Planted by Water

I mentioned yesterday that I was reading a book by Andrew Murray called Power For Your Life, all about experiencing the Holy Spirit. One potential problem with him and other ‘deeper life’ authors is that they can sometimes leave the impression that the baptism in the Holy Spirit is something you graduate on to after a period of really faithful obedience, rather than being the foundational and initiation experience of the Christian life that it is. One implication of this  foundational understanding is that you can have people who have genuine experiences of the Holy Spirit but who are still immature, people who are very charismatic but of faulty character. I always thinks of Samson in the OT and the Corinthians in the NT; and I always remember being told about the healing evangelist who ministered powerfully in the Spirit and saw many miracles and healing when he was actually partly drunk - as he had a serious alcohol problem! Not good! Sadly this has made some Christians react against genuine experiences of the Holy Spirit. The answer though is not to dismiss the charismatic but rather to work on the character. It is wrong when people set against each other character or charisma, fruit or gifts of the Spirit. I want both! Equally we can learn from this not to follow someone just on the basis of their charismatic gifting. Murray and others like him at least give you a desire for an on-going and deepening work of the Holy Spirit in your life; I will try to share some of the insights he gives over the weekend - though I will be at a conference in Manchester with keri Jones tomorrow; and I go down to the College at Cardiff on Sunday.