if you haven’t already.  The first one I started reading, and I was still in the Work (gasp!), was the NLT.  Just reading familiar passages with new wording was so exciting because it made it come alive.  It made a huge difference. 

My love for Scripture has evolved over the years since I left the meeting group.  Books like Romans, Galatians, the Psalms, Ephesians, have come alive and continue to do so every time I read them.

My pastor said recently that he had referred to the book of Ephesians so many times it literally fell out of his Bible and he had to get a new Bible!  You should see the book of Ephesians in my current Bible.  It has huge sections highlighted, underlined, notes in the margins and on sticky notes because the margins are full. That’s MY experience.

The Psalms were a favorite place to turn back in the “what am I going to say in my testimony?” times, right?  Now, the Psalms are my go-to for another reason.  They are prayers I pray back to God, they are questions asked of God I didn’t know I could dare ask.  They are rich expressions of praise and thankfulness in words I couldn’t come up with on my own.  They are my rock in all kinds of times of life. 

OK, you get the point.  There is a saying, ‘the more you read the Bible, the more you will want to read the Bible.’  I don’t think that was true for me back in the meeting days, but it is now.  The Word says about itself that it is ALIVE, and RICH, and POWERFUL.  All are true.  It’s a light to my feet. (Psalm 119…. I could spend months in just that one chapter)

The Bible is God speaking to you about Jesus all the way through.  Look for Him in every book. It’s a love story from the beginning to the end. 

Open our eyes!

When Jesus was here on earth, the religious Jews totally missed recognizing the Messiah because they had already decided in their minds who He would be and what He would be like, and there was no deviating from that.  John the Baptist’s purpose was to turn people’s hearts to the Lord so that when they soon saw Him face to face, they would accept Him and be open to Him. 

The friends and workers have such a set-in stone idea of God and Jesus and what God’s “way” looks like that, just like most of the Jews in Jesus’ day, they are missing what is right in front on them on the written pages of their Bibles.  It’s terrifying for them (as it was for us once) to think outside the professing box, but oh that they would pray like they never have before that the Lord would not let them be deceived any longer by anyone or any spirit.  God WILL answer that prayer.  In fact, He will delight in answering that prayer.  He longs for the scales to fall from eyes.  It was a travesty that most of the religious people in Jesus’ day missed recognizing the Messiah among them.  It is equally a travesty that so many of the friends and workers are still failing to see Jesus for who He is and are also missing hearing and rejoicing in the true Gospel message.  May we all pray earnestly for those still in that group that we know and love that they could be delivered from darkness and brought to The Light.  If he Lord could open Paul the Apostle’s eyes, He can open anyone’s eyes. 

We each have our own turning point that set us on a journey of searching for more than what we had previously known spiritually. For me, it started when I was in my early 20’s in a young person’s meeting in Portland, Oregon. The brother worker speaking that evening mentioned Jabez’s prayer. I had never heard of it before. He quoted Jabez praying, “Oh, that thou wouldest enlarge my coast.” KJV for sure!! (Sorry, I couldn’t resist) I Chronicles 4:10. The CSB version reads, “If only you would extend my border.” I prayed right then, and many many times after that, that I would not live a shallow life in any realm. Extend my border. Decades later Romans 11:33 thrilled me because He had more than answered that prayer of my youth. “Oh, the depth of the riches and the wisdom and the knowledge of God!”

Also, Ezekiel 47:1-5 where the Lord lead Ezekiel into the river that flowed out from the temple, first up to his ankles, then his knees, then his waist, until finally he couldn’t touch bottom and could only swim in the the river. Dwelling deeper and deeper into the heart of God, into the Scriptures, until we’ve lost all earthly support under our feet and we are swimming in faith and love and there is nothing like it! There is nothing shallow about the Gospel, about Jesus.

I’m so thankful that though I can’t do everything I used to do, and can’t travel much, yet I can have a depth to my living and to my thoughts, and so can each of us in our individual settings and place in life. Praise to Him!

But when God…

Galatians 1:15-16 “But when God, who from my mother’s womb set me apart and called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son in me, so that I could preach him among the Gentiles…”

Paul in this section is telling the readers how he heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ FROM Jesus Christ. He shares this part of his testimony in several places, but this is one of my favorites.  He wanted them to know that the gospel preached to him was of no human origin, it came by a revelation from Jesus Himself.

Beginning in verse13 he references his former way of life…how zealous he was, how totally committed he was to the Law and how he had advanced among his own peers because he said, “I was extremely zealous for the traditions of my ancestors.” (Verse 14) I am by no means in the same category in any realm as Paul was, but I can say that in my years in the Work, I was totally committed to it, it was my life, the traditions of my ancestors became my traditions.  That is not to say that I was an easy younger co-worker!  I know I drove some of my first co-workers crazy!  Enough said! 

What I love about the verse quoted at the top of this page, are the three words that changed everything for Paul and for us too…..”but when God…”  Paul knew God had been involved in his life from the womb; that’s pretty amazing.  Psalm 139:13 suggest it’s true for all of us. “For it was you who created my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.”  He certainly created each of us, but then there was a conscious moment for us when we knew God had stepped in.  And we could say, “I was doing this or that, or planning this or this, but when God spoke, moved, directed, opened a door, closed a door…everything changed from that moment forward.  I’ve been thinking lately about life changing moments, and these would certainly be among those, when we can look back and see when He made the difference.  How much more of a life changing moment was it for us in this group when we made the choice to leave the meetings because there had been a but when God moment for us. 

Growing up the meeting group, probably every young person is afraid of their “but when God” moment because it might mean they were called to go into the Work.  Paul knew in his “but when God” moment that he would preach Christ among the Gentiles for the rest of his life.  Obviously, that call isn’t for everyone. The point I want to make here is to somehow help young and old see that whenever in life, and likely there will be many of them, those “but when God” moments come, it is a WONDERFUL moment!  Never one to be afraid of. He is constantly working FOR us not against us.  He convicts, not condemns. He alone sees the end from the beginning. His ways are not our ways. Thank goodness.

Take a few moments to think back on your but when God moments that changed your life.  That the Creator of the universe sees us each individually and then works on our behalf individually, is beyond humbling and touching.  It basically leaves me without words.  It leads me to worship every time.    

The True Gospel

Grace to you and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Two books in the Bible in particular have opened up to me in the years since I left the meetings. Romans and Galatians. I seldom read them while I was in the Work because they didn’t make sense.  There were a few “famous” verses in each book, of course, that were referenced. My pastor once said “If you leave Romans on the burner overnight, Galatians will be on the bottom of the pan in the morning.”  I’ve also read that Galatians is a mini version of Romans.  Both books speak tons about the grace of God. 

I mentioned in the previous post about how likely most of the workers today that haven’t yet had the Gospel of Grace revealed to them and are instead preaching and living according to the Gospel of Works aka legalism.  I did that very thing for nearly 22 years.

I’d like to share some verses from Galatians that began to open that book up to me big time.  It’s life changing!  I promise. Of course, I am sure many of you have probably already discovered this for yourself.  Isn’t it wonderful?

Paul bursts out of the gate in chapter one verse one about Jesus’ resurrection. It was that important to him.  Among the truly mind baffling, and appalling, omissions that the workers hardly teach about and definitely do not BEGIN to stress the importance of, is the resurrection!  It changed everything! Because of His resurrection, we cannot NOT be raised ourselves if we are in Christ! Most of us here very recently celebrated Easter where we would have heard amazing messages that day about that event.  Like the song says, “He took one breath and put death to death. Where is your sting, oh grave? How grave is your defeat…” 

Chapter 1:6-10 are key verses for those of us delivered from the meeting system. Paul was writing to Jews who had listened to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and had believed it. But later, some came in preaching another gospel and were turning them away from God. “I am amazed that you are so quickly turning away from him who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel – not that there is another gospel, but there are some who are troubling you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.”

Our experience within the meeting church was just the opposite. All we knew was “another gospel.” A distorted gospel. The gospel these Galatians had received had set them free from the Torah, the Old Testament Law.  All we in the meetings knew was the “law.”  (Those rules we heard that we needed to keep, mostly works based, in order that we might be saved.)

A few other points of the distorted gospel that we heard and believed:

• We didn’t hear about Christ’s righteousness that made us righteous.
•  We didn’t worship Jesus.  We knew the workers better than we did Jesus.
• We certainly didn’t have the assurance and relief of our own salvation.
• A major doctrinal point they cling to is “the ministry without a home and the meeting in the home.”  Everything in that church is based on those two things. But both are WORKS of men/women! There HAS to be the ministry going out 2×2 and there HAS to be the meeting in the home.  WORKS! But those two items are often the hardest for someone thinking of leaving the group has to deal with.  No where in Scripture does it say that the ministry saves us — or regularly attending fellowship meetings – – it is only Jesus Christ.
• We were taught that when Jesus said on the cross “It is finished” that He was just referring to the fact that He was about to die. But Jesus meant “It is finished. I have done everything necessary for believers to have salvation.”  The meeting group does not believe He did everything; they believe they must make up the difference!!!  As if He didn’t do enough!
• We knew nothing about true worship and how wonderful it can be. Giving all the glory and honor to Him.
• We were taught that God was not concerned with or involved with our “natural” life. Yet, there are many references in the Bible to the minute details God created and cares about and sees. For instance, the hairs on our head! We were left on our own for the vast majority of our lives. And yet they sing that line of the hymn that says, “To see His hand in everything, in great events and small.”  hmmm
•  We knew nothing about the Gospel of Grace.  Nothing. In fact, like I’ve mentioned before, the previous overseer here in my State got up years ago in a special meeting and announced, “I would just like to clarify that we do not believe in the Gospel of Grace.”  That was all he said about it. Then he went on to preach his planned sermon.
• And, of course, we were never taught about the Trinity…. Three in One.  You were put out of fellowship if you believed that Jesus was God. 

The Jews in Galatia had heard the true Gospel and were being drawn back in believing that they had to keep certain Old Testament Laws in order to be saved.  I did not hear, or preach, the true Gospel until I was in my 50’s.  I had been believing the gospel of works, which Jesus died to set us free from. I just find that so terribly sad on one hand, and so tremendously comforting on the other hand. I cannot give thanks to God enough for opening my eyes and heart to the true Gospel. It really IS the only Gospel of Good News. No wonder getting ready for Gospel meetings as a worker was so uphill and hard; I would spend hours trying to put together a 10-20 minute message because I didn’t know the Good News yet!  I hardly even knew who Jesus was then. Now, I jokingly sometimes say, that I could take a couple of verses in Ephesians, for instance, and speak on those for 20 minutes easily!! 

I will never be thankful enough for hearing and believing the True Gospel of Jesus Christ.  Praise be to Him forever and ever. Amen.

Here we go again…

I’m back!! The last post on this blog was dated May 2020….just two months after COVID hit my area. Even before that I had convinced myself that I had said everything I needed and wanted to say here. Hence the two-year silence. However, a couple of good friends of mine lately have been nudging me to go back to the blog and write again. Because, truth be told, my journey (and yours) has continued, and there are stories and revelations to be told. The Lord hasn’t stopped speaking, Scripture hasn’t stopped opening and questions and answers haven’t stopped surfacing.

When I started this blog, I went back through my personal journal entries as starting points and wrote from there. I may do that occasionally. I don’t really want to look back too much at the last couple of years. They were hard enough to live through the first time around. We are all so sick of COVID that who wants to hear any more about it, right? We all survived the best we could. Enough said.

So, we’ve left meetings. Huge decision. The break was made. For some, years ago, some weeks ago. We’ve left our Egypt on our way to our Promised Land. A lot of choices to make; everything from outward choices (mostly for us gals), to what do we do with Jesus now. Church or no church. Pick up our Bibles or put them aside for a while. And if we do pick up our Bibles, what versions do we read. The answer to each of those questions of entirely personal, but just know that it’s a common dilemma. But one thing I’ve
learned is that it is a process; it can’t be rushed, or at least it shouldn’t be. We are in unchartered waters and trying to stay afloat. It’s ok. We need each other and this blog is just one of several avenues available for support and community because I think we mostly agree that one of the biggest things we miss is that sense of belonging to a community we had in meetings. As warped as it sometimes was, and as shallow as it often was, we still felt like we were apart of something.

I have gone off and on to a couple of churches since I left the meetings, but to this day (it’s been about 16 years now), I have never felt connected to any of them. Maybe I just didn’t get involved enough, but it often felt like too much work to have to explain myself repeatedly. In the meetings, people knew who I was and what I was doing. At first, I just wanted anonymity; no one checking up on me if I missed a service or two or ten.(I think I still want that) Then I got involved in everything the women’s ministry was doing. Did that for years. Got burned out. Gradually, a pattern started evolving for me. My closest friends were all former meeting people. They were who I talked to, wrote to, zoomed with, visited with. Not exclusively but almost. Again, this is just my journey. No right or wrong here. But I feel understood with these ex-meeting people. I can relax with them so much easier. Again, I am not exclusive. But they are my people now.

That being said, those first years when I was going to church and participating in numerous women’s Bible studies, THAT is where I learned TRUE SOLID Christian teaching. I would walk away from those services/gatherings just blown away by things I had never heard before but were 100% scriptural.  That period was vital for me.  I still listen online most weeks to a local church, and I get more out of a one-hour sermon than I EVER did out of 4 days of convention.  Amen.  Remember when we sat in convention, and we would wait and wait for a message to “speak” to us, or a hymn? If something made me cry, I knew God had finally spoken and that there was hope for me.  And if I came away with just a sentence or two like that, then it had been a “good” convention.  Oh boy. How sad was that?  But how could the workers have much of substance to share when they themselves (bless their hearts) haven’t yet heard the true Gospel, much less taught it. Or don’t know who Jesus truly was/is?  Or don’t know about the Gospel of Grace because they were still putting their faith in the Gospel of Works? That is why whenever I visit with some who still go to meetings, or even think about some there that I dearly love, I just LONG that they could know and see and share what I have now compared to what they have.  Because there truly is no comparison.

Several months ago, I realized that the Jesus I knew in the meetings was one dimensional as compared to the multi-dimensional Jesus I know now. (I will try to explain more what I mean by that in future posts.) And I’m trusting that as time goes on, He will only continue to grow in depth and meaning to me.  I have learned so much about what He taught and lived and said than I had before.  The Gospels tell what Jesus said and did, and then the Epistles explain them.  The Holy Scriptures are a never-ending depth to me now. I wrote in my journal just this morning: “There’s so much, so much, in the Scriptures to read, pray about, soak in, and then write about!  I’m overwhelmed, but in the best possible way.  Where to start? When to stop? I could study and write all day.”

Nothing would mean more to me than that my family and the readers of this blog would get excited about Jesus, about the Word, about life with Him; both here and forever. Because those are the kind of people I need and want to surround myself with. I’m retired now and have a lot of free time to devote myself to these things.  One of the reasons I left the meetings was because as  I was starting to yearn for more of God in all parts of my life, and would share those longings in meetings, that no one wanted to come along on the journey with me. At least not that I knew of.  I just couldn’t grasp that, and so I had to leave so that I could begin surrounding myself with people who did.  And I have.  And it’s precious. 

One last thing…some have told me to forget about the blog; that blogs are things of the past. That people now just want Instagram or Twitter to read.  Something fast.  I’ve been guilty of that at times too and in the last 6-7 years, I have been shocked at how my attention span is significantly less than it ever used to be because of social media.  There are some beautiful aspects of social media but I like what one blog writer wrote: “We have to recapture the wonder of slow growth and slow gains.”  She said her goal was “to create a blog, and just be really faithful there over a long period of time.  Even with little or no interaction.” She said this would sharpen her skills as a writer and keep herself protected from the worst parts of social media.

So, these last two paragraphs explain my purpose in reviving this blog.  I love to write, and I need to write. And maybe someone will read it and the Holy Spirit will awaken something in their lives as well.

The One Hundredth Sheep

Remember the parable about the shepherd who leaves the ninety nine sheep in the wilderness to go and look for the one that was lost? Well, recently I was reading an excerpt from a book “Your Story Matters” and it said, “I was a nobody searching for God, for something real and true. And God found me. He left the ninety nine sheep and came out into the woods, climbed that mountain, found me, and carried me home. I am the one hundredth sheep. And you are the one hundredth sheep as well. We were all lost, wandering and God found us. Tell me about that. Tell me about that story.”

And so, I am going to.

I was just a little girl, age 10, living with a single mom back in the day when that was VERY unusual, and unheard of in the professing world. My two sisters were grown up and living away from home already. We were in a high school classroom attending a Gospel meeting lead by two sister workers. The last hymn was being sung, and I can still remember the chorus….”Oh don’t you hear Him knocking? Knocking at the door! He’s knocking at the door of your heart. He wants an invitation, to cross your threshhold o’er….” And for the first time ever, I suddenly felt like crying in meeting. I asked my mother about it later, about why I felt like that, and she said, “well, it was probably the Lord speaking to your heart.” I knew I was lost spiritually for the first time. He had sought me out. The one hundredth sheep. Just an ordinary girl living in a fractured home with a heartbroken mother who was trying to make ends meet. I don’t remember not feeling lonely as a child, albeit I would say I had a really great childhood. But that day when Jesus came looking for me….was astounding.

At the time, all I realized was that I was going to hell if I didn’t profess. I felt lost spiritually for the first time. It hit me in my core totally. Mom told me I was too young to profess. She was only speaking from her very limited understanding of who God was and what serving Him looked like, and also from the groups expectations. Those two years until I was 12 were scary because I knew I wasn’t saved yet.

When I finally professsed at convention at the age of 12, I remember feeling joy and peace afterwards. I don’t remember at all professing because the group expected me to because mom had told me (wisely) that it was the Lord who had called me. That choice was between me and God, and so, because of that, I do believe I was born again that night.

But what I do find very interesting now and tragic, is that nothing was said about repentance in that tested meeting or in any tested meeting I ever sat in AND tested myself as a worker. It was all about beginning your walk with God; I don’t even think the name of Jesus was mentioned much in those moments!! And nothing about repentance. You don’t get saved until you repent and then believe in Jesus Christ as your Savior. Am I the only one who is remembering this missing piece? And so, was I born again that night if there was no sense of repentance on my part and no openly acknowledging that I needed a Savior and was accepting Jesus Christ into my part??

I really didn’t know anything about the group itself at that point. I didn’t know until (when?) that just because I professed, that didn’t ensure my salvation…..because that wasn’t what the group believed. Professing was a vital step but it had to be followed by good works for the rest of your life in the hopes that you did eventually make it to heaven. (Did you ever notice how professing people work their entire lives HOPING they will be saved, but never, of course, having that certainty in this life because that would be presumptuous, but then after that person dies….in those days between their death and their funeral, folks know that person was either saved or not and the worker(s) who preach their funeral preach accordingly!?) But that’s another story.

I cherish Jesus leaving the ninety nine and coming for me. I still do. I cherish the many times since He has done that over and over again….come for me. Rescued me. Called me. Directed me. Helped me. Saved me from choices and consequences I deserved. Redeemed me. Forgave me. Strengthened me. Made me feel like I was the only sheep He was after. That’s a kind of love beyond words and understanding. It makes it easy to choose Him every single day. When have you been the one hundredth sheep He has come after?

Baptism….again

Back in August of this year, I attended a church service that I occasionally go to, and if I am not there, I always listen to later on my phone because the pastor is BRILLIANT IMO! (Rick Booye @ Trail Christian Fellowship). That day, his sermon was on baptism.

Obviously, through the years I have listened to quite a few “messages” on that subject, and to be honest, at first when Rick mentioned his topic, I thought ‘ho hum’. It was anything but. By FAR, it was the best explanation of baptism and what it MEANS and what it DOES, that I have EVER HEARD. I learned so much. Things I had never heard before.

I took copious notes but just a couple highlights….

John the Baptist was the last of the Old Testament prophets and he handed the baton directly to Jesus in the waters of Jesus’ baptism.

The heavens were opened; that doesn’t happen very often when you can see the invisible realm.

Baptism is an immersion of your life into the will of God. It’s symbolic; it’s a sign of something that has happened in the material and the spiritual world. So does communion. It connects us mystically and powerfully with the spiritual world. Baptism and communion is a portal between the two worlds. We tend to de-value the power of baptism but it’s the Gospel in physical form. It brings us into the Trinitarian essence; that is why we are baptized in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. It’s a real union with Christ and because of that, we cannot not be resurrected! Baptism immerses us in the Body of Christ.

At the very end of his sermon, he addressed the subject briefly if it is necessary to be baptized again for those who were baptized as infants. He said, no, because that person was baptized in their parents faith, but many adults often later choose to be.

And THEN, he said the other reason you would need to be re-baptized would be, “if you were baptized in a cult.”

I froze in my seat.

As soon as he was done speaking, I headed down towards the front because I had to ask him more about that. I told him I had been baptized at the age of 15 by immersion in the church I was raised in and told him which group it was. He was vaguely familiar with the group. He made the comment, “They have some pretty strange priorities.” I agreed! He asked me, “When someone new joins that group, do they insist that person be re-baptized even if they had been baptized before?” I said, “Always.” He said, “That is a cult then because, you were baptized into the group, not into Jesus Christ.”

I was dumbfounded. And I immediately knew I needed to be baptized again, and this time, into Jesus Christ. I KNEW God wanted me to take that step.

In September, I had the opportunity, along with two other former members of the 2×2 church, to be baptized in a lake by a very godly, deeply humble, young man. I will have a bond with those people involved FOREVER. I do not have the words to describe adequately what that meant to me, but it was profound in every possible way. I was sobbing tears of joy as I came out of the water. It has changed me in deep ways; I know that without a doubt. I feel more thankful, more joyful, have more clarity and understanding than I have ever had before. I love Jesus/God more than ever and Scripture holds new meaning.

This is just my story, but I had to share it.