Participating in Church Programs: This assumes that becoming involved in church programs determines one’s spiritual status. This includes activities such as giving, church attendance, participation in prayer meetings, bringing visitors, or teaching Sunday school. There is nothing wrong with these activities at all; in fact, we are all encouraged to discover our spiritual gift and put it to use to serve the Body of Christ. However, this must be done under God’s guidance and God’s timing; if we do all of the above and do it without the filling of the Spirit, it is an empty activity without power and without blessing. These pursuits should always be the result of God’s power; they are never the means to achieve God’s plan in our lives.
Emotions or Ecstatics: Here the believer attempts to achieve spirituality through stimulations which have no meaning, no foundation, no relationship to reality, and absolutely no relationship to spirituality. Emotion is not our energy. We all have emotion as part of our capacity for life, but emotion is not the filling of the Holy Spirit, nor is it the fuel for the Christian way of life. The filling of the Holy Spirit is never emotional in the Church-age. There are two warnings against emotion and ecstatics for the Royal Family of God.
ROM 16:17-18* Keep an eye out for those who are emotional and contrary to doctrine you have learned…They deceive the stupid by flattering speech.
2CO 6:12* You are hindered from growth by your own emotions.
Emotions are designed to respond to knowledge in the right lobe (the heart), but emotion is not a Church-age characteristic of the filling of the Holy Spirit (it is, however, perfectly normal to have an emotional response to doctrine you learn). Only in the Millennium, when Christ is present on earth, do emotion and ecstatics characterize the filling of the Holy Spirit, for in the Millennium, the filling of the Holy Spirit is designed to appreciate Christ, and therefore, emotions and ecstatics are legitimate, JOE 2:26-29. Believers in the Millennium are said to be indwelt with the Holy Spirit, EZE 36:27; EZE 37:14; JER 31:33. They are also filled with the Holy Spirit, ISA 29:19; ISA 32:15; ISA 44:3; EZE 39:29; ZEC 12:10. However, in both cases, their experience is not the same as that of the Church-age believer, who lives in an imperfect environment. |
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