Quote:
Originally Posted by OBW
Maybe it's hard to have that experience on Sunday morning for other reasons. Maybe experience is less important than we learned in our past. T
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The way I look at it is the only alternative to experience is theory. Theory just points the way to reality. There can be real things you have not experienced, but they aren't real
to you until you have.
See? I think you have a different connotation for "experience" than I do. I think you think when I say experience I mean some kind of high or rush, or even escape from reality. No, I just mean actually knowing, seeing and touching God in the Spirit, rather than just dealing with him as an idea. I think to many Christians God is mostly an idea, not someone whose reality is present in their experience except on rare occasions. They mean well, but he's kind of theoretical to them. They think this is normal as long as they behave, because they don't know any better.
The difference between theory and experience is that with theory you just learn
about something, with experience you actually learn it. With God, it's the difference between knowing about him and actually knowing him.
Take angels. I believe they are real. But I've never experienced one. They are just theory to me. I just know
about them. Christ is real to me, however. I have experienced him, rather than just learning about him.
So to me, when you downplay experience, it makes me think you don't really experience God much, because if you did you'd admit you experience him and you wouldn't be so suspicious of others claims of experience, because you'd understand what they mean. I don't know, but that's the vibe I pick up from you. Sorry if such a perception is my fault. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
Take the verses Galatians 5:22-23a. "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control."
Fruit is an experience. Love is an experience. Joy is an experience. Peace is an experience. This is not talking about learning that these things are good and that we should try to have them (there is that side but this is not talking about that.)
Galatians 5:16 says, "So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh." This is talking about experience as well. It is saying if you have the experience of walking by the Spirit you will overcome the flesh. It isn't saying that if you know about this fact or if you try to overcome the flesh you will, it is saying you need to have a certain experience of the Spirit to overcome the flesh.
And simply walking in fellowship with God is an experience. Are you going to deny that? So from my viewpoint you are giving experience a bad name.
I understand that "experience" divorced from fruit is suspect. But I also think "fruit" without experience is also suspect--that to me is what "having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof" means.
But the solution for the former is not to downplay experience. The solution is to make people clear that the right kind of experience produces the fruit God is really interested in. That's the only kind of experience I'm interested in, and it's legitimate wherever its experienced, even if it's in the LCM calling "O Lord Jesus." There isn't a bad version of a legitimate God moment. That was the purview of Lee, ranking God experiences (e.g. being saved in Christianity often made one a Moabite. etc.).
The solution for the latter is to remind people that eternal life is knowing God, and the good works God is truly interested in are the fruit of knowing God.
Also, if I have misunderstood you, please don't accuse me of being disingenuous. Just explain what you mean more clearly. I'm sure everyone here would be relieved to get a chance to understand you better.