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You’ve put your finger on a sensitive spot but you’ve done it with wisdom, humility and grace. Having fellowshipped in both “camps” on this issue — communions both Charismatic and Calvinist Reformed — I understand these issues. The one has a tendency to crave “additions” to scripture and run after everything they hear without submitting it to that very Word, while the other I am sad to say in many cases lives a relationship more with a book than with a Person and views the Holy Spirit as little more than a light bulb that turns on when you read the Bible and a net when the Gospel’s preached. But I’ve been dealing lately with directions in my own life, asking but not hearing, and perhaps the Lord is putting into MY mind through your post what He wants me to hear about MY OWN quenching of His Spirit. This confirms something I’ve been feeling for the past week or so. Thank you for being God’s servant, may He bless this post and more particularly you for being obedient in writing it. Gloria Deo in excelsis!
HG, I generally write these posts about things I’m learning, and this is one. Recently I’ve had things I look back and say, if only I’d done what I thought I should do. But then I think, was that thought actually from God and I just ignored it? I don’t always know, but I want to learn how to listen to God’s voice because I believe He wants to counsel us as clearly as He did the prophets and priests and kings and judges of old. After all, we are His chosen race, His royal priesthood, His holy nation and He has determined to dwell in us.
God residing in me but silent defies what Scripture reveals about Him, I think. So if there’s a breakdown in communication, it has to be me, not Him. I’m not talking to Him as I should and not listening when I do ask Him for things. I tend to rush on by and only turn to Him when I realize I’m stuck. How much better if I’d go to Him first.
I think of it like Joshua making plans to take Ai after the great victory over Jericho. That first battle, with the walls crumbling before the people of Israel, came about because of explicit instructions from God. Yet Joshua make plans to take Ai apparently without even consulting God. Only after their defeat did he fall before God and ask what to do. That’s me more than I would like to admit!
Becky
I meant to say also, I do sometimes think our theology gets in the way. Oddly enough, I didn’t learn a lot of theology when I was growing up and I’ve always shied away from churches that preached theology rather than Scripture. Yes, pastors that preach Scripture do so from their theological framework, so I was taught a lot of theology, but it’s different when it is taught as an interpretation of Scripture rather than as a tenet of Scripture. At least I think it is.
All that to say, I was an adult before I knew there was a debate about the gifts of the Spirit. I knew I was a Christian but I didn’t speak in tongues, so that influenced my thinking. But I also read what Scripture said about gifts we called ecstatic. I had to ask a friend why her church believed they had ceased. I had a pastor teach that he believed they had ceased, at least in public worship, but he had a brother who believed they were still part of the church. So. In my mind, there had to be something different from both extremes.
Ultimately that’s led me to believe the Holy Spirit would be far more active in our lives if we let Him, but His work has very little to do with the . . . I don’t know what else to call it but exploitation of Him that some wish to do within the framework of “church.”
God is so much greater than we realize, I’m convinced. 😀
Becky
“Our God is in the Heavens, He does as He pleases,” the Psalmist declares (Ps. 115:3). If it’s the will of the Holyghost (as my Deep South Pentecostal relatives pronounced it) to manifest gifts as He wills — or not — who am I to say to Him, “What doest thou?” Such things ought always be judged according to the scriptures (I Thess. 5:20-21) and not be “counted as nothing” (import of the Greek). Folks on both sides of this question ought to pay heed to that admonition and not attack one another over it. Thank you for your insights — and indeed, the problem is with us, not with Him.