The Grax Domain

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11 Nov 2007 Alpha Course: The Day Out part 2

I took up the chance to do a special edition of the Alpha Course session, where we all went to a Christian centre in Stratford upon Avon and discussed the Weekend Talk session. We had done the first session in the morning entitled 'Who is the Holy Spirit'. Now it was time for part 2; 'What Does the Holy Spirit Do'.

We gather round the minister once again after we finished with our drinks. Once again he told a light-hearted story to break the ice and then went straight into the subject. The minister talked about being 'born again' spiritually and he addressed the situation about 'normal' Christians' behaving towards 'born again' Christians, almost as if they look down upon them. The minister made the quite bold claim that one was not a Christian unless he was born again, Jesus Christ stated that you needed to go through this spiritual rebirth. He then continued to speak covering topics of:

Developing the relationship with God (seriously, this idea crops up every week)
Unity in the family
Gifts from God

The minister concluded with the statement of every Christian has the Holy Spirit within them but not every Christian is filled with the spirit. This got me thinking. Considering all the 'evidence' I seen in my life, both Christian and non-Christian, I believe that everyone has some kind of spiritual energy inside them and that some people are more spiritually developed than others. The question is can this energy be used in something other than Christian related, like Wicca related for example. Can it only be The Holy Spirit or could it be something else?

After the talk we broke up into two large groups to discuss the two sessions we had. Unlike the usual weekly spot where we saw our same old group members, people got mixed up into the different groups. So there were some fresh new face with fresh new ideas. It was good because I was able to meet a couple of other people, Christians no doubt, who were not 100% satisfied with the answers that were presented to them.

One such discussion point was “How do I know that I am filled with the Holy Spirit?” There were various answers to this questions including:

You feel it inside you, like a gut instinct.
There are two main ways of becoming a Christian. There's the 'Hallelujah' moment, where one significant thing happens to you that makes you believe, or there's the gradual moment, where over a period of time you grow and develop your belief, like a spreading infection (not the most pleasing comparison I know but it does paint a powerful picture)
People have good and bad day, which influence how we feel about God and The Holy Spirit.

But still these answers were not good enough for one person in the group. In the end that person came up with a weak answer of “Well I guess my moment of knowing will come soon”, like he had given up trying to convince the people in the group to his way of thinking. It's a feeling that I can sympathise with.

This session highlighted one of the main desires of human beings, the desire for there to be more than life. There was lots of talks about how God promises so much goodness for Christians but they have to wait for it. A common way of controlling the masses through the promise of rewards beyond rewards.

People long for a sense of freedom in life and Christianity promises that freedom once you accept Jesus Christ into you life. However what people fail to realise is that the only real reason why they are constricted in life is because of the barriers that are put up around them by:

Society's rules
Their own rules

If people tried and pushed their boundaries a bit more I think they would be surprized as to how much they can get away with. They are free in life and they can do whatever they want. It's just a case of dealing with the consequences of their actions, whether great or small.

To be concluded.

Posted at: 14:20 PM