Jesus 'the Beginning'

Jesus said these words about Himself in Revelation 22:13 “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last.”

I want to encourage a remembrance of Jesus, the way He was ‘the beginning’ to you; when you first began to have a glimpse of Him in some way. In Galatians chapter one, the apostle Paul makes reference to Jesus – ‘when God was pleased to reveal His Son in me’. This is when Jesus was ‘the beginning’ to him.

I turned to the Lord Jesus on April 18, 1972 in a park in lower Manhattan at 11:30 at night, and inside I had such a strong feeling that I came home. The following morning, when I woke up I sensed the Presence of the Lord in my room, real, just for a few moments. The reality of that gripped me, and sent me into a state of amazement as I tried to grasp what really happened, since I never experienced anything like that in my life.

Maybe two weeks later, I saw a young woman in the park near where I had received the Lord, and she turned around and said to me, ‘Do you know Jesus’? Completely surprised, I told her I had received the Lord just a couple of weeks ago but had many questions. She talked with me for about two hours and was able to answer so many questions that I had. Before we parted, she wrote down my name and address, saying she would pray for me and send me a book. It really seemed like the Lord was going after me.

I woke up one morning and heard the Lord inside speak to me about not going back to a relationship I wanted to go back to. I gave in to Him and made the decision with His help, I would let it go. All these things that were happening were so real, so unlike anything I ever experienced before. But in them, Jesus was becoming real to me.

Not long after this, I found out I contracted Hepatitis from drug use and after being home for seven weeks, I went to a beach in Brooklyn, and ended up taking pills. Though I was high while on the beach, I saw inside a fork in the road and I was at the fork. I intuitively understood I could continue on the same road of drug use or begin to fellowship with believers. The sense was to choose the road of fellowship. Having never experienced anything like this, and sensing inside it was the Lord, I made a choice that I would begin to fellowship with other believers, which I did.

A few weeks after this I woke up one morning and I heard inside that I would see that girl “today”, the one the Lord told me to let go of. I wasn’t sure if I was half dreaming or hearing the Lord. My intention that day was to visit a friend in the hospital. The hospital was located a block or so away from the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan. As I got out of the subway to go to the hospital, it was on my heart to bring my friend a New Testament. So I walked down to Trinity Church in the Wall Street area and purchased a King James New Testament for 50 cents. As I walked back to the block where the hospital was located, out of a subway entrance came the girl I heard that morning I would see. I couldn’t believe these things were happening to me. I talked briefly to her about the Lord and left. Jesus was not a story to me, He was ALIVE!

The book that the woman I met in the park sent spoke about the baptism in the Holy Spirit. The day before Christmas Eve 1972, it strongly came to mind what I read in that book about the baptism in the Holy Spirit and I called out to the Lord to baptize me in the Holy Spirit. The Presence of the Lord came so unexpectedly but overwhelmingly real both before me and in me. That night the Lord completely set me free from cravings for heroin, and a new prayer language was birthed in me that has enriched my life ever since.

In the spring of 1973, I was in the basement of Salem Gospel Tabernacle church in Brooklyn with an Elder, named Henry. We were praying together and I suddenly heard the Lord inside say, “Both your father and your mother will be saved”. I immediately told Henry what I heard. He praised the Lord but I was still experiencing this amazement that these things were happening to me. Long story short, my father came to the Lord 13 months later. My mother came to the Lord years later, in 1991. God granted me the blessing of leading both of them to the Lord Jesus.

What I related was basically the first year that I turned to the Lord Jesus as a young man. It’s important to your life to remember the way God let you glimpse His Son; the way Jesus was ‘the beginning’ to you. Those glimpses are to be a foundation in you that will in some way shape you, and strongly influence the way you can effectively bear witness to the Lord to others.

We’re called to bear witness to A LIVING JESUS, who again in the book of revelation says of Himself, “I am He who lives, though I was dead. Behold, I am alive forevermore.” We’re called to bear witness to Jesus according to what is revealed of Him in the word of God, and that He is alive to you. It’s wonderful to recount the stories in the bible that reveal Him. But sometimes there is a lack in people’s testimony of Jesus Christ being alive to them. Don’t misunderstand what I’m saying. Faith does come by hearing the word of God. I get into it and I definitely speak it to people. But studying the scripture I have to say the word coupled with testimony carries a lot of weight.

I encourage you to go back and remember the way Jesus was ‘the beginning’ to you. It will encourage you. You will glean from it, and it can take your heart back to relate to Him like you did in the beginning. The enemy of our soul wants to dim the glimpse we received of Jesus. The pressure and pain in life, as well as sin, can also dim that glimpse and cause the heart to drift from the way we once would come to Him, be open to Him and listen like we did in the beginning. That newness and freshness we tasted in the beginning can fade, but He who said He will ‘make all things new’, can revive that glimpse again. You will always see in the heart of God a call to come to Him, or to return to Him.

Remember Jesus ‘the beginning’ to you. He’s still the same!