The bible gives us a basic outline of who God is, which is wonderful! It lays down guidelines by which we can filter our experiences through. But there is a huge problem that the church has become infected with: we have substituted bible reading for an actual supernatural relationship with the Holy Spirit. We fill our minds with verses while our hearts are void of His presence.

For example, the bible says God is love, but is having a mental understanding of that love enough? It is only through supernatural experience that the love of Christ as written in the scriptures takes on meaning and depth. For example, what if I read the manual for my car everyday for the rest of my life, but never actually put the key in the ignition and drove it? Sadly enough, many christians are content with reading the manual, but never actually step beyond the ink into a supernatural relationship with God. In our intellectually driven society concepts are taught without actual experience. A doctor can study in college for 10 years and never actually work on a patient. Unfortunately the church has adopted this same mentality; we’ve become satisfied with the theory of God’s word, and have neglected actually experiencing the very words we claim to believe.

Concepts divorced from experience are part of what is killing the church. If I am content with the outer-shell of God’s word rather than experiencing the inner-presence behind it; then I have elevated the bible above God Himself; a vital relationship with Him has essentially been replaced with ink on a page.

Every word is meant to be an encounter! When it says the, “Joy of the Lord is our strength,” it’s not poetry, it’s a supernatural encounter with His joy! When it says, “Peace that passes understanding,” it’s not wishful thinking, it’s a supernatural Holy Ghost reality that consumes the believer and releases the rest and calm of God. The words of scripture point to a reality greater than itself; it is a mere signpost pointing to the kingdom dimensions found in Christ. It’s a door into divine encounter. If we do not experience the Spirit behind the word we are wasting our time!

Form Without Power

“…having a form of godliness but denying the power thereof… ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.” (2 Timothy 3:5, 7)

You can see it everywhere: people are stuffing their minds with endless ideologies, doctrines, and scripture, but have no actual connection with the Holy Spirit. Ever learning, but never coming into the intimate knowledge of a relationship with God. You see, Jesus must be treated like a Person, not a book. He is longing to reveal Himself to you, and fill you with the heart-level knowledge of His love.

Christ had strong words for the pharisees who had become experts of the scriptures but when confronted with the God of the scriptures, rejected Him.

The bible is a sign post that should lead us into an encounter with the Person. If we read the bible and refuse to come to the Person of Christ and allow Him to fill us with His Spirit, then we have missed the whole point and have joined ranks with the blind and hard-hearted pharisees who could quote hundreds of bible verses, but were as cold and dead as a corpse. Imagine the pharisees of the time, many of them could actually recite word for word the first five books of Moses (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy,) and yet here comes Jesus saying that none of them knew God! If our study of the scriptures does not lead us into an encounter with the Person of Christ, then we are no better than the scripture-quoting pharisees who thought they had it all figured out. The devil uses the bible all the time to deceive people into thinking that if they believe biblical concepts then they actually have the Spirit of God living in them. This is absolutely false and is why so many churches are dwindling in size every year, because they think that dissecting the bible with a microscope and scalpel in hand will somehow give them eternal life. We must surrender our lives to Christ and deliberately seek to be filled with the Spirit of God, reading the scriptures is not enough. We must pursue Him with our whole hearts. Asking, seeking, and knocking. The Father promises to give the Holy Spirit to those who “ask,” not those who “read.”

“If you being evil know how to give good gifts to your children: how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him?” (Luke 11:13)

“You search the scriptures because you think that in them you find eternal life, but they testify of me and you refuse to come to me that you may have life.” (John 5:39-40)

As we experience His Spirit filling our lives the eyes of our heart start to open, and God begins to expand within us. Our perception of Him grows with each experience, He doesn’t change, but our limited knowledge and awareness of Him does as the veil is ripped away from our blinded eyes, and we begin to behold His glory more and more through the Holy Spirit filling us. We must know Him by the Spirit, or we will invent a false image of God in our minds. We can again turn Jesus into an idol, one constructed of lifeless doctrines not rooted in actual experience.