{"id":14522,"date":"2024-01-15T14:55:58","date_gmt":"2024-01-15T14:55:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pjhmail.wordpress.com\/?p=14522"},"modified":"2024-01-15T14:55:58","modified_gmt":"2024-01-15T14:55:58","slug":"on-experiences-zoli","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/14522\/on-experiences-zoli\/","title":{"rendered":"On Experiences: Zoli"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pastor John,<\/span><\/p>\n

The topic of feelings and experiences has been brought up a lot lately.\u00a0\u00a0Today, while I was spending time in prayer, I was reminded of a powerful experience I had many,\u00a0many years ago.<\/span><\/p>\n

It seems that it was the summer of 2002 when I went to a youth camp with my church’s youth group to Lake Balaton. We were staying at the youth pastor’s summer house, and one of the highlights of the camp was supposed to be the water baptisms, which was done in the lake itself.\u00a0\u00a0I and two or three others were baptized that week, but the baptism itself was quite a let down for me.\u00a0\u00a0Although the only real reason I agreed to do it was because people in the church, whom I respected, said this is what every Christian does, and it’s an expression of my obedience, I still expected it to be a memorable experience.\u00a0\u00a0But when I eventually got dunked under water, and came back up, I felt absolutely nothing!\u00a0\u00a0In fact, I felt emptiness.\u00a0\u00a0“This was it?” I thought as I was walking out to the shore in my wet white T-shirt.<\/span><\/p>\n

The youth camp itself was still a sweet time overall, due to the times of worship, Bible study, and the conversations we were having throughout the week, but the real highlight came on the day of the baptisms, but later, in the evening, while we were having a bonfire.<\/span><\/p>\n

As we were sitting there, singing, chatting about God (and probably other things), all of a sudden I started feeling the presence of God in such a real way that I’m in tears and at the verge of trembling simply by recalling it.\u00a0\u00a0I literally felt as if God was sitting there with us by the fire, and it was so real, so powerful that I just couldn’t keep it to myself.\u00a0\u00a0I spoke up: “Can you all feel it?\u00a0\u00a0God is here with us! He really is here, I can feel it!”\u00a0\u00a0I only vaguely remember what the reaction of my fellow “youth groupers” was.\u00a0\u00a0They didn’t share my feelings;\u00a0they couldn’t really say anything;\u00a0they didn’t really understand what I was talking about.\u00a0\u00a0It was one of many moments during my years as a christian when the “vibe” I was feeling from my fellow believers was that I am taking God just a tad bit too seriously.\u00a0\u00a0As they say, I was going a little over the top.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

When I went to Bible College (first as a student, then, later, to serve there), both times my expectation was that I would finally be around people (24\/7) who want God just as much as I do.\u00a0\u00a0Both times,\u00a0I ended up leaving the campus, practically, because I was taking the Bible (and the things of God) too seriously.\u00a0\u00a0I just couldn’t reconcile my feelings with what that place was all about, but more importantly, what it WASN’T about.\u00a0\u00a0Despite all the mental gymnastics I did to convince myself to stay, my feelings (that is, God) proved to be stronger.\u00a0\u00a0Praise God!!<\/span><\/p>\n

But back to the bonfire.\u00a0\u00a0The only verbal response to my testimony that I remember came from my youth pastor, Szil\u00e1rd, and it was something like this: “Zoli, this is great.\u00a0\u00a0Remember this moment and hold onto it, because there aren’t many of these in life.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

As I recall Szil\u00e1rd’s words, I have two feelings about it.\u00a0\u00a0One is that he was right: It IS essential to our spiritual health and growth to cherish the experiences that we receive from God.\u00a0\u00a0They WILL save our life!\u00a0\u00a0But my other feeling is that it came from someone who did have his own experience or experiences with God, but doesn’t know life in the Spirit.\u00a0\u00a0I now know, due to the mercies of God, that life in the Spirit is just like David described the “path of the righteous”; it’s like\u00a0“the morning sun, shining ever brighter till the full light of day.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

I am thankful, beyond words, for the experience of Jesus baptizing me with the holy Ghost 12 years ago.\u00a0\u00a0I love what I had received from God before that and all the experiences I have had since then.\u00a0\u00a0I love the feelings I received from Jesus in March of 2022 and the spiritual blessings he blessed me with in the past almost two years.\u00a0\u00a0BUT I wouldn’t want to go back in time to the time of my holy Ghost baptism, to 2022 or even just a month ago.\u00a0\u00a0Life is communion with the Father and the Son TODAY (right now!), and our past experiences won’t do us any good.\u00a0 In fact, those very experiences will condemn us if we don’t stay faithful to the end!\u00a0\u00a0God help us!<\/span><\/p>\n

And Szil\u00e1rd was wrong.\u00a0\u00a0If one follows Jesus (the real One!), wonderful experiences and touches from God won’t be rare.\u00a0\u00a0They will become our life, or as Sister Beth put it, we will become “addicted” to it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

God, may we be just that\u00a0\u2013\u2013\u00a0addicted to your ways, addicted to your life, addicted to\u00a0your righteousness.<\/span><\/p>\n

Zoli<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pastor John, The topic of feelings and experiences has been brought up a lot lately.\u00a0\u00a0Today, while I was spending time in prayer, I was reminded of a powerful experience I had many,\u00a0many years ago. It seems that it was the summer of 2002 when I went to a youth camp with my church’s youth group […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-netmail"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14522"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14522"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14522\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}