doDad91
I would just like to share my experience. I'm not an intellectual, but I feel I have had a valid experience of the infilling of the Holy Spirit.
This was long ago. I knew nothing about what it meant to be a Christian. But God was drawing me and I had come to believe that the way to God was through Jesus. So I was setting out to find out who Jesus was.
I had gone to a different city to visit my sister. My new-found belief was ever in my mind. We went for a walk and passed by a Church with a sign about a youth group meeting there. We went in so I could enquire about it, because I had a lot of questions to ask (and I was a young person then).
There were just a small group of middle-age women who were very nice and answered a few of my questions (nothing deep). They invited me to come back that evening at midnight because they were having some special meetings and they said the Holy Spirit was really moving. I didn't know about the Holy Spirit.
Anyway, I came back, alone, at midnight. First we were in a little room downstairs (not many people). I was uncomfortable and thought I wish we could go upstairs into the Church.
It seems I'd no sooner had that thought, than someone said, "Let's go upstairs in the Church!"
That was the beginning of things that I wished would happen, happened.
The lights were out upstairs and someone lit candles around the Church. There were stained glass windows and it was beautiful.
Some people were walking around "praying in tongues". I'd never heard of that and thought they were foreigners.
(I'm trying to make this as brief as I can.)
Anyway, some people spread out and kneeled in the pews and were praying privately. I did the same. I felt I was going to have an encounter with God.
One young woman came to talk to me. She said she was a missionary and at one time had been alone with 100 children to look after. She said she couldn't have done it without the Holy Spirit. I always remember that.
She said she would go away (she didn't feel I was ready I guess) but if she saw me raising my hands like others were doing, she'd come back.
Well, there's no way I could do that. But someone else came to me. I wished he would go away. And he did. Then I thought, I wish that missionary woman would come back.
And she did. She said something like I see you're not raising your hands but the Holy Spirit directed me to come back to you.
She talked with me; I don't remember the words, but I came to see I was holding on to things and needed to surrender what I loved; what I was holding on to; to God.
I thought of my beloved son (2 years old) and somehow I could release him to God. I knew God's love was there for him.
But where I couldn't let go was my hold on my husband. I was full of fear. My body was shaking.
Suddenly, the missionary woman was still. And then in a loud voice she said, "In the name of Jesus Christ I command this fear to leave her!"
Immediately, the fear was gone. Immediately I could release my hold on my husband.
And simultaneously, God's love was poured into me. I was being filled with love. And something strange, I felt words in my mouth. The missionary woman sensed this and said just to let them come forth. I opened my mouth and spoke in a language I knew not.
That was pretty well it. I didn't stay long. I left, but God's love was in me. It was February in Ontario but there was a lovely warm breeze around me as I walked home.
The next day my sister knew I was different. I was at peace.
I never found out what it all meant until later, when it was explained to me. But I could have gone without the explanation.
"It will come about after this that I will pour out My Spirit on all mankind" JOEL 2:28
"I will put My laws into their minds, and I will write them on their hearts.
And I will be their God, and they shall be My people.
And they shall not teach everyone his fellow citizen, and everyone his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord', for all will know Me.
From the least to the greatest of them,
For I will be merciful to their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more." Hebrews 8:l0-12.
