Are the claims which we Christians make for ourselves as believers in Christ extravagant when
we compare them with our actual spiritual experiences? The bold claims that we are sons of God,
that we are risen with Christ and seated with Him in heavenly places, that we are indwelt by the
Holy Spirit, that we are members of the Body of Christ and children of the new creation, are often
negated by our attitudes, our behavior, and, most of all, by our lack of fervor and by the absence
of a spirit of worship within us.

If someone were to point out the great disparity between our doctrinal beliefs and our lives, he
might be dismissed with the explanation that it is but the normal difference between our sure
standing and our variable state.

Extreme emphasis on dispensationalism has led many Christians to believe that whole sections of
the New Testament have little, if any, application to our lives today. These people usually cite
Paul’s epistles as the basis of their beliefs; yet those Christians who lay the greatest store by Paul
are often the least Pauline in spirit. There is a vast and important difference between a Pauline
creed and a Pauline life. Tens of thousands of believers who pride themselves on their
understanding of Romans and Ephesians cannot conceal the sharp spiritual contradiction that exists
between their hearts and the heart of Paul.

The difference may be stated this way:Paul was a seeker and a finder and a seeker still. They seek
and find and seek no more. After "accepting" Christ they tend to substitute logic for life and
doctrine for experience. For them the truth becomes a veil to hide the face of God; for Paul it was
a door into His very presence. Paul’s spirit was that of the loving explorer. He was a prospector
among the hills of God searching for the gold of personal spiritual acquaintance. Many today stand
by Paul’s doctrine who will not follow him in his passionate yearning for divine reality. Can these
be said to be Pauline in any but the most nominal sense?

With the words, "That I may know Him," Paul answered the whining claims of the flesh and raced
on toward perfection (Phil. 3). All gain he counted loss for the excellency of the knowledge of
Christ Jesus the Lord, and if to know Him better meant suffering or even death, it was all one to
Paul. To him, conformity to Christ was cheap at any price. He panted after God as the hart pants
after the water brooks.

When the apostle cries, "That I may know Him," he uses the word know not in its intellectual
sense but in its experiential sense. We must look for the meaning, not to the mind, but to the
heart. Theological knowledge is knowledge about God. While this is indispensable it is not
sufficient. It bears the same relation to man’s spiritual need as a well does to the need of his
physical body. It is not the rock-lined pit for which the dusty traveler longs, but the sweet, cool
water that flows up from it. It is not intellectual knowledge about God that quenches man’s ancient
heart-thirst, but the very Person and Presence of God Himself. These come to us through Christian
doctrine, but they are more than doctrine. Christian truth is designed to lead us to God, not to
serve as a substitute for God.

Let us press on to enjoy in personal inward experience the exalted privileges that are ours in
Christ Jesus; let us have as our goal the matching of our state with our standing and of the
condition of our hearts with the truth known in our heads.

(Ed. note:The author is not denying that there will be a difference between the standing and state
of even the most godly Christians, but he is speaking out against the complacency which is content
with the difference and has little or no desire to have actual personal experience coincide with
promised blessing.)