The Experience of Christ

[aron]

Originally Posted by countmeworthy

scriptures on 'the experience (of Christ)':

Genesis 30:27
And Laban said unto him, “I pray thee, if I have found favor in thine eyes, tarry; for I have learned by experience that the Lord hath blessed me for thy sake.”

Philippians 3:10-11
I want to know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead. I want to suffer with him, sharing in his death, I want to know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead. I want to suffer with him, sharing in his death,

as an fyi....
some translations use the word 'experience' a lot more than others. NLT (New Living Translation) for one. NKJV uses the word 'experience' only a handful of times.

Shalom in Christ Jesus!

You can experience God. You can experience the Spirit of God. You can experience Christ. You can experience peace, and joy. You can experience heavenly visitations. You can experience eating a hamburger. You can experience a lot of things. But in the end, what you experience will be determined by God, and by God alone. And imho the people who claim a lot of experience here in the flesh are those with the least experience. Because they don't know how to be quiet. They want a parade, today, while the battle rages. And this is NOT a jab at anyone here on this forum! This is simply a principle. If you make a lot of fuss to be something, or have something, here on Earth, you are in a vulnerable position, and risk losing whatever you think you have. The battle rages on. Don't make a parade of your gifts. Use them wisely. Satan would love to get you off-balance.

There was a guy in the "Lakeland revival" in Florida named Todd Bentley. He was "anointed" with "gifts", at least he persuaded himself and many others. They made him an "apostle". Later he decided that he wanted a new wife, from among the congregants. He and one of the parishioners fell in love so he wanted to dump his current wife and start over with a new one. Now, maybe Bentley had some genuine experiences. I don't know. But somewhere along the way his experiences deluded him. And this is not only a peril for the Charismatic movement, with their emphasis on experience (and I lump the LC fully in that fold, even without the miracles and tongues) that jumping up and shouting and rolling one's eyes become the sufficient "works" or "fruits". In other words, God put His Spirit on me, and God's works and promises can't be wrong, so I am going on to glory! And your living becomes more and more incidental. You have the anointing, so you claim, and begin to feel invulnerable, and invariably suffer loss. And you hurt others who've put their trust in your claims.

I had experiences of anointing, and blessing, and I also had experiences like Peter where I went outside and wept in darkness. In our experiences we may sense apparent "gain", and also apparent "loss". But at the end of the day we soldier on; God will keep score. Believe me, God is paying attention! Don't focus on the score, on the sum of your experiences. Focus on God's Christ. He is the one who passed the test, and received everlasting glory. Forget about your teachings, your impressions of those teachings, or your organizational position, or lack thereof. God's Christ is shining before us. All of His experiences were fully tested and proved. Don't look at yourself; look at Him.