A good friend sent me an email in response to the previous two posts and I want to post parts of his email (with a few edits and additions) here. He wrote as follows:
It’s a hard topic to comment on: The Holy Spirit is … for you. Christianity is the only religion that offers a helper today – right now … for you. If the Spirit tells me to sell everything and give alms – then I should sell everything and give to the poor and hungry. But that personal revelation is for me, not you. It doesn’t mean that the Body (or any individual in the Body) needs to do this. God may be asking others to do the same thing or something similar, but that’s an obedience issue for them. That is why this is such a divisive issue.
In our “Oprah-cized” world we want others to do more than just share in and rejoice in our experience – We feel like they must experience the same things. In fact, we often tell them that, either with our words or by our conduct. We want to believe I am special because of this great thing that God is doing in me – and clearly everyone should be doing the same. And, we will then tell others that those same experiences are also in the Bible and therefore SCRIPTURAL and that is for everyone! We turn personal faith experiences and revelation into something all must do. It doesn’t mean that what God revealed to you personally wasn’t from Him, but it also doesn’t mean that what He revealed to you personally is for everyone.
It also is hard because one Christian may have tasted and seen that the Lord is good in a very real and personal way, but another may not have had that same experience. And, when you share about your exciting experiencing, the one listening may feel like they must not be doing something right because they haven’t had that experience.
In the Body everyone has a purpose and they can overlap with other members but it should operate cohesively. The world teaches us that there is only one person in charge and I want it to be me. We then often turn our personal experiences and applications of the Christ life into mandates for everyone and thus take charge, living as though we are the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit and His work in the every day life of the Believer is very real and God speaks to each of us, whether we are listening or not. But we also must let God speak to others as He will and not try to be God in their lives. Everything about our humanity and our culture directs us to be god-like and take charge, but everything about the Christ-life tells us to love, serve, not judge, and live in the reality that He alone is God and we are not.
Be still and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the Nations; I will be exalted in the Earth. Psalm 46:10.