Make God part of Your Experience
Apostle Aje Pelser
Harvester Reformational Church, Cape Town – Sept. 2004

We have spoken about confidence coming through experience.
Now let us look at how you experience God.

What defines your daily experience?
Are you feeling like you are stuck in the same experience from day to day? Week to week. Month to month? Year to year?

Allow God’s Spirit to interrupt your routine experiences.
Sometimes you need to zoom out and take a look at things from God’s perspective in order to make the next decision according to His will. Make Jesus Christ part of your reality today – you will never regret it, your life will be changed and people will glorify God for what they see in you.
Scripture reading:
1 Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:
2 By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
3 And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience;
4 And patience, experience; and experience, hope:
5 And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.
Romans 5:1-5 (KJV)
‘Experience’ is translated as ‘character’ in later translations.

Definition:
Strong's Greek Number 1382
Greek word: dokime dok-ee-may'
Root: from the same as 1384
Part of Speech: n f
Vine's Word(s): Experience, Experiment, Proof, Trial

1) proving, trial
2) approved, tried character
3) a proof, a specimen of tried worth

Root:
Strong's Greek Number 1384
Greek word: dokimos dok'-ee-mos
Root: from 1380
Cross Reference: TDNT – 2:255,183
Part of Speech: adj
Vine's Word(s): Approve, Approved
Usage Notes:
KJV – approved 6
– tried 1 [Total Count: 7]

1) accepted, particularly of coins and money.
2) accepted, pleasing, acceptable
++++
In the ancient world there was no banking system as we know it today, and no paper money. All money was made from metal, heated until liquid, poured into moulds and allowed to cool. When the coins were cooled, it was necessary to smooth off the uneven edges. The coins were comparatively soft and of course many people shaved them closely. In one century, more than eighty laws were passed in Athens, to stop the practice of shaving down the coins then in circulation. But some money changers were men of integrity, who would accept no counterfeit money. They were men of honour who put only genuine full weighted money into circulation. Such men were called 'dokimos' or 'approved'. Donald Barnhouse

Here are some suggestions which will help you make God part of your experience:

1. Change the way you think about God.
Rom. 12:1,2
Renew your mind through much time with the Word and prayer, receiving instruction in the Word, hearing the word preached by anointed preachers.
Then you can prove what is His good and acceptable and perfect will for your life.
You obtain proof of His will for Your life because you build up experience of how it works in your life.
Document, words of prophecy, admonishments, sermons, ideas and over the years you grow in your experience of what God wants for you, versus what you want from God.

2. Acknowledge His Lordship over your life.
Is He really your Lord? Then he needs to be part of your reality. The success and the failures of your life should be in Him. If not, how do you handle what life throws your way?
People suffer every day. You can give up or give your life to God. He will fill your reality with His presence and as your grow in experiencing Jesus Christ from day to day, your capacity to handle the abundance of life, good bad and ugly, will grow.
5 Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.
6 In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.
Prov 3:5-6 (KJV)

3. Embrace the tribulation and suffering, but also His promises for you.
13 These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.
14 For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country.
15 And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned.
16 But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city.
Heb 11:13-16 (KJV)

4. Experience His body the church
More importantly, your experience of Church, will to a large extent determine your experience of Jesus Christ in this life. If you neglect church, you neglect Him. He is building His church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. If you are not part of a church, chances are that the hell’s gates are prevailing over you.
The way we love His church, determines to a large degree how we love God.
21 And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also.
1 John 4:21 (KJV)
18 And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence.
19 For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell;
20 And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven.
Col 1:18-20 (KJV)
So if the fullness of the Godhead dwells in Him, and He is the head of the Body he Church, then we can only access that fullness by belonging to a church the Way the Books of Acts shows us, the way Paul explains in the Epistles, the way the prophets foresaw, the way the Law was fulfilled in Christ and His disciples.

If church is not part of your experience, I question whether you are experiencing God at all. If Jesus thought that the church was important and the Holy Spirit inspired the apostles to co-labour with Jesus and strengthen the churches, and Jesus Himself gave John messages to the leaders of churches in Revelation, different churches in different regions with specific strengths and weaknesses, specific functions – then why do people argue that church is not necessary and they can worship God alone at home?

The very essence of Church is that it is a gathering of called out ones, a special session of meeting of God’s generals and wise ones, a commission of apostles and sent ones, delegates and ambassadors representing Jesus Christ to a specific part of the world ordained by God Himself within a decisive epoch making period of time.

The church is a wonderful place.
Many testimonies recently in Harvester can confirm that.

Appeal:
Is God part of your experience?
If not make Him a part of your reality, a part of your experience.

Is Jesus Christ Lord of all in your life?
If you need to make Him Lord over an area, an issue, a secret part of you that no one knows about – make Him Lord today and your experience of His love, His healing power, His forgiving, His Saving power will flood your soul.

Is Church part of your experience of Jesus Christ – his body?
Become part of a local church and function as the Spirit gives you opportunity. Church membership is more than a piece of paper, you are becomi