Judging Spiritual Experience

I’ve been wondering today if my friends think I’m getting too serious about my beliefs. Maybe talking about what is happening to me is coming across as “holier than thou” or overly zealous. My heart asks, in the freedom and innocence of God's Love how can sharing personal experiences about Him be wrong? I feel God's untamable Love. That experience needs no validation or test of authenticity nor do my experiences need to follow a prescribed pattern. To whom am I really accountable? I see through a dim glass and yet I know God's Love is unbounded, dynamic, fierce, unpredictable, gentle, wild and free to all mankind. Still, the Christian World is often a place of confusion for me. Thankfully, the Spirit is now giving me the strength to stay the course.

As a young Christian I was quick to judge other Christians I felt had major shortcomings. I remember whispering with my friends about a girlfriend who had taken up with an older non-Christian boyfriend and left the church. We were horrified and let our friendship with her slide. Wow! Now I realize that’s not what Jesus’ message is about. I should have loved all those folks I criticized, regardless of their life choices. Looking back I also realize I need to be careful who and what I criticize. God taught me a powerful lesson by allowing me to step into those “fallen Christian” friend’s shoes and walk around in them for some long, hard years.

So, I'm pretty sure I’m not being too serious about God's gift of renewed belief and my walk, by grace, with Jesus. I’ve just been through the fire. When you’ve been burnt to the bone, being born again makes you extremely grateful to your ReMaker and is cause for great exaltation.

Verses that seem to apply: 1 John 4:16-21, Galations 6:4-6; 5:22-26