{"id":2883,"date":"2014-05-31T09:15:50","date_gmt":"2014-05-31T09:15:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/?p=2883"},"modified":"2014-05-31T09:15:50","modified_gmt":"2014-05-31T09:15:50","slug":"an-experimental-christian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/?p=2883","title":{"rendered":"An experimental Christian?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>An experimental Christian?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>(Winslow, \u201cThis God is Our God\u201d)<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The religion of the true believer is\u00a0<strong>experimental<\/strong>;<br \/>\nit is the religion of the heart. He has no dealings<br \/>\nwith an unknown, imaginary God.<\/p>\n<p>He does not know God from the hearing of the ear,<br \/>\nor from the reading of books, or from the religious<br \/>\nconversation of others merely; but He knows Him<br \/>\nfrom personal acquaintance, from\u00a0<strong>heartfelt<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>experience<\/strong>, from close and constant dealings.<\/p>\n<p>There has been a manifestation of God in Christ to his<br \/>\nsoul, and with Job he can say, \u201cI have heard of You<br \/>\nby the hearing of the ear; but now my eye sees You.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And with the converted Samaritans, \u201cWe no longer<br \/>\nbelieve just because of what you said; now\u00a0<strong>we have<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>heard for ourselves,<\/strong> and we know that this man<br \/>\nreally is the Savior of the world.\u201d\u00a0John 4:42<\/p>\n<p>Oh to be a true,\u00a0<strong>an experimental Christian!<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The religion of the\u00a0<strong>ear<\/strong>, or of the\u00a0<strong>eye<\/strong>, or of the<br \/>\n<strong>imagination<\/strong>, or of the\u00a0<strong>intellect<\/strong>, will not, and<br \/>\ncannot bring the soul to heaven!<\/p>\n<p>The abodes of endless woe are peopled with<br \/>\nsouls who went down to its regions of despair<br \/>\nwith no better religion than this!<\/p>\n<p>Oh, give me\u2026<br \/>\nthe humility of the publican,<br \/>\nthe trembling faith of the diseased woman,<br \/>\nthe flowing tears of the penitent Magdalene,<br \/>\nthe last petition of the dying thief,<br \/>\nrather than the most intellectual religion or<br \/>\nthe most gorgeous ceremonial that the mind<br \/>\never invented, or the eye ever beheld.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An experimental Christian? (Winslow, \u201cThis God is Our God\u201d) The religion of the true believer is\u00a0experimental; it is the religion of the heart. He has no dealings with an unknown, imaginary God. He does not know God from the hearing of the ear, or from the reading of books, or from the religious conversation of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,67],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-author-octavius-winslow","category-taught-of-god"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2883"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2883\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2884,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2883\/revisions\/2884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}