A tremendous, awesome what?
 

This was posted by someone as the first post in another thread and was clearly meant as a testimony or praise report:

"We had a tremendous, awesome move of God in our service yesterday! The annointing and presence of God was so incredibly strong. . .people were running, shouting, jumping, getting slain. . .people that needed victory claimed it and received it, backsliders were finding their way back to an altar of prayer. . it was just AWESOME!! I know God is a prayer answering God and He meets the needs of His people, but I still get amazed when He stops by right when we need Him the most and just takes over! I had a very special need and God completely ministered to it and me yesterday. I feel so exhilerated!!!

Anyone else have great services yesterday? Any praise reports you'd like to share?"

The joy being expressed is abundantly clear and I don't want to take that away from the person who expressed it in the above-quoted post. But there are several things in the post that raise some serious red flags!

"We had a tremendous, awesome move of God in our service yesterday!" So, what was Jesus doing yesterday that He wasn't doing all the other times He's been present (which is every time even two or three gather together in His name)? This notion of an "awesome move of God" appears to be suggesting something that is out of the ordinary and I find the notion of that disturbing because God's presence among His people is not (or shouldn't be) out of the ordinary. Further, if Jesus is present whenever even two or three are gathered together in His name (as He said He would), then what is God doing - or not doing - when He isn't moving awesomely?

"The annointing and presence of God was so incredibly strong" Are there times when it is weak?

"people were running, shouting, jumping, getting slain" Not that these are PROOF of God's annointing and presence - especially since God dwells in every Christian and, thus, does not cease to be present.

"people that needed victory claimed it and received it, backsliders were finding their way back to an altar of prayer" Isn't this what's supposed to be happening all the time? What is wrong in the Church today that we consider such things to be out of the ordinary?

"it was just AWESOME!!" Characterized by awe? Characterized by (reverential) fear? I sincerely doubt it since there was all that running, shouting, jumping, etc. going on. Now Isaiah knew what awesome was (see Isaiah 6)!

"I know God is a prayer answering God and He meets the needs of His people" Absolutely!

"but I still get amazed when He stops by right when we need Him the most and just takes over!" Stops right by? We make it sound as if God is not continually present within His people, as if God just drops in for a visit every once in a while when we "need Him" (as if to say there are times when we don't need Him. As for all that "running, shouting, jumping, getting slain," something sure took over but it wasn't God.

"I had a very special need and God completely ministered to it and me yesterday." Praise God! It's too bad we make it seem as if it's all about us and that God is there for us instead of us being there for Him - as if our needs are "very special" and the needs of others aren't.

"I feel so exhilerated!!!" That's nice but God's work in the life He has given me isn't dependent how I feel.

Chan, are the services you go to always red hot? Or are they sometimes dull?

Somehow I knew you were going to go after that post. :)

But... I have to agree... we have become such an emotion, chills, thrills, tingles & jingles based people.

We define the presence of God by these outward sights and, thereby, devalue the continual presence of God by even referring to some services (where the necessary requirement of 2 or 3 gathering together is met) as dull, dead or other such terminology.

My, my, my, my, my...

My Lord & God please forgive me for the times in the past that I have been in gatherings where you were, per your promise, in our midst and I deemed it dead because it did not line up to what I had earlier deemed as awesome and powerful. Help me to understand more completely your constant infilling and presence among your people when they are joined together in your name.

What's wrong with thrills and chills?

Some members here are not of the opinion that running aisles, dancing, or shouting is proper in a church service.

:nah

My mention was about when we BASE our judgements on whether a gathering of Gods people was "good" or not on these things.

Ok, fair enough.

I think though that we base our judgements on these sorts of things because it's what we can SEE. Since we are human, we can't see what's happening in the spiritual world, and therefore don't know it's happening a lot of times. These sorts of outward visual signs during services help us to see what actually is happening, and therefore it's exciting and encouraging.

Indeed... which may be why the word informs us that faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

That's exactly part of the problem I'm referring to. We judge God by our emotional responses - as if to say God was not moving (or even present) with us if we didn't happen to have a certain level of emotional frenzy.

Nothing, as long as we're not using them as the measure by which we judge God and whether or not HE was present, moving, etc. Of course, Paul did command that everything must be done decently and in order.