Can You Feel the Holy Spirit Move?
Joe Slater
	“We could feel that the Holy Spirit was moving.” Has anyone ever told you that? In time past, such remarks were limited to those of Neo-Pentecostal persuasion, but lately we are hearing and reading comments like these from our own brethren. Do people feel the Holy Spirit moving? Since the Holy Spirit inspired the men who wrote the Scriptures (2 Timothy 3:16; 2 Peter 1:21), wouldn’t it be wise to go to that source to see what God’s Spirit says (and does not say) about Himself?
	First, the Bible does not refer to the Spirit “moving” at all in the way people use that term now. Only in the Genesis creation account do we read that “the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters” (1:2 KJV). Moses, who wrote that account, used a word for “moved” which means brooded or “hovered” (NKJV). He used the same word in Deuteronomy 32:11 relative to a mother eagle taking care of her young. So, God’s Spirit was brooding over the newly-created world, preparing to act upon the formless, lifeless mass. That “brooding” doesn’t match with what people today are claiming they feel the Holy Spirit doing.
	Second, the Bible never says anyone “felt” the Holy Spirit! That may come as a shock to some, but you can check it out in your own Bible. Look up every reference to the Holy Spirit, and every reference to words like feel, felt, feeling, etc. (use your concordance). How many verses contain “Holy Spirit” and “feel” together? (Hint: the answer looks like a goose egg.) Not even inspired apostles and prophets are said to have “felt” the Spirit.
	Well, if you can’t feel God’s Spirit, how do you know He’s in you? You know this the same way you know anything else the Bible teaches. It’s like the little children’s song: “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so!” We know because the Bible says it. How do we know Jesus is the Son of God? How do we know God has forgiven our sins? How do we know the dead will be raised? How do we know God’s Spirit dwells in us? In every case, we know because the Bible says so!
	A little consideration and reflection tells us that many sincere religious people confuse their emotions, hunches, intuitions, desires, dreams, and feelings with the Holy Spirit. Emotions and feelings are subjective and constantly changing. If we rely upon them, we will be misled easily. God’s word, being objective, does not change. Let us take our stand upon it, for then we are truly being led by the Spirit.
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A Candid Look at Atheism
	“I had motives for not wanting the world to have meaning; consequently, I assumed it had none, and was able without difficulty to find satisfying reasons for this assumption. For myself, as no doubt for most of my contemporaries, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation. The liberation we desired was simultaneously liberation from a certain political and economic system and liberation from a certain system of morality. We objected to the morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom.”
     --Aldous Huxley (Ends and Means, pp. 312, 316) 
No Debt Limit!
	The Federal debt limit debate has been in the news for a while now.  All sorts of scary scenarios are being put forth as each side postures at the negotiating table. I pray for those who rule.
	I am so thankful that God doesn’t have a debt limit for forgiveness of sin. His grace is unlimited. His forgiveness is extended from the Garden of Eden to the end of the world. Of course, this is not an invitation for us to sin as Paul pointed out in Romans 6:1-2 “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?” (NKJV)
	Instead it is a reason for us to rejoice and live for the one who paid the debt—Jesus. “For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts” Romans 6:10-12 (NKJV).
	Live for Jesus!
		--Charlie Gamble (via Bulletin Gold)