True Christian Experience: The Gospel!

These things have I written unto you that

 believe on the name of the Son of God; 

that ye may know that ye have eternal life, 

and that ye may believe on the name 

of the Son of God.

1John 5:13 

     The Rule Book: the Bible, this is how we know how to live pragmatically, and spiritually. There is no other books, writings, or devotionals, anything at all that supersedes the Bible. The apostle John is clear and speaks plainly: He writes so that you may believe, not in some man, not in some doctrine, not in some denomination, no, only that you believe on the name of Jesus Christ who is the The Only Begotten Son of God. Here is the question: Do you believe the Bible to be true? Do you believe that God so inspired men to write things that not only were needed in those early Churches are also written for you today and into the future until Jesus returns? The apostle John writes: "He that believeth on Me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water" (John 7:38). The Bible tells of something that no other religious book tells: The Bible tells us that we can have eternal live, be saved from this evil that is in all of us, that fallen nature to be restored to its intent. Furthermore: if you believe what you have read in the Bible then you should be exuding rivers of living water. That means simply that you are to do what was commanded of us, that we are to take the Gospel to the world. That world may only be in your home, your job, your city, your community, and maybe all you can do is make phone calls, write letters, or only able to provide donations to missionary word: whatever: you are to be a river that flow with living water. 

     There are those who would object about the fact that the Bible, especially the Old Testament is only a musty old record of events. The question may be: Do we really have to rely on salvation upon examination of those old musty records? Can we not find salvation independent on history, a salvation that depends only on what is with us here and now? This is a problem within the liberal Christian theology: they rely only on the present experience and do not give much weight to the history within the Bible. Well, we are not saved by history, no the evidence is found in Christian experience and that experience is to be found in the event that occurred in history and the effects of that event, that experience is with us today. What is this experience or event? It is that Jesus entered into the realm of mankind, that is God Himself came into a virgin and was born into our world. It is this birth, this history and experience of our Christian Faith, this is to be our experience as well. Jesus sacrificed Himself to do what you and I could never do: save ourselves, give to us life, life eternal, and to change our fallen nature into the nature God has intended for His only creation that was made into His image. Now this experience more than just Jesus dying on the cross, it is that after three days in the grave He was resurrected from the dead. Those present and seeing this event experience that event as we cannot but we can experience it through what we read and believe in the written word of God: the Bible. That experience those then had and led them to go and be "living water" can be ours today and we too can experience what this meant then by our applying the "rules" found in the Bible to our lives, our living. Let this be a warning: yes we can experience Christianity but this experience is not what is necessary for salvation and all that we are to experience extrinsically. Yes there is outward joy, but that joy is not by  our making ourselves joyful by attempting to have "experience" rather than having a present experience in the heart. We are to experience the presence of Jesus Christ in our souls. 

     Liberal Christianity attempts to maintain a Christian experience, a religious experience and devise many means to maintain that experience. This is not Authentic Christian experience for Authentic Christian Faith depends absolutely on the event, that historical event where Jesus was hung upon the cross to pay the debt owed to God and by this can apply eternal life, salvation to all who believe on Him. To attempt to maintain a Christian experience in any other way is only to produce within a righteousness that is self-centered, self-aggrandizement. It is the Gospel, the redeeming work of Jesus Christ that is to be our experience. This is not just some idea of its accomplishment, it is a done event that has effects today and can affect a person in no other way that is Authentic Christian Faith. Your life, my life, depends on the truth of the New Testament record.

    Do you want to believe the Bible, or do you believe the Bible? This is our guide, our rule book, but more it is the map that guides us to more than just "good' living, more than just living a "moral" life, it is showing us the way to eternal life whereby we will have true immortality and no immorality. Read it! Study it! See for yourself if this is not true. 

And the LORD said, I will destroy man

     whom I have created from the face

of the earth; both man, and beast, and

     creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; 

for it repented Me that I have made them.

     But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD.

                             Genesis 6:7-8

You have what you need: use it!

Richard L. Crumb