So Eric, from your perspective and you, you teach a lot on prayer and you speak a lot
of intimacy with God. I'm sure people ask you lots of questions.
What is kind of the number one misconception that you think people have about prayer that
keeps them from really having a fruitful prayer life?
They believe that experience is not for everybody or that it's a lottery, meaning you experience
Him every now and then, you know. It's not the source of life for them; it's
just kind of -- well, today I did; tomorrow I may not.
They don't recognize that it's a recognition, really, it's recognizing that the -- that
the source of our life is experiencing Jesus, that's the core of your life.
And if you stop experiencing Him your relationship with Him will freeze right where it is.
Experience is so important. It's like, I say it to some people: "Nobody
gets pregnant holding hands." You know, you can't just hold hands with someone
and think you're going to get pregnant. You can't memorize What to Expect When You're
Expecting and get pregnant. You can't tell yourself you're pregnant and
get pregnant. You can't desire to be pregnant and become
pregnant. Pregnancy comes by literal, experience.
So this is what's -- what the major issue is: people don't think experience is, is for
them, that it's just every now and then, but experience is the core of life.
Do you think that the main reason that they don't think that experience is for them is
because they don't understand what experience is, or they have the wrong expectation?
I think they've been taught -- a lot of people -- and not everybody, but a lot of people
have been taught you can't live by experience. But experience is the only way to live, you
know, it's not right. And so when we experience the Lord we find
life; when we don't experience the Lord we will see it in our lives that we're lacking
life. But when you, when you define experience some
people when they hear you say experience they immediately attach definition to that word
and they think it's, you know, goose bumps, they think it's being slain in the spirit,
that something outward, something tangible, and indeed they don't always experience that
in prayer, and that's what they think is meant. But I think maybe it would be helpful even
if you would just define what you mean by experience so that, you know, to hone the
expectations. I will -- I will start by saying that our
walk with the Holy Spirit is no less experiential than our initial encounter with Him.
We live by continually receiving the spirit. We drink constantly -- Paul tells us, you
know, "Don't get drunk with wine but being continually filled with the spirit."
We're constantly receiving the spirit. The Christian life is drinking Jesus, is drinking
the presence of the spirit what do I mean by experience is the presence
and the voice. It's the presence of Jesus and the speaking
of Jesus that changes us. Now there will be things that will accompany
that, at some point, some more than others. I mean many manifestations come about -- some
people feel things on their body, some people have things happen to their body.
You know, Moses' face shined because of God speaking with him.
So it's a very important that we recognize His presence and His voice is everything and
is the experience that we are called into. As a matter of fact knowledge in the Bible
is specific to experiential knowledge. We grow in grace and truth by experiencing
Jesus. We grow in the experiential knowledge of the
Lord Jesus Christ. We get to know Him by experience, which is
His presence and His person. I can't take experience out of my relationship
with God any more than I can reduce my marriage to a photo.
It just doesn't make any sense. The only way for a person to be known is to
experience them. Let's separate that -- and I know you already
defined this, but do it again, just for those watching this.
Experience is the presence and voice of Jesus through the spirit to the glory of God the
father. And it's not always a tangible outward thing.
No, not always, but that will happen, yeah. Sometimes.
But it's an -- it overflows into that mode. Yes, often the body is so connected with the
soul that as the soul is blissed and taken up the body sometimes follows.