enthusiasm
Of course there are still many churches today who cannot worship with praise or lift up holy hands and would never think of making a joyful noise around other Christians. It is love that makes the difference and not a showy display but there are so many dead churches around pretending to be alive, you wonder if the Holy Ghost will ever wake these dry bones up.
Much has changed in our time however and even lukewarm churches have the appearance of enthusiasm now. Why? Because in our generation, countless members marched out of the lukewarm churches and into spirit filled ones. I believe that this is part of the latter rain. There are still many sleepy churches hanging around but if they hadn't started getting at least a pretense of life into them, they would have lost all of their young to the charismatic groups and any others desiring a deeper spiritual walk. Many Christians resist the spirit and deny the power, feel dullness in their hands in worship and think that spiritual people are just too emotional.
Emerson writes of enthusiasm attending the consciousness of that Divine presence, "from an ecstasy and trance and prophetic inspiration... to the faintest glow of virtuous emotion." The God within nature of enthusiasm prompts a child of God to call out the name of Jesus, not just calling Him by His titles, Christ or Lord or God or Jehovah. When the name of Jesus is magnified, the power of the glory will bring out the enthusiasm of even the least of these precious ones in the kingdom. Enthusiasms will of themselves lift our hands to heaven so we may experience the power of the spirit raining down. Enthusiasm can direct that same Holy Ghost toward love ones and circumstances in restoration power. That's what enthusiasm is like, that's our God within.
The word enthusiasm comes from the Greek entheos, which means God within. As a youth, I remember growing up around churches that would forbid enthusiasm in the services, it was too spiritual, showing emotion was suspect and was considered excess and embarrassing. Those were the days when you were not allowed to clap in the church or to say amen or show any kind of feeling whatsoever in the congregation.
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