Filled with the Spirit. Filled with Confusion.

I find it quite incredible that I can be so confused about a particular aspect of my God. Rather, I find it quite incredible that I am so confused with regards to God Himself; more specifically, the Holy Spirit. There seem to be opinions coming at me from the left and right yet none of them has clarified this mystical person of the Trinity enough to where I feel I could effectively teach others about Him.

First and foremost, I need to be completely convinced that the Holy Spirit is indeed God. He cannot be anything less than God the Father or God the Son. He is not a great concept that God the Father thought up and God the Son helped bring about. The Spirit is in equal status and power with the other two persons of the Trinity. Acts 5 clearly equates lying to the Spirit as lying to God. I must realize that He is as much a part of the Trinitarian deity as Jesus Christ and God the Father. Only when I grasp this, which I am becoming more firm in doing, can I begin to tackle some of the other issues.

Prayer. I can pray to the Spirit. I don't have to only pray "in the spirit", but I can pray to Him. If He is God, I can pray to Him. This may seem simple, but how many of us have been taught that this is okay? The issues was avoided and so I, along with others I presume, have grown to have a grim picture of how the Spirit and prayer are intertwined. I am becoming increasingly convinced of my necessity to pray to the Spirit simply for the ability to pray. Focus, intelligent interaction, and proper addressment of God are all needed for quality prayer. The Spirit's role is to inspire us, to lead us, and to make us eloquent as we seek to unify our hearts with Christ. Once again, if He is God, I am going to pray to Him and be fully convinced of the necessity to do so.

Spiritual Gifts. We could go on for days arguing this, but since I am writing, I will only write a little. I believe in the spiritual gifts. I believe that they all exist today as they have in the past. I think to diminish the gifts is to diminish the power of God. However, I think the spiritual gifts to be non-normative. I believe that as the church body grows in its knowledge of the Word, the natural tendency of the Lord to manifest Himself in such ways becomes less and less necessary. I believe this accounts for the stories we hear of visions and dreams across the globe. I do not discredit these dreams in most cases. However, I do not think that these gifts are to be sought for as the ultimate goal of the believer. He has, in fact, given us His complete Word. The Bible is the most valuable manifestation of God that we still have today. To seek a word from the Lord over the Word of the Lord is ignorant.

I believe that if we are truly seeking the Lord through His written Word, then it is not wrong to ask the Lord to reveal Himself through dreams, visions, or whatever else. However, if our faith falls on the fact that we didn't hear God tell us to do it, then we are missing the entire point of Scripture. He has already told us! We must realize that those words are actually His Words. I think that much of the confusion over spiritual gifts is really a confusion of what Scripture is. We think that if God tells us something directly, then we will be more likely to do something. Well, we had Christ and we killed Him. We do have God's direct word in His Word.

I could go on about how complex our God is, but I am tired. I am a meager human being. When push comes to shove, I am glad I haven't figured out God. If I could, I would soon realize that He wasn't worth the pursuit in the first place. The fact that He is so mystical makes Him worth seeking. I need to take comfort in my finite-ness and His overwhelming love for me despite that fact.

God be praised.