The New Testament Church is the body of Christ — not a building or an institution but a living organism. The baptism of the Holy Spirit is the empowerment that makes that body function at full capacity. This supplement bridges those two truths: what the Church is, and what it needs to operate as designed.

Here's something worth thinking about: if God is the author of all the Scriptures we've studied proving these blessings are for us today, then who do you think is behind the criticism of these doctrines? It has to be His opponent — the devil.

Anyone who condemns a spiritual experience that's plainly stated in Scripture is being used as a tool of the enemy. The devil's goal is simple: rob people of the purposes and benefits God intends for them.

Instead of fighting each other, Christians should be joining forces against our real enemies — sin, sickness, and the devil. Think of it like this: if an army spent all its energy fighting within its own ranks, the actual enemy would have free rein to do whatever he wanted.

That's exactly what Satan accomplishes when he gets believers squabbling over church creeds, rituals, minor theological theories, and even spiritual experiences that should never cause division. His long-range strategy is to keep Christians from gaining power with God against him and his works.

As long as he can prevent aggressive spiritual warfare and keep believers from walking in victory, he's free to continue his work of bringing sin, sickness, defeat, and poverty into people's lives.

Your goal as a believer should be to attain all the fullness of God until the full evidences of Spirit-baptism (as we discussed in Lesson Thirty) are manifested in your life. Don't be satisfied with the measure of the Spirit you currently have.

Sadly, the least little blessing from God seems to satisfy most people. But that's not how it should be.

Most of us have heard people make slanderous remarks about those who claim divine healing power, who say they've been healed by God, who testify to the baptism in the Spirit, or who share some other biblical experience. Some folks have ridiculed supernatural manifestations so thoroughly that hundreds of thousands of people in our biggest churches know nothing of the real truth.

Church members get taught to avoid any mention of these biblical doctrines and to write off all spiritual manifestations as either demonic or fanatical. Meanwhile, those same members smoke, chew tobacco, play cards, drink, and commit all kinds of sins — and their teachers never rebuke them or warn them away from these evils. What a sad condition!

This situation should never be tolerated by any church. When it is, that church becomes spiritually dead and stops being a true Christian church — it's just a center for entertainment and social activity.

We've looked at plenty of Scripture proving there's a real baptism in the Spirit, real power from God for believers, and real gifts of the Spirit that should be operating in every church and every member. Instead of shunning these experiences and the people who teach them, church members should welcome any good news about these blessings. They should be eager to learn everything they can.

Ask yourself: Would God give us hundreds of Scriptures making these things clear if He didn't intend for us to have them?

There's no reason to be ignorant of these spiritual blessings if you'll just read your Bible and see for yourself what God says. And there's no excuse for controversy about spiritual experiences if people will be even half honest and open to the truths plainly stated in Scripture.

A popular excuse among those who fight these doctrines is pointing to failures in Christian living — people who don't demonstrate the power such experiences are supposed to bring. But these critics seem to forget that some people in all churches fail to live the Christian life. Should we call all those churches "of the devil" because some members fail? Should we condemn their doctrines because a few members don't live right?

Regardless of human failure, we must accept plain truths of Scripture as being from God.

Paul told us that the things of God's Spirit would seem like foolishness to the natural man 1 Corinthians 2:14 and that God would use the foolish things of the world to confound the wise 1 Corinthians 1:26-31. It's similar to how someone who's never seen a smartphone might think the whole concept is absurd — until they actually use one and discover what it can do.

Naturally, any manifestation of the nine gifts mentioned in 1 Cor. 12 would seem foolish and strange to someone who's never seen them in operation. But why reject or criticize something you know nothing about — either from Scripture or from experience?

The natural man isn't used to spiritual experiences, and every one of them will seem like foolishness until he decides to be open enough to investigate what's written about them. When something is clearly written about any spiritual blessing, that should settle it as biblical and from God. We should then bring our natural thinking under control and refuse to reject the truth.