So next... the experience thing. Sorry if you're reading from the top down, I'm writing a few posts today. I think that makes them the wrong way around.

A year ago I was a different person. I remember going to Christian events where people laughed or fell over or cried or shouted in the Spirit and I found it really hard to deal with. I had no idea what it was, and why I didn't have it. I knew that I was filled with the Spirit, and I spoke in tongues which is a Spiritual language God gives us to help us engage with Him in a deeper level. A bit wierd but I could cope with that. I have always read my Bible pretty religiously, well since I was 16, not that I gain loads from it every day, but I feel like a better person as I have read, I've blogged about this before. Anyway, I've not been 100% about all this Spirit stuff.

I used to think that if God wanted to move in this way in me, then He'd have to do it against my will, i.e. I actively didn't fall or laugh or whatever just so that He'd be really proving Himself if it happened to me. I didn't want to miss out on it if it was something good that others have, but I am not the kind of person to fake it to fit in. It was hard times. I used to argue that we shouldn't base things on experience, as we're just emotional people and emotions can't be trusted.

WOW.

So I don't know when, but at some point in the last 6 months ish I changed my heart. I heard teaching by Rhys Scott on the Holy Spirit, and how much like a father can say that he loves his son but the son doesn't know it until he experiences the embrace, so also it is with the Holy Spirit. The bible teaches, we know that God loves us, but it is through the Holy Spirit that we can gain the experiences that demonstrate this love to us.

So I stopped actively not responding to God. Instead I just drew near to Him, not seeking the experiences for experiences sake, but seeking from my heart to truely understand and be overwhelmed by His Spirit. and this is the journey that I now find myself on. It is so much more fun! The Bible, exposed by the Holy Spirit, teaches that we should be drunk on the Holy Spirit. It was through the power of this that Peter preached on the day of pentecost, and I want to do mighty things too so I need this power!

I have stopped taking myself, and my religiousness, so seriously. I refuse to be legalistic about my aproach to God, what is friendship when you only spend time together because you feel you should - and therefore do it begrudgingly, quickly and rarely! No, I have a Saviour who made a way for me to enter in to His Glory! And I will do so every day for the rest of my life! And as I draw near, forgetting myself and my inhibitions as blogged below, I let Him minister to me in what way He would like. Sometimes circumstances just become funny from this point of view, the heavenly perspective makes me realise how rediculous I am, and I find myself stumbling around and laughing. Sometimes His power seems to surge through me. I don't get it, it doesn't fit a pattern that I'd like to write, but it is SO GOOD! And my understanding of God grows each time I encounter Him and His Spirit, my joy in relationship grows, my desires come in line with my Fathers desires.

Please, I beg you, don't take yourself so seriously that you miss out on the experience of the Holy Spirit in it's fullness. Read your bible, desire to know truth, and dwell with God the Spirit.