Beware The False Experience

Leonard Ravenhill cautioned, “Very often we’re asking people to tarry in the Upper Room who have never knelt at the Cross. They get a false experience and it evaporates.”

I think what he meant by that is that if you and I would experience the exhilaration of being filled with the power and presence of God’s Holy Spirit within us, we must first die to self at the cross of Christ.

Too often, we have an emotional confrontation with Christ where we are made aware of His loving mercy, and our souls are touched. However, such confrontations are not evidence of one’s relationship with God through faith in Jesus Christ. Even non-Believers can experience such when confronted with the sacrificial life of the Lord. These same individuals might be stirred in their souls by movies, books, and personal encounters.

To kneel at the Cross of Christ is to die to self in such a way that the overriding desire of my life is to live for Him. When that happens the frustrations, fears, and hurts of the world cannot dissuade me from the faithful accomplishment of His plan for my life.

Do not be deceived by a shallow, temporary, emotional response to a heart-stirring event. Make sure your relationship to God is based upon the surrender of your will to His will by faith in Jesus Christ.

Now, please do not misunderstand. When one realizes just what he deserved, and understands just what he has been given in Christ, he will surely experience an emotional response. Such emotion results from an understanding of what God has already accomplished in the individual.

If your life is one gigantic emotional roller coaster, perhaps you should get alone with God, and The Holy Scriptures, and ask Him to show you through His Word how you can know that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.