by Tony Ellis
My name is Tony. I remember having questions once, just like you. Always wondering what was the right way to follow God. I am 37 years old, and I have had the Holy Ghost since September 2001.
Before Jesus touched me I lived pretty wildly. Always in trouble, and always thinking thoughts like, I wish I were not doing these wrong things. I had been in and out of Christianity since I was 19. I would always get tired of doing wrong and start thinking of God, during these times. Then I found myself going to church. Through many experiences such as being sprinkled in a catholic church, or repeating a prayer after a man who told me if I except Jesus in my heart then I was saved. The last time I got under conviction, during one of those times when I would fall away and start living wildly again, I kept wondering in my thoughts to God when I would pray, “What is real, what is right, and what is truth.”
So in June 2001, I went to a Billy Graham crusade, and thought I would rededicate my life to Jesus. At least that is what they told me I was doing. There was something different I went there this night. All who were present at the crusade, were invited to an alter call. At least 600 to 700 people in a football stadium standing all around me, each had a prayer partner with them. They handed each one of us a prayer package, and they started explaining to each and every one of us how to pray step by step, but I could hardly concentrate on what the man who was my partner was saying to me. Because I started looking around at all these people and I saw so many sincere hearts crying very hard. I know I will never forget what I saw that night on these faces. I saw real emotion and all those prayer partners had to offer was a prayer kit and a repeat after me prayer.
From there I started going to a Baptist church where they taught water baptism, being totally submersed under water. I remember thinking right before the minister dunked me under and said I baptize you in the name of the Father, Son, and holy Spirit. My heart was racing a hundred miles per hour. I thought “All right! This is what I have been praying for.” I have been sprinkled, and I have said the sinner’s prayer, and was told I am saved. I even followed instruction from Billy Graham, but I never really changed. I always went back to what I hated more that anything Sin! So the minister dunked me and when he brought me up I remember thinking, “I’ll feel different really alive for the first time.” But my heart broke when I didn’t feel anything. So 2 months later after being baptized, I went through a very hurtful event. I went to the Baptist place wanting to play a song for other people getting baptized. So the minister asked if any one wanted to share anything with the one’s being baptized. I went up to him and whispered in his ear, that God had put it on my heart to play a song for the one’s baptized. He politely whispered back, “Maybe next week.” It broke my heart for him to make me feel like he was in charge and he decides who has something from God. So I left another church, but this time I didn’t want to go back to the world or my wild living ways. I remember getting a thought, a still small voice said, “Leave it all behind and seek me! Leave everything you though was right about Me (God), and just seek Me.”
The bible says seek and you shall find, knock and I’ll answer. God was telling me just seek Him, and He would show me His Truth. God had been convicting my heart of sin, ever since I was 19, but mans outward ceremonies were getting in the way. So when I listened to the still small voice things changed. All those ceremonies never changed who I was, just a broken sinner who needed to know God. In August 2001, I met a man named Gary. I remember him telling me about these prayer meetings he used to go to. I heard him speak in tongues, and I had never heard such a sound before. One day I needed a job, so Gary told me about a man named Billy, and said I should go see him for a job, so I did. I went to see Billy, filled out the application, had an interview, but didn’t get the job. As I was leaving Billy followed me out to my car, and we started talking. Out of the blue Billy says, “I feel a lot of hurt from you.” I had never met this man before. I thought, how did he know I am hurting inside? He then said that God has something for me, if I had a willing heart. After our conversation we met somewhere to talk more. He told me about the same prayer meetings that Gary used to go to, but Gary had fallen away. God used a backslidden brother to get me to a Holy Ghost filled Saint!
We talked with Billy about Acts Ch2, where the men who followed Jesus received the holy Ghost baptism. Billy invited me to the next prayer meeting. Everything in me was coming alive. It was now September 2001. I went to the prayer meeting, and it wasn’t long until they started singing, dancing, shouting, and speaking in tongues! I was so excited at what I was feeling, because for so long all I wanted was to know Jesus, but all those ceremonies were in they way, until now. It was my third prayer meeting when I got the Holy Ghost and was born again. I had gone up for prayer and I feel back on the floor and laid there. I remember feeling more peace than I have ever felt in my life. It occurred to me that not one single person in the room told me come and get prayed for, and know one told me what to pray for. It seems that all I was doing was going by what I was feeling. So while I was still on the floor, I remember I head a voice, just like the one before that told me to leave it all behind and seek Me. The voice said “Stand Up!” With no delay I stood up and something hit me from my head all the way to my feet. It was very warm feeling, and then I started running all over that floor, shouting and dancing, and I heard speaking in tongues. I suddenly stopped, my eyes popped open, and I froze. Someone said don’t stop there you show them you got the Holy Ghost. Then that same power from God hit me again and it was even warmer and tingly than the first time. I didn’t realize the person I heard speaking in tongues was me. I spoke in tongues for a long time after the second touch from Jesus. So you see, all of those other things I mentioned earlier never changed me. I always went back to doing those sinful things. It took God’s Spirit on the inside to help me keep God’s commandments. Ephesians Ch 4 talks about one body, one spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism. I followed many examples of baptism, but only one changed me, a broken hearted sinner into a new creature in Christ.
That one baptism is the New Birth, the Holy Ghost baptism with a witness when you receive it from Jesus, and that is speaking in tongues as God’s Spirit speaks through you saying, “Abba Father”, which by we have received the Spirit of adoption, which says we are the Son’s on God. No man on earth can give you such a baptism.
A year ago, God allowed me to write a song entitled "Stay in My World". With God's help that is what I have been doing - and I hope you will too!
With Love in Christ,
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