This teaching comes from my personal experience, which happens to be backed up by the scriptures. The years of wrestling with God over this particular subject led me to the end of my justifications and excuses and submitting to the will of God for my life, despite what anyone thought. And therein was my biggest struggle (other’s opinions combined with years of fundamental teaching). The night that God broke through He spoke to me saying “will you stand before me with your traditions and religious format at the judgement or will you follow the Spirit of God?” What a way to break up the spiritual log jam… The things of God, the ways of God are not always explainable, but just accepted by faith. The church leaders that say that the gifts of the Spirit or not for today’s Church, will readily accept their salvation experience by faith, but I challenge anyone to logically explain it. The things of the Spirit are of God and our journeys require trust even when there is no explanation. I mentioned several quotes in this article from Religious men that are respected, revered and often quoted in mainstream churches. Their books are not for the faint of heart and their personal experiences are examples of lives devoted to God. Yet missing most times are there personal and sometimes dramatic experiences with the Baptism of the Holy Spirit.
Watchman Nee. Experiencing the Baptism of the Holy Spirit. Broadly speaking, “a Christian who has not yet experienced the baptism in the Holy Spirit is rather vague about the reality of the spiritual realm. He is like the servant of Elisha whose eyes were closed to that sphere.”
I grew up with many of these men’s books in my home but knew little of their deep personal and sometimes misunderstood teachings. They clearly understood the book of Acts, and what the early church was once like, and taught and demonstrated that it can be so again. Nee, Spurgeon, Wesley, Tozier, Finney, Chambers and countless other Fathers of our faith are now part of that “great cloud of witnesses that have gone before us, now watching and encouraging us to walk out our calling in God and we know that they are saying “The Spirit-filled life is not a special, deluxe luxury edition of Christianity. It is part and parcel of the total plan of God for you and me.”
As always, it is my prayer that this has challenged you to have a stronger open relationship with God.
Marty Martin
Rightlydividing1@gmail.com
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