In my experience, the pursuit of "spiritual gifts" is often just an effort to sensualize Christian living, to make the spiritual a flesh-oriented thing. In these cases of sensualized "spirituality," being "spirit filled" means, "having experiences that stimulate my physical senses that I believe are manifestations of the Holy Spirit." There is a great deal of high emotion, even hysteria, that accompanies these "manifestations of the Spirit" which helps to give these sensual "experiences" of God more potency. And, generally, those chasing after such experiences do so in concert with others, feeding off the Mob Mentality in weekend "Spirit Fire" conferences, using the power of the group to inflame and normalize their "experiences." If everyone around you is having a spiritual freak-out, you'll be far more disposed to having one yourself. No one's going to censure you for losing your marbles, cackling like a possessed person while you roll around a bit on the floor, when they're doing the same, right?
The chief aim in a sensual pursuit of God, it seems to me, is to bring God out of the spiritual realm into the material realm so that He can be interacted with in the way all other human interactions with material reality are accomplished. We taste, touch, smell, hear and see the physical world around us and know it as real by doing so. The sensual Christian wants the same experience of God; they want Him to be accessible to their physical senses, too; they want Him to stimulate their fleshly means of perception. When He does, they know He is real.
But this sensual, fleshly approach to experiencing God is entirely opposite what the Bible indicates a true and normal (common or typical) experience of God will be. When God interacts with us, He does so as a Being of Spirit (John 4:23), as an incorporeal Being. In the Person of the Holy Spirit, God moves into, and upon, us but first and foremost to spiritual effect, not physical. When the Holy Spirit makes of a person his "temple" they are not physically altered. No, they take on new spiritual attributes, made a "new creature in Christ" by the Spirit (2 Corinthians 5:17; Titus 3:5; 1 Corinthians 6:19-20; Ephesians 2:1-10; Romans 8:9-16, etc.), who is pursuing in and through them eternal, Christ-centered, spiritual purposes, not primarily earthly, temporal ones.
Colossians 3:1-4
1 If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.
2 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.
3 For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
4 When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.
Philippians 3:20-21
20 But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ,
21 who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.
Matthew 6:19-20
19 “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal,
20 but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.
Romans 8:22-24
22 For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.
23 And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.
24 For in this hope we were saved...
2 Peter 3:10-13
10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.
11 Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness,
12 waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn!
13 But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.
I cite these verses because among those folk seeking a sensual, fleshly, physical experience of God, there is an unavoidable preoccupation with the fleshly and the temporal that accompanies this sort of "spirituality." This is made particularly evident in the revolting "Spirit soaking," or "Spirit toking," or "Spirit drunkenness" sessions that are popular among these sensual believers. Blasphemous things, these are, associating the Holy Spirit with some of the most carnal and corrupt activities of human beings, making him into the spiritual equivalent of a hot tub, or bottle of whiskey, or illicit drug.
In any case, God's word repeatedly makes a very clear divide between the fleshly and the spiritual, establishing that they are not at all compatible.
Romans 8:5-8
5 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit.
6 For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.
7 For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot.
8 Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
Galatians 5:16-17
16 But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.
17 For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do.
Galatians 6:7-8
7 Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap.
8 For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.
Philippians 3:18-19
18 For many, of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ.
19 Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things.
Jude 1:17-19
17 But, beloved, remember the words which were spoken before of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ;
18 How that they told you there should be mockers in the last time, who should walk after their own ungodly lusts.
19 These are they who cause divisions, sensual, having not the Spirit.
A spiritual experience of God simply cannot be a flesh-oriented one, it cannot be an experience that seeks to stimulate the physical senses but is, rather, an experience of the mind, and heart, and spirit, those immaterial parts of us constituting our "inner wo/man." God meets us on the level of this inner person, wanting to effect change in him/her, knowing as He does that it is this person who is eternal and bears His image. And so, when we are reconciled to Him through Christ, the very first thing God does is alter our immaterial, inner person, giving him/her an entirely new, entirely spiritual, identity in Jesus.
It is, I believe, a profound corruption of what walking with God is supposed to be when doing so is oriented upon one's physical senses, stimulating and gratifying them, when fellowship with God is defined by high emotionality - hysteria, even - at every turn. I've met Christians who sneer at their fellows who don't gush and groan as they do during Sunday morning worship services, believing their spiritual siblings spiritual infants, starved of "true spirituality," because they don't sway, and lift hands and tear-soaked cheeks heavenward during the singing. No believer, they think, can have a truly spiritual experience with God apart from high emotion, and incoherent speech, and perhaps a moment or two of convulsion. How deeply wrong these people are!
Psalm 46:10
10 “Be still, and know that I am God...”
Isaiah 30:15
15 For thus said the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel, “In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.”...
Psalm 23:1-2
1 The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.
2 He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters.
Galatians 5:22-23
22 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.
Matthew 11:28-30
28 Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
Where is the gentleness, and rest, and peace of Christ in convulsion, and hysteria, and nonsensical babbling? How is it that some think sensuality and spirituality are two sides of the same coin? "Walking in the Spirit" has nothing to do with sensual appeals to the flesh; it has nothing to do with out-of-control behavior; it doesn't involve making God into a "trick pony." No, life in the Spirit is about love, faith, submission, truth, holiness and fellowship with God, it is about the life of the inner person, not tingles across your skin, or babbling like a monkey, or winding yourself up emotionally.
