Here is my autobiographical account of how I know the Holy Spirit has not ceased to be given miraculously today.
I started giving gospel testimony, and preaching a little, only a few years after starting to believe in Jesus, but then I only started prophesying when two missionaries laid hands on me, which was years later, around a decade after my believers’ baptism. It was before I went on a Christian experience trip with a group of around twenty young people my own age, just after university, to try to get some missionary experience. I was afraid of what might happen because the trip was in a dangerous area, so I went to see my Pentecostal missionary grandparents before going and they laid hands on me. I went away from their house feeling like I was walking a foot off the ground. I know now, looking back, that it was because I received the Holy Spirit from their laying on of hands, because I did miracles and prophesied a bit while away on the trip. I had never prophesied before, not like that, and I did it a few times and one time I got filled with the Holy Spirit and was kept lying on my face by this. Nothing to boast about; the same happened to King Saul and look how that ended up. It was nerve-racking too because I felt such Holy Spirit blessing on myself that I believed if I had at that time prayed for a dead person, they would have risen. Two other believers in the group were very happy to share the overflows of this blessing which was on me, but all the others seemed to resent it and one or two outright opposed it, though it went badly for them, and they later admitted they were wrong. The opposers seemed to be from the more Reformed and Closed Brethren Evangelical backgrounds, whose cessationalism beliefs were challenged by what happened. They hindered me from preaching the gospel too. It was sad to see.
So, back to the beginning: I believed in Jesus, early on in life, from my mother’s teaching me his sayings, and a decade later I was baptised as a believer by my father, a baptist pastor. A decade later again, I had hands laid on me for receiving the Holy Spirit. This was by my grandparents, Pentecostal missionaries. About four years later a close friend of theirs sent me on an evangelist experience training trip, and there it was I ended up in a Catholic church confessing my faith after hearing the gospel “Christ died for you” and realising my sinfulness, and the power of the Holy Spirit came upon me again and freed my lips from lying. The power was so obvious to others there in the church about to take Mass that the bishop let me take it too and both the bread and the wine, body and blood of Christ. Only someone just minutes after miraculously receiving the Holy Spirit is allowed to do this, if not known to be a Catholic. Then around seven years later still I was given more grace from the Holy Spirit and commanded to build the Temple. I met Father, and later the Son, and later the Holy Spirit, and I was given interpretation of a message in tongues in a Pentecostal church. Then, later, I prophesied again but more powerfully and cleanly. It was around a decade after my receiving laying on of hands and the Holy Spirit. Three further decades have passed since then. Mainly these were filled with social media outreach.
