Do you want the Holy Spirit? The question can be intended or taken as much as a test of someone’s spirituality or a boast of one’s own. It can also have the effect, even if unintended, of casting the immature of faith into doubt as to the indwelling of deity in them. Where is the Holy Spirit whom you want? What does it mean to ask for the Holy Spirit?
Should a believer expect his/her request for a miraculous gift such as the ability to speak in a tongue/language to be granted?
After all, Jesus said how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him? As if these words of Jesus were not enough there is always this one: The Holy Spirit can do whatever he wants to do. It’s a slogan which may play well and silence many, but it says nothing about one’s understanding as to what the scriptures reveal about the work of the Holy Spirit. It seems a foregone conclusion that the Holy Spirit by that very designation of himself as Spirit is subject to all manner of distractions and imaginations since he is, after all, spirit.
(note: Some believers attempt to create, as evidence of the Spirit in them, a distinction between tongues such as what the apostles spoke on Pentecost (Acts 2) and tongues such as in First Corinthians 14 with special emphasis on unknown tongues or tongues of angels versus [according to them]mere human language, but this is futile. Both words, tongues and languages as these appear in the English text in these chapters are taken from the same Greek word. Furthermore, I would add, that an understanding which is centered on the study or emphasis of single words in isolation is suspect.)
