Mercia2

I asked, so have you ever, alone, on your knees and in tears repented before God and asked for the Holy Spirit?

The word ASK is NOT a metaphor transferring the meaning to something else revealed by correspondence in the Bible. What kind of theology implies it was?

Hi Grace

I can only talk from my own experience, as I have yet to speak to another born again Christian about this, or ask what happened to them although the i have heard somewhere the term "convicted' - which exactly summed it up for me.

I will explain as best I can...
I had done a 12 week Christadelphian Bible course from a mailshot I received, and prior to doing that course I had fallen away for many years (I was never baptised as a child or anything though I was close to God then) but during my adult life I had began believing the Bible was just a book of fables. Anyway, just before the last lesson of the 12 week course, I had been reading my Bible almost 24/7 as by now the Christadelphians had really woke me up to the fact the Bible was most definately the Word of God (which I am eternally grateful for), and the evening before the last lesson I had been praying and reading and I can remember holding out my hands and saying out load "please God send me your Holy Spirit" - it was the first time I had ever said it and it was moments before the last Christadelphian lesson began.

Anyway, within seconds I felt a overwheling feeling of shame for all the past things I had done. The only way to describe it properly is to say it was a conviction, or that I was convicted by the Holy Spirit and it was for me overwhelming. Although perhaps more so for me, as when i was 12 years old I had an angelic experience where an angel said I would have a veil of forgetfulness put over me about certain things, and that I would fall away for many years, but that i would have this veil removed again when I turned back to God (thanks to the Christadelphians in later life), and then I would be able to remember certain things that I was not suppossed to until then. And as soon as I asked for the Spirit, within moments I could remember them and even picture them like on a TV screen in my mind - as if they happened yesterday (or that day), it was so powerful. I think the Bible says somewhere about the Holy Spirit bringing the apostles into remebrance of things the Lord said.

Anyway, about half an hour later I was in the lecture room for the last Christadelphian lesson. And I had suddenly began to remember all these things I had seen during this angelic experience about 18 years earlier, and other things as well to do with a papal medal the pope gave my dad, and that had happened to me years ago like it was yesterday, while at the same time I had this overwhelming feeling of shame for all the things I had done during the years I had fallen away, and for me it was so powerful i was just sitting their physically shaking, and I can remember telling Paul (a lecturer) just out of the blue 'i have done some terrible things, I have done some terrible things' it was like I just needed to confess everything and purge myself of the past and I couldnt stop saying this out load (I had a girlfriend who was pregnant and we both decided to have an abortion when I was 18) and I was really refering to that when I was saying I had done some terrible things which must have sounded really strange, but i just couldnt keep it in as I was so aware that i did not deserve to be saved, like I say it was this overwhelming feeling of conviction and overwhelming shame which sort of lead to a feeling of absolute purpose and conviction that I was not ever going to fall again. And all this was within an hour of holding out my hands and saying 'please God send me your Holy spirit'.

But for me it also coincided precisely with being able to remember an angelic experience I had when i was 12, and all that was seen and said as if it happened that morning, so it was an enourmously powerful experience, although also because of the angelic experience (I talked with an angel when I was 12) so more so for me than most i dont know? As I was shown something that was too frightening for a 12 year old boy to live with at that age in 1982 and afterwards asked the angel if he could make me forget what I had seen, and he said he would "put a veil of forgetfulness over me" until as an adult I would "turn once more to Jesus" and then i would have the"veil of forgetfulness removed" and be able to remember as clear as if it were yesterday. And that happened within seconds of asking God for the Holy Spirit when I was 28 years of age. So being able to remember this at the same time as feeling this overwhelming conviction of past deeds was so strong that i couldnt stop shaking, and I could not tell anyone about it either.
During that last lecture I was sitting their shaking all through the lecture, and at the end I asked to speak to the guy teaching which helped as I needed to speak to someone.

For me it was very powerful, and at first overwhelming.
Perhaps more so because as soon as I had asked for the Holy Spirit i was brought into remembrance of certain things that were overwhelingly powerful, and like I say that happened specifically when I asked for the Holy Spirit on that day which was also when he knew I would.

Grace, do not let anyone tell you that Christians who are born again do not receive the Holy Spirit today. You cannot receive something you dont believe exists.
Water baptism is nothing but an external ceremony of the flesh unless at the same time you also ask God to send you His Spirit. All you have to do is ask, and you can do this in your bedroom today.

If anyone has never done this - then do this, and believe it. And see for yourselves. Do not go through life without ever asking whatever you do.

God bless
Russ