My fellows Christians, did you know that the highest manifestation of being filled with the Spirit are not the 9 charismatic gifts of the Spirit listed in 1 Corinthians 12, not even prophetic visions, dreams, and words? Those are great and useful, but there are heavenly things higher than prophesying or speaking in tongues as inspired by the Holy Spirit!
The supernatural fruit of the Spirit is more important than gifts. As Paul said to the Corinthians, gifts come and go and one day prophecy will cease, tongues will cease, etc. But, love will endure forever.
Gal 5:22-24 NASB But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, (23) gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. (24) Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
When someone gets overfilled with the joy of the Lord and goes into deep laughter from their new creation jolly heart, that is a higher manifestation than speaking in tongues or prophesying. It is evidence of an overabundance of the fruit of the Spirit manifesting forth from their inner being.
How joyful are you? How joyful are the Christians around you? How many actually get besides themselves in the joy of the Lord and experience the ecstasy of his supernatural love radiating from their inner being? How many get totally blasted high on his peace that passes understanding?
We can use old terms found in Scripture for these manifestations, but in modern times terms of the drug culture, once redeemed by us, work quite well to put this Gospel in street language of the day.
The Holy Spirit filling me up makes me so high on his peace that I literally feel like I’m going to float right up off the ground while I pray.
I get so beside myself in joy like a jolly drunken man that the deep belly laughter overtakes me, and I must look somewhat like ole Saint Nick laughing, red cheeks and all. The Spirit fills me and I’m under the influence! Shaka!
His love filling us and overflowing us manifests in such sweet ecstasy, I just want to hug everyone and kiss their cheeks and help whoever has a need.
The Spirit of Prophecy takes me on trips way further out than what I’d experienced on LCD. When you start seeing angels regularly and other spiritual creatures (such as the living creatures written about in Scripture) and explore the fantastical Kingdom of Heaven in spirit with the Lord, it blows your natural mind, man!
I could continue, but what about self-control? People who see us manifest ecstatically when our flesh is overwhelmed by the overflow of the Spirit may perceive it as “out of control,” and thus it “cannot be of the Spirit who gives self-control.” Interesting, but wrong. See, I’m a new creation in Christ and the new me is an eternal spirit being of God’s likeness housed in this body of flesh which had an old carnal (corrupt) nature that has been co-crucified with the flesh of Jesus on the cross. That old man is dead. I now have true self-control. The world’s version of self-control is to exalt the old man and make him look dignified and good to others, to get approval of men and worldly reward. The Kingdom version of self-control is for the flesh to be under the control of the new spirit man and manifest such into the earth.
When the strange fantastical heavenly manifests into the earth through the flesh from my spirit, it is self-control. You try it. It takes a lot of self-control to enter such communion with God in spiritual prayer that you actually go into ecstasies and raptures! It requires a lot more self-control than the normal type the flesh has. In fact, it requires supernatural self-control, the fruit of the Spirit!
Stop thinking from a natural perspective. If you are in Christ your mind is to be renewed and your perspective is to become heavenly, and truly spiritual. Warning: when this happens you are going to manifest in the world as a stranger/alien as Scripture says. You are going to look strange and talk strange compared to their norm. Just look at how far out of the norm Jesus was!
I said strange earlier in reference to the Kingdom of Heaven, because to the natural mind used to this world only, it is strange – it is totally new and different. But, my friends, it is much more blissful and glorious!
Manifest the supernatural fruit of the Spirit, always! Let the Spirit so fill you up and overflow you that your compassionate love for everyone flows out of your inner being and carries you along in the ecstasy of loving God and his creation! Then you can also play around with the toys of heaven, such as the gifts of the Spirit – what fun!! Weeeeeeee! Go ahead and explore Daddy’s Kingdom, kids! Your earthly sophistication is of no interest in heaven!
Mat 18:3 NASB and said, “Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.
