A DIFFERENT LIFE
It was a lonely existence at first, being different from peers and others in the rural Alabama county of my upbringing. But then, I discovered that there were many other “like-me’s” around; some of them lived in previous generations before me. There were disciples like Mary the mother of Jesus; the apostles; more modern leaders like Charles Finney, D. L. Moody, his friend and successor, R. A. Torrey; the Azusa Street revivalist, William Seymour; and later Aimee Semple McPherson, to name a few. (Photo of painting of a descending dove by Dixie Simpson, friend of Dottie, used by permission. John 1:32-33)
Then, there were many new friends that my friend, Diane, introduced to me. They were people who had done in their own real-time what the new Testament had instructed them to do in Luke 24:49—wait for the promised gift of the Holy Spirit to come upon them in a more direct way than the norm around them. (Acts 1:8; 2:38-39)
For me, the “norm” in spiritual matters was walking to the front of the church before everyone present at the end of a service and making a public confession of faith that Jesus Christ had been sent from heaven by God to be the Savior from my sin and its penalty. This confession brought about the required new birth that only He could make happen. (John 3:1-8) I had experienced that first miracle and knew it had occurred. I knew that I would go to heaven.
But in my hunger for more of God, He directed Diane, a new college friend, my way. She showed me in the Bible that an intimate friendship can develop between a real believer and the Holy Spirit. This relationship is described in John 7:37-39:
On the last greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.” By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified. (NIV)
Diane not only testified of her own experience with such an encounter but also shared with me contemporary accounts of similar phenomena that were currently happening world-wide, described even by the secular press as “the Charismatic Movement or Renewal.” Brave pioneers from multiple camps, backgrounds, and varieties of churches were getting on board joyfully and were willing to be different in order to experience more of what they had been searching for.
So, I joined that company of different Christians at a college-and-young-professionals conference as Diane’s guest between semesters in December 1966, just after Christmas in Waco, TX,(where I also met my future husband.) That gift of the Holy Spirit became mine. Yes, what the Bible had described years before became mine!
Back at our community college, I couldn’t contain my new-found peace, joy, love, freedom-from-guilt, forgiveness, happiness, etc., etc. The small prayer group that Diane had started then quickly grew as others found what Diane and I double-teamed to tell them about, this great news. We pooled our meager finances and sent $25 to the drug rehabilitation program of Teen Challenge to purchase 100 copies of The Cross and the Switchblade by their founder, David Wilkerson. Our plan was to use it as Diane once used it with me to shed more light on what God was doing in the earth to restore power to the current church scene. The book’s twenty-first chapter boldly declared that the founder of the highly successful Teen Challenge ministry did a survey among his converts and found that 100% of the former drug addicts stated that they knew they would not return to drugs when they received the Baptism of the Holy Spirit. I knew that I wasn’t as bad off as a drug addict, so the experience must be pretty powerful. (Photo from Thriftbooks, same cover of version we purchased at special rate, not for resale)
What was so special about The Cross and the Switchblade? Who was David Wilkerson? Well, for starters, the book sold over six million copies in its day. It ignited the Charismatic Renewal in the Catholic church because it was required reading before a key meeting at Duquesne University. It was made into a movie with Pat Boone portraying young David Wilkerson. See slideshow below.
And David Wilkerson? He continued a long lineage of preachers who had seen miraculous events which must have been God-orchestrated. These events happened after the Wilkerson preachers had waited for the gift of the Holy Spirit to anoint them with power from on high per Luke 24 and Acts 1:8. God sent this country preacher on the unlikely task of rescuing drug addicts in NYC. His book provided the scriptural basis for my faith and many others by pointing out the five places in Acts in which believers were baptized by Jesus with the Person of the Holy Spirit after their salvation experience, and they were given a prayer language. John the Baptist’s words which prophesied this work by Jesus was recorded six times in Matthew 3:11, Mark 1:8, Luke 3:16, John 1:33, Acts 1:5, and Acts 11:16. (Photo of young Wilkerson from Puerto Rico Teen Challenge, https://teenchallengepr.org/david-wilkerson/. See slideshow below.)
Recently, I have been exposed to a wealth of Internet sites that are in complete harmony with the same message that Diane shared with me in 1966 and that my paternal grandmother grasped and experienced in 1910. Also, since moving to the Auburn-Opelika area of Alabama in 2021, my husband and I have made the astonishing discovery that the fast-growing Church of the Highlands (COTH) is led by a man, Chris Hodges, who is unashamed to identify with God’s Spirit-filled gang in order to preach His Gospel with power to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:5). Witness this site to learn more: Church of the Highlands/media under 10/7/2023. Pastor Chris recommended the book The God I Never Knew by Robert Morris. (See slideshow below.) The church pastored by Robert Morris (Gateway) maintains a YouTube video site that matches the book at gatewaypeople/series/the-god-i-never-knew.
On June 7, 2023, at Highlands, an associate pastor named Layne Schranz reiterated some of the teachings he learned himself from Pastor Chris about the Baptism of the Holy Spirit. Schranz’s message is available at https://www.churchofthehighlands.com/media/the-power-of-the-holy-spirit-2023 under their First Wednesday grouping.
Pastor Chris also recommended books by the late Jack Hayford, former pastor of eighty-nine year old Pat Boone and his late wife, Shirley. Shirley and Pat have also written about their encounters and exciting journeys of faith and triumphs. Pat’s wrote A New Song, and Shirley wrote One Woman’s Liberation.* For book reviews of these two classics, see my blog of February 2021 under www.legaciesthatlast.weebly.com . I included this blog in a recent book, Perspectives with a Twist, No. 2, pp. 59-61.* God used the Boones’ lives greatly while serving in Jack Hayford’s Church on the Way in Van Nuys, CA.
For a more detailed account of my experience, see chapters 1-3 of my illustrated book Alabama and Beyond, especially chapter 3 and Appendix II (copy below), a scriptural guide to receiving the Holy Spirit.* Appendix I is a copy of Diane’s dad’s testimony of moving from being just a typical Baptist preacher in a small Southern town to a man filled with passion for His God and others, used in many unusual ways. One of those ways was mentoring Allan and me and performing our wedding, which in turn produced more Gravelys who are spreading the Gospel. They have been willing to continue the legacy to be different in their day. They are identifying with those with a calling to hunger and thirst for righteousness and be filled—come what may! Join us. (Luke 11:13)
*Books available on Amazon, Thriftbooks, and Interlibrary Loan at some public libraries. I updated Alabama and Beyond in 2023.
Copy of document below is mentioned in last paragraph, Appendix II of Alabama and Beyond.
Receiving the Baptism of the Holy Spirit by Dottie Gravely
I believe the Christian’s first step in receiving the Baptism of the Holy Spirit is to know scripturally that (1) such an experience exists and (2) that every believer qualifies to receive it. Those two things need to be settled.
- Begin with the Bible. Notice that this on-going ministry of Jesus is predicted by John the Baptist and mentioned six times in scriptures. See Matthew 3:11, Mark 1:8, Luke 3:16, John 1:33, Acts 1:5, Acts 11:16. John the Baptist never lived to see his famous prophecy fulfilled, because the promise in John 7:37-39 said that believers would receive the Spirit after the glorification/resurrection of Jesus. Study carefully the five accounts in Acts in which regular people receive the Spirit.
- chapter 2
- 8:4-25
- 9:17
- 10:1-11:18 and
- 19:1-7.
- Believe that you qualify. John 7:37-39. Only non-Christians do not qualify (John 14:17). If you heard from a lawyer that you had inherited a sum of money, you would believe that and show up at his office to claim your inheritance. Similarly, as one young lady shared, if a friend called and told her that the mall was having a big sale “for women only,” any woman would believe that she qualified.
- Ask for this precious gift; ask in faith. It is biblical to ask for laying on of hands for it.
Other good resources include They Speak with Other Tongues by John Sherrill of Guideposts magazine and Aglow with the Spirit by Robert Frost of Oral Roberts University. George O. Wood’s book, Living in the Spirit, especially chapter two, is excellent. There exists a whole body of Christian literature by outstanding men and women. See such authors as Charles and Frances Hunter, Larry Tomczak, Joyce Meyer, John Osteen (father of Joel), Ken Sumrall, Derek Prince, Don Basham and other Charismatic leaders.
I close with some words from the first dean of both Moody Bible Institute and BIOLA University, R. A. Torrey in his book, How to Work for Christ:
The supreme condition of power in the apostolic church was the definite baptism with the Holy Ghost. The supreme condition of success in soul-winning is the same today. Many in these days are trying to prove that there is no such thing as a special baptism with the Holy Spirit, but a candid and careful study of the Acts of the Apostles will show that there is. Very many in our day also know by blessed experience that the baptism with the Holy Spirit is a present day reality. One ounce of believing experiences along this line is worth whole tons of unbelieving exegesis, no matter how subtle and learned it may be. There are thousands of men and women in this and other lands who have been brought out of a place of powerlessness into a place of power in the Lord’s service, through meeting the conditions plainly laid down in the Bible for receiving the Holy Ghost. This baptism with the Holy Spirit is for every child of God, and the one who would be largely used of God in personal work must get it at any cost.
From: www.amazon.com Kindle edition, November 22, 2013.