Immersed in God
By Rebecca Bryant Hervey
Immersed in
God=Baptized in the Holy Spirit. Sounds
a bit different, does it? Being baptized in water means the same as being
immersed. Being symbolically buried and brought up to new
life, as I’ve always been taught. I’ve written about this elsewhere…
about my first water baptism at the age of nine, when in obedience to my Sunday
School teacher whose goal it was to have all members
of her class baptized that season; I finally gave in and allowed myself to be
baptized in the presence of family and church members. Immersed? Yes. And the
water was cold, but the pastor was kind, and held his handkerchief over my nose
as he dipped me into it, then gently brought me out of the water to climb the
steps into a dressing room.
New
life? I felt no different
than I had felt before. In fact, I heard the Lord speak to me in my spirit,
telling me that this was not what He had in mind, that this was just an empty
act. That was fine with me that He would say that, because that’s just how it
felt. Jesus had taken up residence in my heart the day I invited Him to live
there when I was only three years old. I knew from that moment that Jesus lived
inside me, therefore the pleadings and insistent urgings from the Sunday School teacher had no meaning for me.
How could I let her
tell everyone that Rebecca ‘just got saved’, when I had already given myself to Jesus six years
earlier, and talked to Him daily?
It wasn’t until I was
fourteen that I felt urgings from the dear Holy Spirit, but I was fearful and
refused to give in. I had not been told that the ‘speaking in tongues’ that was
so repugnant to some was really the evidence of having been baptized…yes,
immersed… in the Holy Spirit, who is God. I rejected the horrifying experience
of being a visitor with Pentecostal people who not only spoke in tongues but
screamed, yelled, passed out, wore frumpy-looking clothes and the women never
cut their ugly hair. In their fanatical zeal they pointed fingers at me for
wearing a light lipstick, chewing gum to mask bad breath, and wearing the gold
watch and cameo ring my parents had sacrificed to give me for Christmas that
year. I swore I’d never again darken their door. And so I didn’t. But God is faithful. He
maneuvered me into position to receive His sweet and powerful blessing anyway,
although it took twenty-one years!
When finally… in a
store-front hippie coffeehouse, I yielded and prayed to receive it, He
immersed me in Himself. Baptized me in His Holy Spirit… and I have never been
the same. This is not to say I’ve been perfect, but I have known my Lord and
Savior in a personal way that I had never known before. My prayers have been
with power, unlike the way they used to seem to bounce off the ceiling. Being immersed in God, with Him living in my
heart, I know that I am His sheep, and His sheep hear His voice. How very wonderful to have access to my
Father in this way! He hears me and I hear Him. God in me,
and I in Him, as Jesus prayed to His Father that it would be.
On the third morning
after my baptism in the Holy Spirit, God spoke to me very insistently, and
would not allow me to rise from the bed to my feet until I obeyed Him. The
details of this day are covered in other things I’ve written, but I want to
tell you that He sent someone for me to confess my sins to, and to pray for me,
and then to drive me to a lake spot of my choice, on a special bank of the lake
along with a mutual friend, and immerse me in water in answer to my urgent
request for this. It mattered not to me
that this was the first day of February and the water was icy cold. It was what
I wanted… to truly die to myself and be risen again to new life in Him. That
was the water baptism that was real…the one God definitely approved of. I
trembled with joy under the power of the Holy Spirit for the rest of the day
and into the night. Why the difference?
The difference was that I knew what I was doing this time. There had
been no pressure from anyone but my Heavenly Father. This is the kind of
submission our Lord desires. Like a little child, in complete trust.
RBH
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