Craig Power - a born again experience

(A TRUE STORY OF A BORN AGAIN EXPERIENCE)

WRITTEN BY CRAIG. L. POWER

Introduction

This is an actual letter written to a close friend of mine (Andy), whom I had worked with for two years in Darwin. I originally wrote this letter to explain the awesome life changing experience that I had. I think that this information is more important than how much money you have in the bank, how successful you are in life or how many friends you have. If I call this person a friend (Andy) and not tell him about this encounter, then I don't think I can call myself a friend to this friend.

If you get uncomfortable at the mention of Jesus, think that He was nothing more than a fable or just some wise man or Prophet that lived two thousand years ago, then this story is for you. This, If you think that way, will totally destroy that

Image of the Lord Jesus and replace it with a living revelation of the Man that was and is God of yours and mine salvation.

To know Him is the most powerful thing you ever do and to miss out the opportunity while your still on planet earth to meet Him and know Him will be the biggest regret you will ever face.

Fasten your seat belt, read and enjoy.

A letter to friend.

Hi Andy,

Here is the letter that I promised you. Well a lot of things have changed in both Becky and my life since we saw you last. What I'm about to tell you may or may not shock you, because I don't know what your opinions of me were. I know that we both liked each other, if we didn't I wouldn't be writing to you now. It seemed to me that we both had a lot in common in the way we saw a lot of things like music and life in general. I don't ever remember arguing with you. Do you remember a friend I use to have in Darwin, his name was Shane and he played guitar in a band in Darwin. Well I told him what I'm about to tell you and he doesn't want to have anything to do with me any more. So some people get pretty angry or offended about this subject and I know when someone would try and talk to me about it, I would either leave or threaten to do something to them if they didn't shut-up. I had never heard it quite like I'm about to tell you now. If something is true, it will effect you and if it is a lie, you have to make it effect you. So I'm not I'm not going to make effect you, I will just tell it as it happened and we will see if it doesn't effect the way you might think about things now. I do hope you will read and enjoy it, for all of it is true. I couldn't have made this up even if I tried; no matter how many drugs I take. Just remember this is Craig Power talking, not some religious nut, because I still hate religion. This is also very bold for me to write this letter to you because I may loose a friend whom I value very much but I hope I won't. I also hope this may add to the fullness of your life. Anyway here goes!

The saving of my wife.

Late 1996.

Becky was out selling some raffle tickets in our street and came home asking me if she could go to church with this lady (Jo), she met across the road.

I said, "OK". Thinking church only went for an hour, coming from a Catholic upbringing. Then each Sunday afternoon at about 5:00pm, Becky went to church and always came home at about 10:30pm, just when the Sunday night movie was ending. I would say to Becky, "What sort of church goes for three hours and what do you do there?" Becky would say", Oh we had a band at church and we were dancing and having some fun".

I would say to her", What do you mean dancing and having fun? You don't have fun in church, you have to sit there and be quiet, because it's boring!"

Becky answered, "not this church, we enjoy God ".

So I would think, "I'm happy for Becky at least she is enjoying herself but all the time I would be thinking she might be involved in some cult". I just had to let her go, as she seemed to be happy and wasn't doing anything weird like sitting under pyramids or chanting while holding onto a hunk of crystal. As for me it was life as normal. Friday night, suck down half a slab of beer and smoke some heads, while I bashed the strings off my guitar. Saturday and Sunday try to recover from the binge. Then work all week so I can do it all over again. Around and around we go until we die, oh well. Then I started to get the revelation; I was actually looking forward to something I was going to regret, (in regards to drinking).

A divine drawing.

April 1997

One day I was in the toilet, and Becky left a book there called A Divine Revelations of Hell, so I just opened it up at any page and read a bit of it, just because it was there. Now this book is about a woman (Mary Baxter) who (supposably) had visitations from Jesus, who for forty nights, Jesus took her by the spirit down into Hell. He wanted to show her what hell is really like and to write a book about what she had seen, to warn people about the realty of Hell. Here is page 63.

Jesus said, "We are now about to enter a tunnel which will take us into the belly of Hell. Hell is shaped like a human body lying in the centre of the earth. The body is lying on her back, with both arms and both legs stretched out. As I have a body of believers, so hell has a body of sin and death. As the Christ-body is built up daily, so the hell-body is also built up daily."

On our way to the tunnel, we walked on past the flaming pits with cries and moans of the damned ringing in our ears. Many called out to Jesus as we went by. Others tried to climb out of the pits of fire in order to reach Him, but could not. Too late, too late, my heart cried.

I don't know what page I really read but it is all really scary if your not saved.

I came out of the toilet a bit disturbed and said to Becky, "Hell can't be like this, where is Bon Scott and Jim Hendrix and all the people who know how to have a good time, I don't want to go to this place, if it is like this". How can I know if it is real or not? I mean 100% know, I don't mean being told, I wanted to 100 percent know and if you can know hell is real plus you must be able to know if God Himself is real. I didn't want to wait until I'm dead to meet God if He is real. I wanted to meet Him while I'm still alive. Some how I knew that if I wait until I die, it might be too late.

Becky said, "Only Jesus can help you".

I said, "But I have been Baptised, had my First Holy Communion and Confirmation in the Catholic Church. Isn't that enough to stop me from going to hell?

Becky said, "It's not religion that stops you from going to hell but a relationship with Jesus and excepting what He did on the cross".

So in an effort to find out the truth I went to the RAAF Chaplain to ask his view about it all. I was not too keen on going to Becky's church because I thought it might be a cult, like the Mormons, Jehovah Witnesses or something crazy like that.

I went into the Chaplains office and he said," Come in. Are you after a chaplain loan?"

I said, " No. I am looking for God".

He looked at me in amazement and said, " You better sit down and we will have a little talk".

He asked me, "What if any religious background have you had in the past?"

I said, "I was a Catholic, but I have not been to church except for baptisms and weddings for the last 20 years, but my wife goes to the Christian Outreach Centre church. What are they like?"

The Chaplain answered, " Oh, they think they know when the end of world is coming, but nobody knows that. So you should stay right away from them and go back to your old faith In the Catholic Church. I know a priest in your area. Would you like me to ask him if he can come around and meet you?"

I Said, "That would be great, I'm really keen to find God real soon. I feel like I'm in a hurry or there's not much time left or whatever".

He said, "OK settle down, I will ring him today and see if he can come around before the weekend, to talk to you".

About two and half weeks went by and no priest had come around and I was getting a bit anxious. Because when I get determined about something, I really get determined.

So I said to Becky, "Can you ask your pastor to come around and see me? If he has the time".

So she rang him up and he came around the next day. He sat in the same seat for three hours and did not move. He just talked calmly about Mary, the saints and a few other things I was interested in, like Heaven and Hell and where God is now and all that kind of stuff.

He said, " Mary and the Saints are not to be prayed to, because they only did as they were told and when they died they got their reward and went to heaven. You should pray to the same source they prayed to. Don't pray to them. Pray to Jesus. They did and look where it got them.

I said, " That makes sense, no wonder my prayers weren't getting answered and saying all those repetitious Hail Mary's were so boring when I was a Catholic". Why should anyone pray to Mary for the forgiveness of sins? Jesus is the only one who said He died for our sins. He didn't go through all the pain of crucifixion and say to the Father, "now all the earth can pray to the woman who gave birth to me". So I will pray to Jesus from now on.

Jim said one thing to me that got my interests up and running.

He said, " God comes to our church, I don't care if you believe or not, you will feel the presence of God in our church".

I said, "Who comes to your church".

Just wanting to hear it again.

He said, "God comes to our church!"

I said, " Does He now. When is your next service? I have got to see or feel this".

You see I am the type of guy who will take a man on his word just to see if he is what he says he is and it can't hurt just to have a look.

I will go and See for myself.

17 April 1997

Thursday night was the next service. So Becky and I went to the C.O.C church with the lady across the road (Jo). I walked into this building which didn't look anything like a church and sat down in the front row. Then all these people, about 6, came up to me to make feel welcome, I was shocked and just talked and smiled at them. Also I'm not very good at meeting people for the first time. I also noticed that most of them had Bible's and some of them were nice with gold leafing around the edges. I remembered that Catholics didn't bring Bible's to church just these prayer books only priests and people who thought they were high up read the Bible, because it was too hard to understand for the normal person. I also noticed a sound desk, microphone stands, drums, electric guitars and big speaker boxes, also there was no big statues, alters, stained glass windows or Crucifixes around at all. Also most of the people were happy to be there. No conversations like, "I hope church doesn't take long

or I don't feel like being here. They were where they wanted to be, at church in the presence of God.

The music started and the Pastor (Jim) said, "all right everybody come up the front and get into the presence of the Holy Spirit".

So everyone moved up to the front and started clapping, singing, dancing and waving their arms around to the music. Sort of like you use to see on Countdown. I got up and stood there just checking them out, but something was in this place and it made me smile uncontrollably and I felt the need to clap my hands now and again. Now I have never heard any of this music before and I thought to myself, "If this is God I like it so much I love it". I must admit I didn't wave my arms around or dance, the best I could do was clap and close my eyes and think of Jesus. Now I knew a lot about Jesus, about how he died and the miracles He performed and how He was born in Bethlehem and all that, but I DIDN'T KNOW HIM! There's a big difference between knowing about someone famous and actually knowing them. Anyway, Pastor (Jim), was lining people up and praying for people and then he would place his hands on them and some would fall backwards, as if they had just been stunned. I had seen a movie called A

leap of Faith with Steve Martin. The movie just mocked God. There was something in me that was crying out for more in life. I now know that feeling was my own spirit, calling out to God. I watched Jim for a while and he was right up the other end of the church, so I closed my eyes and thought to myself, "Nobody here will care about me I'm just a newcomer". As soon as I thought that, some one tapped me on the shoulder. I opened my eyes and it was Jim.

I thought, "How did he get here so quick? Just a few seconds ago he was 15 meters away?"

Jim looked into my eyes and said, "Do you want to have a go?"

I said. "What do you have to do? Do you have to believe? Because I believe".

Jim said, "I'm just going release the anointing of the Holy Ghost over you, you don't have to fall down if you don't feel like it. Most people only fall down because they don't have to worry about standing up while the Holy Ghost is working on them."

So he prayed for me and laid his hands on me and I fell down with somebody behind me to catch me. Now I have to be honest, I did fall down under my own strength because I thought, "if I lie down I might receive something from God, plus I didn't want to stand out like a sore thumb. Whether God did something to me or not I don't know, but I believe He did, ever so gently by His spirit.

The next couple of days I lived with thoughts of, "gee these people really know how to worship God. Instead of what I was use to in the Catholic church with a set programs day in day out, each service the same with sit down, kneel down, stand-up, sit down and so on. Wondering why God does not show up at church and why church is so boring. This church was full of energy and excitement. The best thing was God really did visit this church. Only because the people's hearts were hungry to meet and be in His presence. What I mean by Presence of God is that there was no burning bushes or great bolts of lightning flashing around the place, just a knowing, a peaceful, calm and delightful presence, that can only come from God being around you. Do you ever remember being at a State of Origin or a concert or some other gathering of people where the atmosphere is just electric? Well that's what the human spirit can release when it is aroused, by just being expectant. When you leave that place it won't change your life, it just gives you something else to get excited about. Coming in contact with the living God will change your life, for the better and that feeling won't leave you.

It all has come down to this.

Sunday 20th April 1997

I attended the Sunday morning meeting. Jim was leading the meeting, I watched everybody while standing up at front row of the church. I wasn't singing because I didn't know any of the words to the songs, but I enjoyed the music. The only thing I knew to do was clap my hands and smile. We worshipped for about one hour and then Jim preached for about fifty minutes, while we all sat down and listened. Then Jim said, " Who here has not given their life to Jesus and invited Him to become their own personal saviour".

I thought, "I have never heard of this before. Is this all you have to do? Could it be this easy?"

I stood up straight away and said to Becky, "I'm going up, this sounds too good to true".

"Are you really!" said Becky excitedly.

She was excited because she had been praying for me to get saved ever since she had been saved herself. Plus Jim and Jo had been praying for God to save me, but I didn't know about it.

I went and stood up in front of Jim with this small Aboriginal bloke standing next to me.

Jim said, "Close your eyes and think of Jesus and say this prayer after me".

"Father, I stand here a sinner,

I repent of my sins and turn away from my sins,

I believe that your Son, Jesus, died for me and gave His life for me at Calvary.

Please wash me and cleanse me in the blood of Jesus.

The Blood that was shed for our sins at Calvary.

Lord Jesus, come into my heart and help me to live for you.

I ask you this in Jesus' name.

Amen".

I stood there with a warm feeling on the inside of me with a small adrenaline rush.

Then Jim said, " Father I ask you through the Power of the Holy Spirit to seal Craig into your Kingdom".

Then he placed his hands on my lower chest and I felt a comfortable burning sensation in my heart and let out all the air that was in my lungs, fell backwards breathing like I was going to have a baby. This time I fell back by the power of God. I laid there, no voices, no angles, no visions, just a feeling of being released from something I knew nothing about. I also had one tear in each eye and I feeling I knew something I didn't know before, if you can understand that.

See what had happened was I had been born again. Which means, through my own free choice I had been born by the Spirit of God. God's own Holy Spirit had come to live with my spirit. See we are all born of the flesh, but we did not have a choice to be born. Now, I had been born of the spirit by my own free choice, big difference. If you are born once you die twice and if your are born twice you die once, simple. After the service Jim said, "We will be having a baptism service at Dave's (one of the church leaders) pool". I went up to Jim and said, "I would like to get baptised today?"

Jim said, "I think I would like to take it slow with you Craig".

I answered, "No! I have been talking to and looking for this God all my life. I would like to get baptised today!

Jim looked into my eyes and said, " All right, just go to Dave's place at 12:30pm".

So Becky, James (our son) and I went to Dave's place and I got a fully submerged

Baptism in his backyard pool. It wasn't just a sprinkling of water on my head, like you see babies getting. They told me that Baptism represents that you are buried with Christ while you are under the water, and you rise to a new life when you come out of the water, representing the resurrection of Jesus. It has a very powerful effect in the spirit world. Because the spirits that hang around you see your loyalty and association with the Death, Burial and Resurrection of Jesus. These spirits hate you. They also hate you having anything to do with Jesus, because they want you to go to hell with them. Just mention Jesus around some people and they look at like you are weird but if curse and mock Him it seems to be no big deal. Believe it or not the spirit world does exist and it is more real than this world, because it is eternal and this world is not. One thing for certain, "you can put your life on it", your going to die one day and your spirit (the real you) is going to leave your body and go to one of two places, Heaven or Hell. You decide whether it is true or not. You know deep down inside, that there is more to life than getting a job that you enjoy and having your own house filled with fine people and things. Look at some of the most successful people lives. They end up killing themselves, when you thought they had it all together. You have got to ask yourself. What is life all about? Anyway, one thing I was angry about was my religious upbringing and that nobody ever told me that Jesus said, "I am telling you the truth: no one can see the Kingdom of God without being born again." (John 3:3) Now we all know that Jesus never told a lie. So if He said you have to be born again, then get going and get born again. Nobody in their right mind wants to die and go to hell, there is enough hell here on earth without living an eternity of it. So please open your mind to this information. Whenever you get alone cry out from your heart and ask for God to show that he is real and He will, believe me. Also ask yourself has Craig lost his mind or can this be the real thing, I can only write this stuff because it is true and it will literally, not may, save your life.

The next few days I was looking at life in a whole new way. Instead of looking at people from the outside I was looking into their eyes. I was not judging people and slandering them because they looked different to me, the design of my thinking processors had changed, but there was no real major change in me as yet.

I did not think anybody or anything would ever change the way I was, but God was doing a work in me. I was such a pig in my old life and I didn't even care about anybody but myself. I didn't start wearing black pants and a white shirt with a tie and ride a bike around so I could annoy people about God. If reading this is annoying you then don't read it, simple. I will not force this on anyone; I just need to tell it because I don't want you to miss out. Simply because I care about you, that's all. It is very important information. Again you decide whether I'm fair dinkum or not. LOOK, I DON'T CARE IF YOU NEVER SET FOOT INSIDE A CHURCH, ALL I AM CONCERNED ABOUT IS THIS. DO YOU KNOW HIM? DO YOU WANT TO KNOW HIM?

First HE cleans then He fills.

Sunday 27 April 1997

The Sunday night meeting Neil Meyers (the head of world C.O.C. church) was visiting our church. After preaching his message, he then asked the congregation if anybody would like to be baptised in the Holy Spirit.

I asked Jo, "What does that mean?"

Jo said, "Oh, it's when the Holy Spirit comes down and fills your Spirit with Himself, then you are filled with power and talk in tongues to God".

I said, "I'm going to get some of this". And I went up and stood in front of Neil.

There was about six or seven other people in line to get the Holy Spirit and I think we were all wondering what was about to happen.

Neil came up to me first and asked me to put my arms up in the air, he prayed and then placed his hands on my chest and I collapsed backwards from the forced of the spirit.

It was very powerful. When I hit the floor, my arms went straight out to the sides of my body, like I was crucified. My breathing was very deep; I was taking big lung fulls of air, like something else was breathing for me. Neil was down at my side still praying for me, while Jim was talking in tongues into my right ear.

I was thinking to myself, " What is going on? What language is Jim speaking in?"

All the while I kept doing this heavy breathing.

Then an inner voice said to me, "Do you really want this?"

I answered, "I don't even know what I'm going to get."

The inner voice said again, "Do really want this?"

I answered, "Yes!"

This was all happening without a word being said out of my mouth.

The inner voice said, "Well you better say something".

I thought to myself, "What will I say? I Know what I will say, what I really want, that is for Jesus to save me when I die".

So I tried saying Jesus save me, instead of saying Jesus Save me I Screamed in some weird language or gibberish. I was screaming at the top of my voice, "Shida Marka Rarma Suka Warda", or something that, like I was on fire or something. There was also a great rush of power or awareness or something words can not explain speeding through my body. I was also in a state of shock, because in did not know why I was screaming some language I have never spoken before. After a while stood up on my feet and felt like I had just taken every drug know to man, I was off my face man! I ran around the church smiling, laughing and crying and I thought, "I would like to thank Jesus for His Spirit".

So I got down on both knees, raised my arms towards heaven and began to say, "Jesus is Lord". All I got out was Jesus! And suddenly I got thrown down to the ground, like some one had picked me up and thrown me down. Then I felt all His love being poured into my body and fill my whole being. All at the same time I was crying uncontrollably saying, "I love you Jesus, I love you Jesus", over and over again, while I could feel all this junk, sin or evil or whatever you want to call it being ripped out of me from my back, it seamed. I have got to say, " This was the most powerful, wonderful and exciting day, moment, event or encounter I have ever had in my whole life, up to this date. Thank you Jesus".

After all that I went up to Neil and asked, "Excuse me for my ignorance, but was I suppose to scream like that?"

Neil answered, "Yes, some just talk, some whisper and some scream. You screamed."

I said, "Well that's a relief, I thought it might have been demonic or something".

Neil said, "No it's just the spirit and the power that's in the spirit. Some people think it is demonic but it's just God. People know more about demons than they know about God, movies and music have got a lot to do with it".

Thank you God for your Holy Spirit, the most powerful Spirit in the universe.

I Thank you for placing inside of me the same Spirit that rose Jesus from the dead, and that same Spirit will never leave me nor forsake me, even until the end of the world.

Will you obey?

Monday 28th April.

At home Becky and myself were listening to a worship tape. On this tape was a song that I could understand and could finally sing along to at church. As I was listening to the tape, I was thinking of my guitar and pondering about selling it. This guitar a

(Fender Stratacaster Elite) is a collector item worth in excess of three thousand dollars, and is also in my will to be left our son James.

While thinking this, a small quiet voice within me said, "Give your guitar away".

I replied, "I could sell it and get out of debt".

The voice replied, "Give your guitar away".

I answered, "OK. Who to then?"

Then a face of one the guitarist at church, (Graham) popped up in my mind.

I answered, "All right, you want it you got it".

I said to Becky, " I am going to give my guitar away".

She answered, " Why don't you sell it?"

I answered, " The Holy Spirit just told me to give it away and He showed me to give it to Graham".

Becky just smiled and agreed. I went straight into the bedroom and started packing up all my guitar gear and thought, "I might as well give him the lot, there is no point keeping an amplifier with no guitar".

Laying up my treasure.

Tuesday 29th April.

At the Tuesday night prayer meeting I took all my guitar gear to church to give to Graham. He was on the stage (altar) tuning his guitar. I walk up and put my gear next to him and said, " hey! You want a guitar? There you go".

I pointed to the guitar and walked back to my seat in the front row. Graham just looked at the guitar as if he could not believe it.

When the service had started, Jim walked up to me with a microphone and said, " God must done something for you by now? Do you want to tell us what He has done?"

I was handed the microphone and I said, "Yes, God spoke to me last night".

All the eyes of the people of the church were on me, and my eyes were starting to well up with tears. This was harder than I thought it was going to be as this guitar meant a lot to me for it had been with me for about fifteen years. I finished telling the people that God told me to give it away and more or less that I was just being obedient, at the end of it, my heart lead me to say, "Praise the Lord." I could feel God all around me but I didn't think much of it, I thought it was just normal, par for the course. I know that your probably thinking, "you idiot don't give you guitar away, ask him for some money or something". No, it is just stuff; if you were to die in the next five minutes your most prize possession would just be that, just stuff. If you read the book of Act's, every converted Jew that received the Holy Spirit ended up sharing all their possessions with all the other Christians. So what I had done was no different to what the very first Christians did two thousand years ago. Which is proof that God is the same, today and forever. And still requires the same obedience of those who serve Him today.

Why did God want me to give my guitar away? I don't know, He is God and I'm not. I just did what He told me to do and didn't think of it too much. I believe that He just wanted to test my heart and see if I loved stuff more than Him. I can live without a guitar but I can't live without God. Where your treasure is, there is also your heart. Does that mean that everything I own, anybody can just come up and have it? No, my possessions are my possessions and I don't just give things away for the sake of it. I only give them away if I'm being lead to, or the persons needs are greater than my own. No body comes up and tells me to do it, I hear for myself in my heart to do it.

The blessing of obeying.

Wednesday 30th April.

At about six o'clock in the morning I was woken up by my whole being, being filled with the voice of Jesus. I was sound asleep not even thinking about what I did last night at church or even knew the power of the spoken word by Jesus to ones-self.

His voice literally sent a true awareness of life and power through

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