morbidmanatee:

imageoftheinvisible:

So many churches are raising young people to see the Holy Spirit as a force that primarily exists to make you “feel things” in worship. That you know you’ve been Touched™ because you have goosebumps and feel like crying or whatever.

I’m not downplaying the emotional impact an encounter with the spirit can illicit. That’s real. But when we place such an emphasis on our human response, we can make people who don’t experience these heightened emotions feel like they aren’t being filled with the spirit.

I’ve seen it happen before. “I felt nothing in worship”, “I’m in a spiritual rut”, “Why aren’t I being filled?”. The spirit is so much more than what you feel on a Sunday. Look at your fruits, look at God’s work in your life. That’s where you’ll find evidence of the spirit.

I know from experience how dangerous this is. Emotions are incredibly fickle; salvation is not. Just because you feel “blah” some days doesn’t mean you’re suddenly farther from God than you were yesterday.