Give my love to Zoe - 10
Dear Jerry (and Zoe),
Thank you for your last letter.
I was glad that in spite of all your very real troubles, you still have your sense of humour and I loved this:
Speaking of Zoe, tomorrow is his birthday and we have a small celebration planned in the afternoon for his first birthday. My cousin and his wife will be joining us with party hats and favors along with more catnip and canned tuna. E arrives from Boston next Thursday and another celebration will take place as she of course is the one who rescued him from the animal shelter on the East Coast.
And I thought we Brits were soft on animals! My girls are already wondering what to buy "Rusty" our Jack Russell for Christmas!
One of our letters provoked some questions about the role of the Holy Spirit in our lives. I have written back to person in question and I thought you might like to see it.
This was his question:
I was reading your letter about your experience with God, being touched. I long for an experience like that. I want to be filled with the Holy Spirit completely to the extent I feel it in the physical. I struggle with this often, thinking God doesn't hear me, His word tells us to ask and He will give to all who ask. What do you think? Do you believe in speaking in tongues, baptised in the Holy Spirit?
And this is how I replied:
You know the Bible tells us quite clearly that we mustn't seek signs and wonders and miracles. Instead we are to have simple faith.
You ask if I believe in speaking in tongues and baptism in the Holy Spirit. The answer however is not as simple as it might seem. There are those who today want to mark out Christians experience by these very parameters. If you don't fit into this or that experience than you aren't a Christian. Or not a complete Christian anyway. I have little patience with that kind of view point nor with "thrill seekers".
Nevertheless the Holy Spirit is an integral part of Christian experience and has been so from the beginning. This is not the same as seeking "baptism in the Spirit"
However how much we experience the power and working of the Spirit in our lives seems to me to be dependent upon the space we give God in our lives.
2 Tim. 1:6
For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which
is in you through the laying on of my hands.
Timothy you see had to reminded to fan into flame the gift of God, that is the Holy Spirit. We can quench the Spirit in our lives by our actions, by our neglect. I remember a Scripture Union evangelist once likening the Christian experience to a house. We invite Christ into our lives but keep in the public rooms. In order to be truly free we need to let Christ into every room, including the attic the basement and dark cupboards! Only then can we be truly said to be fanning into flames the gift of God within us.
I struggled with this for a long time in the 80's. I felt I must be missing something. Maybe I wasn't really a Christian? Maybe God didn't approve of me? All of this and more I thought in spite of the fact that God had called me into the ministry and had provided me with all my material needs to for long years of training.
One dark stormy night, I was driving home from a church meeting, I was on Islay at the time and the road was twisting and corkscrewing up the side of
Loch Indaal. I was alone. There wasn't a light to be seen for miles. I opened my mouth and I let God supply the words. Suddenly I was praying in a different language. Had I made it up?
That gift is still there. A private prayer language. Nothing more or nothing less. I am convinced it is a gift from the Lord. But hey, am I
charismatic? I think not. I don't like tribal camps. I am a Christian.Only in the last year have I ever mentioned this to another living soul.
Sometimes when I am preaching I find myself saying things that I haven't prepared. I am almost a passenger. I find myself sitting back almost at the back of my head wondering what I am going to say next. I learn as much then as anyone. Nobody else knows this happens except my wife who can often tell.
It happened again last night at our evening service. I was really struggling with a bad throat. We came to the final prayer. We fell silent.I opened my mouth and suddenly words were pouring forth. Not from me. The Spirit within supplied the words. No one else knows that but me..... but I knew....
These are the things that really really fill me with deep comfort and hope.
The physical experience I had talked about was something that happened when I was in a very deep crisis and in real danger. The Lord took me and blessed me and I had the courage to go and face the situation and to survive it. Once before I had felt this only it was like a strong wall cast around me to protect me.
Perhaps you need only believe and let the flame be fanned.
But do not seek signs and wonders, focus more on following and serving Jesus day by day. Seek more to serve others. To care for others. Remember the world is full of the sick and the dying, the poor and the hungry. Remember those in prison. There you will find Christ.
Every Blessing,
Stuart
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