This is the story of my journey into the Holy Spirit. When I chased the redhead into the Prayer Meeting in Brighton my faith was a higher power as I chose to define Him. And it was working I was sober and I was chasing a girl. This was miraculous and I was not in complete agony. This was progress.
Looking back ten years I was in my senior year in high school and facing college and those choices. I had some experience with praying for help. I was a good boy scout and eagle scout. College scared me so I started journalling and praying in the journal. I don’t have the diary now, but I remember the requests. I wanted to travel and see the world. I wanted to serve God. Sort of whatever that looked like. But mostly I wanted to do stuff and see stuff.
From my high school prayers to early sobriety I had seen much of the western US. I had lived in the bay area in California and seen the sights. I had seen the far east from Hong Kong when it was grand to Singapore to the roughest sailor towns. And I had lost the battle with booze. Which brought me back to God-seeking. God had been faithful and I was alive.
About a year before that first prayer meeting in Brighton I was sitting in my studio apartment near the Combat zone in Boston binging on veggies and praying and I asked God for the best He had for me. Soon I found the redhead and chased her into this prayer meeting thing. During this period the Jesus thing was blowing up everywhere and some folks going to young people conferences were finding Jesus. The redhead prayed for me and sent me Into a three-day struggle. I came to Jesus and began to understand the whole salvation thing. I came to the Brighton prayer meeting called the Cenacle. By that time I was good at talking the spiritual thing. And I was not bashful. I could talk a good spiritual game. The preacher’s genes were in my blood. So they let me talk in meetings and hoped to turn me into a good catholic. At that time the charismatic renewal was running structured life in the spirit seminars. I was game and took one. By the end of the seminar, I was speaking in tongues and experiencing this new life in the spirit. This series will be a brief description of key parts of Life in the Spirit Seminars and my early experience operating in the Spirit.
My object is to explain to the uninformed what this thing is and to the informed to highlight some key observations about the operation of the gifts of the Spirit. My observations are based on forty-plus years in the Faith and in pentecostal churches. This will not be a journey to Fantasy Land. And I will as I am talented at doing say things that will upset people. It is a gift!
There are rules I have learned. The Holy Spirit does not violate Scripture. This means the whole of scripture and not confetti scripture chopped to make a point. If it gets results and isn’t solid scripture then it is in error. Much of Pentecost is flirting with more than error. It is foreign fire. This is the secret of error. A person who wants to move in the Spirit needs to be embedded in the Bible.
There is a tough rule. Which the seminars dealt with. The Holy Spirit will not deal with Foreign fire. If a church deals with or teaches or condones foreign fire the Holy Spirit will not show up. But other stuff will show up. I will talk about that. Many will disagree. I just do my job. I call the balls and strikes as I see them. See you in the podcast. Ground rules!
Recent Comments