One of young leaders of the group that we’re getting together with told me about a tragic incident that had happened in his ministry in the last year.  He had prayed for a young man, and he had been overwhelmed by the Holy Spirit and collapsed.  It wasn’t long, however, before this same young man had murdered his father.  He then told me about another young man whose life had gone south not long after he’d prayed for him and the Holy Spirit had ministered powerfully.

            What was wrong, he wondered.

            So this is what I told this sincere, young man.  What happened in the lives of these two young people was just simply an awful tragedy.  The only relationship between his prayers and the falling away of these two guys was that our adversary came along and took advantage of their weaknesses. 

            I remember in my early days that when the pastor would give an invitation for folks to come forward to be ministered to, many of the same people came forward, week after week.  It wasn’t long before I realized that, too many times, we—I should say, we Pentecostals and Charismatics—expect God to “fix” us rather than seeing the need to work through our issues with the help of the Holy Spirit and the godly counsel and prayers of folks in our local assembly.  To sum up, the conclusion I came to was this: the touch/gifting/ministry of the Holy Spirit is no substitute for experience and—to put it bluntly—the dying to ourselves we must do as we follow Jesus.  I have seen far too many Pentecostals/Charismatics who are gifted and have had remarkable encounters with God but are disobedient and immature.

            May the Lord cause us to love Him more than we love ourselves, so we may walk in the obedience He requires.