Is
Christianity, at its core, about believing in God, or is it about
knowing God? Is it about intellectual ascent to the right doctrine,
or is it about having a real relationship with the Creator of the
universe?
Experiencing
real relationship, with the real man Jesus Christ, and his Father –
that's real Christianity. If we've really experienced him, we'd be
longing for deeper and deeper experiences with him, ruined for this
world (like Isaiah, see Isaiah 6).
At
the same time, not everyone needs our particular experience. God has
their own for them. We need to be careful not to turn our wonderful
experience into a doctrine everyone else needs or a badge to show how
much more spiritual we are than the next person.
We
need to submit our experiences to our Pastor, for him to help us
navigate, as we discover the interpretation, the application/wisdom,
and the timing.
Our
experience should make us more like Jesus, who, being in very nature
God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but
emptied himself, taking the form of a servant (see Philippians 2:6).
So should we.
So
our experience, while absolutely necessary to live out all the
fullness God has for us, should never be an end in itself. Jesus is
always the end in himself. He's the point. It's all about him.
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