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My experience is not what makes redemption real\u2014 redemption is<\/em> reality. Redemption has no real meaning for me until it is worked out through my conscious life. When I am born again, the Spirit of God takes me beyond myself and my experiences, and identifies me with Jesus Christ. If I am left only with my personal experiences, I am left with something not produced by redemption. But experiences produced by redemption prove themselves by leading me beyond myself, to the point of no longer paying any attention to experiences as the basis of reality. Instead, I see that only the reality itself produced the experiences. My experiences are not worth anything unless they keep me at the Source of truth\u2014 Jesus Christ.<\/p>\nIf you try to hold back the Holy Spirit within you, with the desire of producing more inner spiritual experiences, you will find that He will break the hold and take you again to the historic Christ. Never support an experience which does not have God as its Source and faith in God as its result. If you do, your experience is anti-Christian, no matter what visions or insights you may have had. Is Jesus Christ Lord of your experiences, or do you place your experiences above Him? Is any experience dearer to you than your Lord? You must allow Him to be Lord over you, and pay no attention to any experience over which He is not Lord. Then there will come a time when God will make you impatient with your own experience, and you can truthfully say, \u201cI do not care what I experience\u2014 I am sure of Him!\u201d<\/p>\n
Be relentless and hard on yourself if you are in the habit of talking about the experiences you have had. Faith based on experience is not faith; faith based on God\u2019s revealed truth is the only faith there is.<\/p>\n
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Journal Entry for Today-JDV<\/p>\n
December 21, 2010<\/p>\n
When I awoke this morning I reached out for you, the very first thing. It has become more than a habit or first reflex, it has become a daily conscience decision to seek you first as I begin my day. \u00a0<\/p>\n
And God says\u2026\u201d When you are in need you seek Me first. When things are going well for you and all your circumstances are in order you will often find yourself \u201cmultitasking \u201c through your day, without Me. Even when you seek Me first, the intensity of our connection and your conscious communication with Me is intensified by your need, and or pain. C. S. Lewis said\u2026\u00a0\u201cGod whispers to you in your pleasures, speaks to you in our conscience, but shouts in your pains: It is My megaphone to rouse a deaf world\u201d ~the scriptures say\u2026acknowledge the Lord in all your ways and He will make your paths straight. <\/em>I am the vine. You are the branches. Those who live in me while I live in them will produce a lot of fruit. But you can’t produce anything without me. Seek Me first and \u00a0give thanks for the circumstances that help create this pattern in your life.\u201d<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Experience or God\u2019s Revealed Truth? From Oswald Chambers’ My Utmost for His Highest December 21, 2010 We have received . . . the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God \u20141 Corinthians 2:12 My experience is not what makes redemption real\u2014 redemption […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3674"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3674"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3674\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3684,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3674\/revisions\/3684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}