tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13639235.post8757215950439372412..comments2024-02-15T12:08:49.940-05:00Comments on Sojourner: Did You Receive the Holy Spirit?Brad Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00197301845256854051noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13639235.post-80013262237388262092007-08-13T19:35:00.000-04:002007-08-13T19:35:00.000-04:00Brad, I have been pondering this subject for a...Brad, <BR/><BR/> I have been pondering this subject for a while now and I think you are right. I like your take on this scripture. What would you say about Acts:8 where Peter and John must come lay hands on the Samaritans because they had not yet received the Holy Spirit. I think it is clearer that Philip preached the gospel of Christ to them. I am not sure what to conclude from that yet.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13639235.post-89411886211029752762007-07-20T11:45:00.000-04:002007-07-20T11:45:00.000-04:00I was saved out of catholicism. All I knew about ...I was saved out of catholicism. All I knew about Jesus was that he was God and the Son of God, that he died on a cross, and that he did so to save people somehow. With just about that much knowledge, I presumed that in order to get to heaven you needed to be a baptized catholic, and you needed to be more righteous than you were wicked (even 50.000001 % would suffice), and after burning for a while in purgatory, you would eventually get to heaven.<BR/><BR/>I didn't really have any spiritual interests, but I did have a share of dread about going to hell. <BR/><BR/>So the day I heard the gospel, I can say with authority that I was quite ignorant of the scriptures. I mean, very ignorant - but in the very moment that the gospel made sense to me - my heart opened wide - I knew I held in my thoughts in that moment the only key to life eternal - to trust Christ and Christ only as my righteousness - here and now - or to go to hell, there was no in between. I wanted to trust Christ, but frankly, I knew that I did =NOT= want to give up sin, not even a little bit of it. Yet somehow, my heart melted in that moment - and I cast myself upon the gospel, upon Christ - and I tell you Brad, <I>the very instant I did</I> something tangible and utterly alien to normative "reality" happened.<BR/><BR/>No - not tongues. Pheh. Definitely not tongues...<BR/><BR/>But something very real happened to me - something alien and utterly and absolutely unexpected. It wasn't as if I had even enough knowledge to know that anything could or would happen - I was that clueless, yet in the moment I surrendered myself to Christ with all my being I felt like a screen door through which the "Niagra-falls of holiness" was flowing. I felt myself to be suddenly cleaner than clean, and I felt as though God's presence was suddenly real - as though the world had not had a God in it ten seconds earlier, and now the Majesty Divine was undeniable and eternally present - as though the light switch was suddenly "on" and there where previously there had been only darkness now stood God, in all his radiant glory. Not that I saw anything with my eyes, I didn't, and it was not some emotional thing, nor some hallucinatory thing - I don't know what it was - but one thing, I will never, ever be able to deny that it happened, or the way in which it happened. <BR/><BR/>I was baptized in God's spirit and I *knew* something profound had just happened. I have never had an experience like that ever since.<BR/><BR/>I mention all this by way of saying this one thing - that even having such a powerful, undeniable, memory - a clear testimony specific to me, that is, God testifying to me personally that I am his child in a way that no man could ever do, no feeling could ever imitate, and no substitute could ever persuade - even having what I consider a genuine and very personal witness to my own adoption if you will - <B>yet if I could not find in myself a love for God's people, for the gospel, for truth, and for God...</B> I would be a fool to conclude I was a believer.<BR/><BR/>Spiritual experiences --can-- be counterfeited, but love cannot. My hope is in the truth I find in scripture - it was the truth of scripture that taught me to believe, and I would be a fool to put my trust in something new after the fact. Scripture does not teach tongues as mandatory, not then not now. Though I do believe there is a distinction between a spirit filled believer, and one who is not spirit filled - but I used the word filled in the way scripture does - meaning filled like a sail as opposed to a glass of water - that is, driven along by the spirit as opposed to being a vessel that can hold "more of" the spirit. We get all there is to get the moment we are saved, and that is all - not because God is chintzy, but because God is so generous He gave us everything there is to get right up front. But we can walk in a way that doesn't allow our sails to be filled with that Holy wind, for it it were not possible, we would not be commanded to be being kept filled with God's spirit.<BR/><BR/>Great post Brad.Danielhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06734845463331170748noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13639235.post-83305134041626940952007-07-19T22:20:00.000-04:002007-07-19T22:20:00.000-04:00This post comes at a great time, when I have fello...This post comes at a great time, when I have fellow seminarians struggling with this. As if Christ is not enough, they say, "I feel like there is something more." Thanks agian for the postAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com