Experience Counts

            Christianity is more than a set of beliefs. It is more than the practice of rituals. Christianity is an experience. Without this experience, all the beliefs and practices are empty. Christians have a book, but the life and power of Christianity is not in the letter of its charter. It is in the experience which the letter describes.

            The scripture says: “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.” (Romans 10:9) This is true. However, I submit that no one believes in his heart or confesses with his mouth One whom he has not met. Salvation and rebirth come about by meeting Jesus, not in some ethereal, philosophical plateau, but by experiencing His presence and interacting with Him. Not everyone is struck blind by the light of God on the Damascus Road. Nevertheless, every Christian encounters the living Christ.

            Those who attempt to live a Christian life under their own steam by following the teachings of Jesus and adhering to biblical principles will live an unhappy, disappointing life. Christianity was never meant to be practiced in such fashion. Christianity is the experience of being filled with the Spirit of the Living God and allowing that Spirit to move, transform, and inspire you alone life’s journey.

            “(God)…hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.”  (2Cor. 3:6).

            ”For in him we live, and move, and have our being…”  (Acts 17:28)   

            It is the life changing experience of meeting Christ that separates the sheep from the goats; divides heaven from Hell; and opens the void between Christians and everyone else in the world.

            “For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.”