A Call To The Remnant

Everything about my faith was an experience. The most dramatic of which was the day I surrendered. A day that will live in infamy for my flesh, never to be forgotten. A day of great rejoicing for my spirit, never to be forgotten. I have experienced love, I have experienced joy, I have experienced forgiveness. I have experienced transformation. I have experienced cleansing. I experienced opposition. I experienced warfare. Obviously you see the word that comes up over and over again. Experience. I knew nothing of doctrine when I was got saved. I knew nothing of the Scriptures nor did I know the great essentials of the faith, but I now knew Jesus. He spoke to me, I experienced that. He taught me, I experienced that. He led me and He guided me, I experienced all of that. After about seven months I was baptized in the Holy Spirit and this was a whole other level of experience.

If you climb to the top of a mountain, it is a very definite experience. It separates you from all others who have not. It joins you to all others who have. You can read books about climbing, and watch videos and documentaries and be filled with head knowledge about it, but unless you have experienced the peak then you are not a mountaineer. Sit among a group of them and discuss climbing, they will soon figure out you are not a climber. By the same token, listen to a group of climbers speak about climbing and you will be able to pull up a chair and sit down with them, if you yourself are a climber. It is that way with the Body of Christ. It is a mysterious thing, a spiritual reality birthed in actual experience. New creatures in Christ recognize each other, they speak the same language.

Those of the head knowledge persuasion are dead set against the word “experience.’ Theologians and schoolmen and whole denominations have made themselves the deadliest enemy of experience. And on the other side there are those who endlessly speak about their own personal experiences such as roaring like lions and rolling around the floor or barking like dogs. Both of these sides serve a common purpose for the enemy of the saints. To tear down the Body of Christ, those who have actually experienced transformation. Tick six boxes of mental assent to abstract truth on one side, or get dirty rolling on the floor with the other. None of this means anything in the end. For those who have scaled the lofty heights and peaks of glory, in encountering God, live on and in their experiences walking with Jesus and transformation. The Word of God is His magnificent roadmap that leads us home through valley and mountaintop. And no matter the lofty heights or peaks or the chains and dungeon, those who have encountered Jesus, experienced Jesus, experience joy inexpressible and there rests upon them the Spirit of God and of glory.