Apostoic worship??

[Aquila]

We're Pentecostal in our spiritual heritage. How did we come so far as to be nearly superstitious in our fear of "feelings" and personal "experiences" in the Spirit???

I say, get out of the boat. Learn to walk on the water. Sure, you might stumble and stagger a bit at first. You might find yourself sinking up to your knees at first. The Lord might have to reach down and pull you up at first. But get out there. Only through constant practice will we grow into a spiritual maturity that turns doctrine into the foundation for personal experience.

I believe that the doctrines of the Bible are there to become foundations for our personal experiences with God. If we only focus on doctrine, we become like one who polishes the foundation every day, but refuses to build upon it. And here's something else I've noticed. Those who do not move forward and allow doctrine to become the foundation of personal experience often become stale in their faith. Their knowledge of doctrine then graduates into a rather divisive form of "heresy hunting". It isn't healthy.

Let us not allow our knowledge and adoration of doctrine become such a focus that, due to our own lack of personal experience with God, we begin to use that head knowledge to destroy those who are daring to launch out into deeper spiritual waters to experience God for themselves. Let us allow doctrine to be the foundation... the foundation of a very real and personal experience of the Spirit's abiding reality.