Postby Pastor Bill » April 9th, 2008, 3:34 am
As it has been stated here, this is OUR reaction to HIS Spirit, and in that I don't feel that these actions are wrong, have done many myself, both in the church and at home, but the key here is relationship, and purpose.
In my relationship with my wife, I react differently when I see her at different times, when we are alone, when we are in public, when we are in church, or among family. there are also different things in our relationship that cause us to interact differently, we can celebrate together, we can be intimate, we can have in depth discussions, we can just be plain goofy and silly. All of these are part of our relationship.
With God my relationship is the same, but often we focus so much on one aspect of our relationship that we drown out the others. There are times to shout and get excited, people do this at ball games, in celebration, excitement, that's all great, within the relationship.
But if everytime I saw my wife pushed for the same reaction, our relationship would be stunted, other purposes of our lives would be thwarted and I would ruin the relationship, BUT we do this with God. There are times that we can get excited and shout in response to His Spirit, I love it, but if that's all we've got, or if that's all we seek, we've missed the real relationship with Him that we need, and the purposes and works he has for us are getting overrun by a fleshly drive for that specific interaction.
Paul was specific on this in I Corinthians 12-14, and I have seen so many people focus on one part of that or another either to deny the gifts, or promote them over everything, but while he encouraged these manifestations, he also admonished to seek God's purpose, to seek "the best" to seek the work and edification of more than just yourself (although he did seem to recognize that importance as well).
I agree with Paul, I'm glad I speak in tongues more than you all, BUT I'd rather minister as God leads, giving His Word to those that need to hear when that opportunity arises, and be blessed and edified by the "shout" when there isn't other work to be done.
"Why would God allow Hitler his chapter in history? Why would God send a whale to swallow Jonah or turn a woman into a pillar of salt? Surely there were other ways. But I'll leave the particular methods of God to God."
-Spoken by David Abraham, Showdown by Ted Dekker