The Experience of Christ

[Cal]

Originally Posted by awareness

Well experiencing Christ in the local church didn't do me any good. Nor did it do any good for all the others I know that came out of the LC.

Well, surprise, now you know some!

Originally Posted by awareness

Except, it seems, those that haven't managed to get the local church completely out of their system yet.

To me trying to eradicate every vestige of the LCM is a waste of time. How do you know doing so is really going to make you happy? I saw this transvestite today. He may have had a sex change, I don't know. He was moving into middle-age and he was one of the ugliest "women" I've ever seen. He had tried to eradicate all vestiges of being a man. But he couldn't do it. And he never will be able to. Eventually that has to result in unhappiness, or admitting such extreme measures are futile.

Trying to "get the local church completely out of [your] system" is a silly goal. How do you know when you've done it? When you hate everything about the LCM, including the idea of experiencing Christ? Is that how you know? And when you think you've reached that goal, what do you have? Do you have what God wants you to be? Is that really how you look at things?

Why not rather just seek God, and let him take away things and add them? Why declare war on your past? That's not the way to get where you need to be. Jesus's blood covers your past, you are saved by grace and fully accepted. You don't need to eradicate anything. You just need to focus on him and the positive and let him do the work of fixing you. None of us are wise enough to discern what needs to be eradicated. "Eradicate" sounds like one of those words Witness Lee would use. It's an extreme.

At some point you have to make peace with your past. Like it or not, it's one of the things which defines you. You don't have to run away from it.

But I say, just look around, and be honest, what good has experiencing Christ done for those you know of?

I don't know what anyone else means by experiencing Christ. I just know what it means to me. And to me, experiencing Christ has changed me. It works in me the fruits of the Spirit.

If you say experiencing Christ never did anything for you then you weren't really experiencing Christ. And if you don't think we can experience Christ that means you don't think God is knowable. If you know God you've experienced Christ, because Christ is the way to God.

[awareness]

Originally Posted by Igzy

If you say experiencing Christ never did anything for you then you weren't really experiencing Christ. And if you don't think we can experience Christ that means you don't think God is knowable. If you know God you've experienced Christ, because Christ is the way to God.

Well now. Finally a definition of experiencing Christ we can sink our teeth into. I didn't know that is what you meant. I was thinking of the "Oh Lord Jesus ... Oh Lord Jesus ... Oh Lord Jesus," kind of experiencing Christ. Not the Baptist kind of experiencing Christ, or the Catholic kind. Sorry about that.

[Dave]

To say that experiencing Christ has changed someone is meaningless unless there are tangible outcomes such as, for example:
1. Change in outlook of others---seeing their value or worth and dignity.
2. Caring about equality
3. Caring about the rights of others
4. Change in outlook of others who are different
5. Worldview of connectedness---understanding how we are all connected---how life is all connected
6. Tolerance and respect for others viewpoints

Unfortunately what often seems to happen to those who say they have experienced Christ is this outcome, for example:

1. Have little value of the worth or dignity of others
2. Hatred of people different then themselves
3. Intolerance of other viewpoints
4. Narrow and isolated view of the world
5. Doctrinaires

I found that my "experience of Christ" in the LC resulted in the second set of negative outcomes. I have no intention of merely dropping the LC and picking up the same set of outcomes in another fundamental church and calling it experiencing Christ. I just don't see how it is possible to say one is experiencing Christ when the primary outcome leads to rattling off the "correct" doctrines and beliefs. To me, it also doesn't mean that I get with a group of people who believe the exact same doctrines and we all experience Christ in the same way and have little toleration for other perspectives. If reading the Bible and praying leads to a change in positive outcomes in our outlook of our fellow human beings, world and other life then we have the makings of truly experiencing Christ from my perspective. There are only two commandments: love God and love our neighbor. I just don't see a lot of love coming out from those espousing that they are the true lovers of God who experience Christ. I am sure that "your" experience of Christ has changed you but what are the outcomes.