The Holy Spirit Not Just for Charismatics (Part 3 on the Holy Spirit)

Last week, I asked how many can say like Jeremiah, “His word was in my heart like a burning fire, shut up in my bones; I was weary of holding it back, and I could not” (20:9)?

If we are honest, we realize that the power of the Holy Spirit is clearly missing in the lives of many Christians.

I came across an encouraging book a few years ago entitled, They Found The Secret. It contains brief biographies of Christian leaders such as D.L. Moody, John Bunyan, Amy Carmichael, Charles Finney, Adoniram Judson, Oswald Chambers, Hudson Taylor, Andrew Murray, and more who (in their opinion) received the baptism of the Spirit after conversion…sometimes years later. In many cases, it wasn’t until they finally surrendered their entire life to God that they experienced such intensity that could only be born of the Spirit.

In the words of Oswald Chambers before the Spirit came upon him, “God used me during those years…but I had no conscious communion with Him. The Bible was the dullest, most uninteresting book in existence…” Then he writes a few years later, “If the four previous years had been hell on earth, these five years have truly been heaven on earth. Glory be to God, the last aching abyss of the human heart is filled to overflowing with the love of God.”

Put me on your ping list!

But great article. All Christians are in need of the “oil” of the Spirit in their lives; I always just think it is a matter of belief.

Do we believe, truly believe, what it says in the book of Acts? That the Spirit was given to all of us and that we are to walk in the same confidence in Christ as the early church?

The pity of Charismania is they think the Gifts are license to go outside the “angles and boundaries” set by Jesus as the Chief Cornerstone of the Church building or body. They “go beyond what is written” in their sense of empowerment by the Spirit, and then get into counterfeits, because the Holy Spirit is the spirit of self control.

And I write this as a charismatic. Very sad and weird peeps, those “go beyond what is written” charismatics.

The Baptism in the Spirit surely did change my life. It turned me into a walking, talking testimony to the real-ness of the Gospel.

The caveat you gave concerning charismania is well-taken; but it mustn’t take the guise of “since gasoline is sometimes used to make molotov cocktails, I am concerned about using it in my car”. History is littered with heretics who loved the phenomenon of the Baptism in the Spirit, and with those who disdained it greatly.

I caught that (where you declared in favor of the Baptism). Thanks. I also understand what you mean by ‘full’.

I often wonder at the way major outpourings of the Holy Spirit seem to come along in waves, and at other times, piecemeal.

Some of His ways are past finding out, much higher than our ways. But it’s always worth seeking, asking, knocking, aspiring — in order to learn more about those ways.

The Lord responds to each heart individually. The charismatic use of the word “wave” as in “waves of revival!” is misleading at best... counterfeit understanding at worst because it casts the Holy Spirit as an impersonal “force” rather than what He is...the Holy Spirit is God.

And Jesus responds to each of us in terms of faith and repentance on a one on one basis. If there is a wave of revival, personally I believe it is because of a certain Evangelist who is working within a specific community (ala Charles Finney) and whose message works repentance in the hearts of this community.

The Spirit doesn’t just “fall” on people without their consent and invitation to the Lord. BTW, this is one of the ways that you can discern a counterfeit within the charismatic churches... they believe their twitching, jumping, yelling and “drunk in the Spirit” nonsense is an uncontrollable unction of the Spirit, while the Word tells us that this is not true, because the Holy Spirit is a spirit of self-control.

I was thinking about this topic because there is a revival of sorts going on in the biblical flat earth community; somehow the belief that the masses have been lied to about the nature of the world by people and scientists who do not adhere to the Word of God regarding creation has spawned a mini revival online with these groups.

Apparently, Google is feverishly censoring all bible flat earth testimonies and even paring back the numbers on their Youtube subscriptions and number of YouTube views. But it is a revival of sorts as individuals contemplate what the Word says about the earth... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-AfFW3EuGw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AL9ucTHJx18&list=PLykEf23rbpPOn7oqafzXqj3-h3WLHLUVc

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