Growing in Grace
“You therefore, beloved, seeing you know these things before, beware lest you also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own steadfastness. But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To Him be glory both now and for ever. Amen. (2 Peter 3:17, 18)
Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear: for God is a consuming fire. (Hebrews 12:28-29)
After Phil left the Mission God began to deal with me about lust. Before I was saved, I was bound by pornography and masturbation, and even after I was born again I didn’t think anything was wrong with looking at women as they walked by on the street. One day in the mission I masturbated and immediately afterwards I felt so convicted and so dirty. I cried out to God and asked Him to forgive me. That was the last time I ever masturbated. Thank you Jesus! Also I had read in Matthew 5:28 where Jesus said, “That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart”. It was hard not look as women would go by. I had to fight every day and still do. But God has helped me to have victory over this also.
Another thing God began to deal with me about was the fear of man. At the mission in the mornings the men in the program would do the service. After I had been saved about four months it was my turn to preach. I prayed and sought God and He gave me a strong message on the fear of God. When it came time to preach I was so afraid of what some of the staff might say that I held back. Right after the service one of the staff, Mr. Branch called me aside and said, “Don’t ever hold back!” There were a lot of things that weren’t right at the mission, like staff that were still drinking and smoking, etc. One night at church the pastor spoke about the fear of man and how the people who would persecute us the most were the half-hearted Christians. I went forward that night and I couldn’t stop crying. I knew that God wanted me to say something in the house meeting the next day and I was so afraid of the rejection. The next day the leader of the house meeting even asked if someone had something to say so I raised my hand and said yes. I read from Jeremiah chapter five, verses 22 to 29. To my amazement nothing happened. It was if no one heard what I had read.
Another incident was about a month after I was born again. I had been baptized in a church in Brooklyn that the mission used to take us to on Sunday mornings. The next week we went to the same church and the pastor said, “speaking in tongues is of the devil.” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, because I had just read in 1 Corinthians fourteen verse five where Paul said, “I would that ye all spake with tongues”. I went to one of the counselors at the mission and asked why this pastor had said that. The mission ended up switching churches after that.
I ended up on the junior staff at the mission and I was working in the kitchen. A man named Mike who was one of the staff kept telling me about this church that was going to open in Times Square (I had been asking God to show me what church to go to). Then one day I had just finished working in the kitchen and saw Mike in the lunchroom. He said that a group of them were going to go to the opening of the church in Times Square, and asked if I wanted to go along. I said, yeah, all right, I’ll go. That night I remember standing on line to go to church! I had never seen anything like this in my life. People were actually standing on line for over an hour to go to church. Across the street people were waiting in line to go to a rock club and they looked so miserable. The people in line for church were all happy and having a good time. Talk about a shock! It did not make sense to me until I went inside. A man playing guitar led the worship. Also Pastor David had invited The Florida Brass Band for the opening of the church. We had some lively singing at the mission, but I had never seen anything like this in my life! When the they played “There ain’t no grave gonna hold my body down” I was in awe! Then Pastor David preached “Bearing Fruit” from John 15. From the second week that the church opened I was an usher so I was used to people giving me money. One Sunday night however a lady came up to me and said that it was for me. She gave me thirty dollars. I was glad to get the money but I really didn’t think I needed it. The next day I got a call from Mike asking if I wanted to work at a car dealer in Larchmont, NY. As it turned out I needed that money to get to work that week. Isn’t God amazing?
The first night I no longer was in the mission, I remember going to Brooklyn to stay at Teen Challenge for one night. As we came out of the subway I saw where snow had covered the streets and the parked cars and how clean everything looked. Then I looked under the parked cars and I could still see the dirty road. God showed me that the snow was like the blood of Jesus that comes and makes everything clean, but that it only covers those things that are not hidden like the dirty road under the car. “He that covereth his sins shall not prosper. But whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy.” (Proverbs 28:13)
Next I was staying at a place in the Bronx that had bedrooms upstairs and a chapel on the first floor. I stayed there for three or four months. For two months all we had to eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner was canned beef stew. I love beef stew but it’s gets old quick when that is all you have for weeks on end. Charles used to go down to pray every morning to pray. One morning I went down with him. We started out worshipping and praising God. After about 15 minutes Charles began to pray. It wasn’t long before Charles was on the floor in a fetal position, travailing before God. I had never seen anything like it. I have since watched all five of my children being born and child birth is the only thing that can adequately describe the intensity I saw that morning. It was while living in the Bronx that God began to deal with me about the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
By William A. Cotton