Faith

It began to dawn on me that, given an environment where the Word of God was foundational and the Person of Christ the focus, the Holy Spirit could be trusted to do both - enlighten the intelligence and ignite the emotions. I soon discovered that to allow Him that much space necessitates more a surrender of my senseless fears than a surrender of sensible control. God is not asking any of us to abandon reason or succumb to some euphoric feeling. He is, however, calling us to trust Him - enough to give Him control."

Sam Storms, Convergence, p. 43

God's Passion

Our glad-hearted passion for God is exceeded only by God's glad-hearted passion for God. If the chief end of man is to glorify God by enjoying him forever, the chief end of God is to glorify God and enjoy himself forever!

Sam Storms, Convergence, p. 41

God - Enjoy Hedonism

...we value most what we delight in most. Pleasure is not God's competitor, idols are. Pleasure is simply a gauge that measures how valuable someone or something is to us. Pleasure is the measure of our treasure.

Sam Storms, Convergence, p. 40

God - Enjoy Worship

...passionate and joyful admiration of God, and not merely intellectual apprehension, is the aim of our existence. If God is to be supremely glorified in us we must be supremely glad in him and in what he has done for us in Jesus. Enjoying God is not a secondary, tangential endeavor. It is central to everything we do, especially worship. We do not do other things hoping that joy in God will emerge as a by-product. Our reason for the pursuit of God and obedience to him is precisely the joy that is found in him alone. To worship him for any reason other than the joy that is found in who he is, is sinful.

Sam Storms, Convergence, p. 39

God - Delighting

"God is glorified not only by his glory's being seen, but by its being rejoiced in. When those that see it delight in it, God is more glorified than if they only see it. God made the world that he might communicate, and the creature receive, his glory... both [with] the mind and the heart. He that testifies his having an idea of God's glory [doesn't] glorify God so much as he that testifies also his approbation [i.e., his heartfelt commendation or praise] of it and his delight in it."

Sam Storms, Convergence, p. 39.

God - Enjoying

There was a time when I thought the verb "enjoy" and the noun "God" should never be used in the same sentence. I could understand "fearing" God and "obeying" God, even "loving" God. But "enjoying" God struck me as inconsistent with the biblical mandate both to glorify God, on the one hand, and deny myself, on the other. How could I be committed above all else to seeking God's glory if I were concerned about my own joy? My gladness and God's glory seemed to cancel each other out. I had to choose between one or the other, but embracing them both struck me as out of the question. Worse still, enjoying God sounded a bit too lighthearted, almost casual, perhaps even flippant, and I knew that Christianity was serious business.

Sam Storms, Convergence, p. 38.

Worship

...all too frequently worship for me was little mire than singing songs about God. Of course, we ought to sing about him. But I rarely had any expectation of meeting God or experiencing his presence or engaging my heart with his or, far less, of enjoying Him.

Sam Storms, Convergence, p. 38.

Tongues

Contrary to the caricatures that many have of this gift, it has served only to enhance and deepen my relationship with the Lord Jesus. Believe it or not, I can still tie my shoelaces, balance my checkbook, drive a car, hold down a job, and I rarely ever drool! I don't mean to be sarcastic, but this particular gift of the Spirit has a terrible public image. For me to reveal to you that I speak in tongues is to run the risk of being perceived as a mindless, spiritually flabby fanatic who periodically mumbles while in a convulsive or hypnotic trance.

Sam Storms, Convergence, p. 37.

Tongues

One night in October of 1970, quite without warning my normal, somewhat routine, prayer was radically interrupted. I suddenly began speaking forth words of uncertain sound and form. I didn't start out by consciously muttering a few senseless syllables which then gave way to a more coherent linguistic experience. It was more like a spiritual invasion in which the Spirit intruded on my life, interrupted my speech patterns and "gave utterance" (Acts 2:4).
There was a profound intensification of my sense of God's nearness and power. I distinctly remember feeling a somewhat detached sensation, as if I were separate from the one speaking. I had never experienced anything remotely similar to that in all my life. While this linguistic flood continued to pour forth I kept thinking in one language while speaking in another.
My reaction to something so unfamiliar and new was a strange mixture of both fear and exhilaration. I don't recall precisely how long it lasted, but it couldn't have been more than a couple of minutes. I was confused, but at the same time felt closer to God than ever before. At the time I didn't have theological categories to describe what happened. In hindsight, I'm more inclined to view it as a powerful filling of the Holy Spirit rather than Spirit baptism (although I'm open to being convinced otherwise). Having said that, I must confess that when I look for words to describe it the only thing that comes to mind is immersion and saturation, a sense of being inundated or flooded with the presence of God.

Sam Storms, Convergence, p. 34-35.

Spiritual Gifts

I rejected cessationism because, in the solitude and safety of my study, I became convinced the Bible didn't teach it. I embraced the biblical validity of all spiritual gifts of the church today before I ever personally experienced them.

Sam Storms, Convergence, p.31

Pneumatology

If there were problems, and there were, it was the absence of a robust and biblical perspective on the ministry of the Holy Spirit. The problem wasn't that I focused obsessively on the Word, but that I lived in fear and ignorance of the power of the Spirit. And I do not believe for a moment that the former was the cause of the latter.

Sam Storms, Convergence, p. 27