One of the reasons there's so much division over the baptism in the Holy Spirit is the attitudes of those who claim to have it.
What was the reasons you sought after it?
I remember seeing some seek it because they wanted to fit in. They wanted so bad to be part of this "special group". The results would be having a feeling of superiority, resulting in a superiority complex. Such a person didn't have it at all, but merely thought they did. Their attitudes stink, & so does their fruits.
Others sought for the Baptism in the HS because they were hooked on a feeling. They were taught this by the actions of others in the church who were having euphoric experiences during worship. Those such as Bethel Fellowship & Hillsong churches worship God for the "feeling" they get when they're in church. To them, worship is all about "me", & getting others to feel like I do.
Most of their "spiritual ministry" is about euphoria & getting others to experience it. Their claim is they are edifying one another with this feeling they get. But that's not true ministry.
To edify someone is to "build them up", making them a better, more mature christian. Things such as:
- strengthening their faith
- imparting biblical knowledge
- aiding their understanding of themselves & their needs
- praying for their healing, spiritual deliverance, for peace, for power for service to the Lord.
A true Spirit-filled church will be made of the right stuff to be God's servant to the world, not creating an atmosphere of euphoria & self-importance.
Your 4th paragraph really grabbed me and this is why. After I first met God and received the Spirit, I had a physical feeling I'd never experienced before. It was intense and involved goosebumps from head to toe and it felt sort of like warm waves flowing over me in whooshes that came and ebbed and came and ebbed.
I went to the only person I'd ever heard even remotely mention Gods' name at all in my family. I told him about these waves and goosebumps and he knew exactly what I was talking about because he got them too. This is the part I still laugh about today. I asked him: what
is it?? He shrugged and said: it's...just God. Why I laugh about my question to him is because manna means: what is it? So in the desert, when they received the manna that fell from heaven, when they said: it is manna, what they were literally saying was: it's...umm...what
is it? And I can picture them picking it up, touching and feeling it, rolling it around in their hands and saying: I think it's...umm...hmm...what
is it? Literally, it is this: It's what is it?
So it's just funny that when I received the Manna from heaven/the bread from heaven/Baptism with the Holy Ghost, I asked
the same exact thing the Israelites asked!
Now, I craved that feeling so much. It was very pleasurable. I discovered that when I listened to music about God and Jesus, I could gorge on that feeling. Waves and waves of it over and over again. But at some point, it felt...like I was doing something unseemly, though I couldn't figure out what. About the same time, He disappeared from me in my senses. I couldn't sense Him this way. I panicked and thought He had left me and that I'd done something to upset Him.
I went through a very dark place in it. I was just wrecked, man. And then a day or two later, He returned to my senses. But then began a series of times where I couldn't feel Him in that way and then I could and then I couldn't. And praise Him, He put a book in my hands that helped me in it and He also gave me some understanding of the spirit of some verses like, if you are a man given to appetite, put a knife to your throat when dining at the kings table (my paraphrase).
So I came to see that He was weaning me. That He was putting me on the true Fast, in spirit. That He wanted me to stop going by my sense of feel and to start learning to go by trust/faith instead. So when my senses/flesh shrieked that He had abandoned me, I began to put that flesh under and say: no, He will never leave me - He promised. And no matter what it feels like, He is doing good for me and to me.
It was kind of like when a mother goes into the bathroom and closes the door for some privacy and the toddler shrieks and shrieks outside the door until it is opened because he panics when he can't see mom and have immediate caresses from her...
So...your 4th paragraph really got me because I do believe this happens with tongues too. That it can become as disorderly and abused as kids hopped up on sugar running around and bouncing off of walls because of the sugar high. And even if it remains orderly, it can become eating unworthily at the kings table. You use a knife and fork and manners when you grow up. You don't just shove gobs and gobs of dessert into your mouth until you're high.
