This is a testimony of the hope that I have in Christ Jesus.  Sometimes, it may be hard to understand the experience of another person.  If some of my experiences seem strange, search the Scriptures to see whether these things are true.  Pray for the guidance of the Holy Spirit.  On the other hand, you may have had very similar experiences.

I can’t remember the day that I started believing in Jesus.  My mother taught me at a very young age.

I do remember a phonograph record I had .  This was sometime after age five.  The record had the Lord’s prayer on one side and the 23rd Psalm on the other side.  I can remember laying in bed and listening to the record.  I can recall a beautiful, comforting presence that would come and be with me as I listened.  I can remember the deep peace I felt and the presence that I came to know there.

Now, looking back, I recognize this presence.  He is the anointing, the anointed one, the Christ.  This was and is the same Holy Spirit who visited the disciples in the upper room on Pentecost.

When I was in my late teens, our pastor gave a wonderful sermon about being filled with the Spirit.  He used plenty of Scripture.  That sermon opened my eyes to the living experience that is possible with Jesus.  Later that week, thoughts of the Holy Spirit and being filled with the Spirit occupied my mind.

I could tell you exactly where I was driving my car when it happened.  I was driving along and my whole life changed.  It was as though my spirit was suddenly released from terrible bondage, although I hadn’t realized that it had been in bondage until I felt what that freedom was like.  I stand in awe of this experience.  It is ongoing.  My spirit was suddenly sort of dancing and rejoicing and jumping around with the Holy Spirit—I’m trying to describe something for which there are no suitable words.

Up to that moment, the Bible had seemed relatively boring and hard to understand.  From that day forward, the Book became easy to understand and exciting.  Topics like prophesying, speaking in tongues, apostles, and prophets seemed to be so real and possible, although I had not previously heard of such things in the here and now.  When I asked my pastor about these things, I was told that those things were for the "apostolic age."  I was also quoted the verse, "As for prophesy, it shall cease."  Even though I was told that these things were occurring nowhere, I felt in my heart that they must be happening somewhere.

Since that time, I have made many mistakes.  I learned that if I sought God, I got God.  If I sought spiritual experience, I got something, but not necessarily God.  There are other spirits who are very glad to make themselves available.  But, as Jesus said, our Father knows how to give the Holy Spirit to those who ask for it.  I learned to stay away from Eastern meditation techniques.  I learned to just seek God and pray earnestly.  I also learned a lesson about the danger of following an independent man of God.  I believe that this man was a man of God, but when he declared his independence, there was no one to correct him or to balance his ministry.  I suffered for this, but my family suffered much more than I did.  Praise the Lord who heals me.  Praise the Lord for a wife who stood by me in all my error.

Now, I fellowship in a local Church where every member is a ministry and the service flow in the Spirit as it is written in 1 Corinthians 12-14 and Ephesians 4 and Romans 12.  Rather than entertainment, we seek to be led by the Spirit and to edify the body of Christ.  The gifts of the Spirit operate in the Church both in and out of the service.  This Church functions according to the biblical order for the government of the Church.  That government functions on three levels, in the home, on the local level and on the universal Church level.

I’m an elder/bishop, in a sense, in my own home, with my wife a deacon or minister.  My office in my home provides for, protects, and acts as a priest for my wife.  When my children were home, it did the same for them.  My wife governs the home with me, meeting me at my weakness and giving balance to my ministry.

Our local Church is under the government of elders and deacons.  There is no chief elder other than the Lord, Jesus Christ.  The elders submit themselves to each other, so there is no lack of government or disorder.  The deacons are spiritual offices who function under direction from the elders.

The elders submit to the traveling, universal elders and deacons who function much as the apostles did in the first century Church.  they set (ordain) local elders and deacons.  There is not chief among them other than our Lord, Jesus Christ.  Each of the brethren is under the government of the body of apostles.  The brethren have been set into their offices by God in a miraculous way during the outpouring of the Holy Spirit that began in 1948 in North Battleford, SASK, Canada and continues today.  As new traveling ministries are added, they are indicated by the Holy Spirit and set in by the laying on of hands of the presbytery.  It is a very humble life, just as the first century apostles found the execution of their office to be.

When revelation of the interpretation of any Scripture is given, it is because God had revealed it to all the brethren just as in Acts 15.  This revelation is then committed to local elders who teach no other doctrine in the local Church.  This government has provided tremendous stability, but also leaves the door open for God to unveil more and more of His Word.  Theological wrangling is wonderfully absent.

Often, under the anointed ministries of those whom God has set, I have received songs.  I have tried to be faithful in putting these songs into a format so that they can be used by the universal Church.

Gifts of the Spirit and ministries are imparted to every member through prophecy and the laying on of hands of the presbytery.  God gives some gifts to each member, but not all to any one, because He is making us interdependent.  He is building a holy temple.  As we all with open face behold the glory of the Lord as in a mirror, we are changed into the same image from glory to glory—the Spirit of the Lord does this.  The traveling ministries—apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers—equip the saints for the ministry by imparting gifts, providing government, setting elders, receiving doctrine, and many other ways of equipping the saints.

The saints, with this equipment, minister.  Speaking the truth in love, the Church is being built into a holy temple resting firmly on the foundation of apostles and prophets with Jesus Christ being the chief corner stone.  Before us we see the day when we will all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the son of God, unto a totally complete man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.  We look forward to the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our bodies.  We look for the manifestation of the sons of God.
 

Bob