Tuesday: Experience Becomes Expression
WEEK 37
TUESDAY
EXPERIENCE BECOMES EXPRESSION
Luke 8:36-39
We have noted that the experience of the Holy Spirit and the sharing of that experience were one. The second chapter of Acts begins with the description of their being filled with the Holy Spirit and ends with the statement: “The Lord added daily to the community those who were being saved” (Acts 2:47). One would have thought that chapter would have been taken up with the description of what happened inwardly when the Holy Spirit came within them. There is a complete absence of that. Instead, there is this revealing statement: “They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak” (2:4). The moment the experience became experience it became expression. And because it became expression, it became deeper experience. For expression deepens impression. Nothing is ours until we share it. If a person or movement is not evangelistic, it will soon cease to be evangelical. If Christianity is not a contagion, it will soon cease to be a conception.
But note that while the second chapter of Acts speaks of addition—“The Lord added”—the rest of Acts speaks of multiplication; the addition became multiplication. “And walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit it was multiplied” (9:31 RSV). Many churches are growing precariously by addition—birth of children, people moving in. But unless the addition becomes multiplication, unless the people added become contagious themselves, it is less than Christian.
One of the greatest churches in America in my estimation is the Hollywood Presbyterian Church. The meaning of that great church is summed up in the motto on the wall of the meeting hall for youth, “To know him, to help others to know him.” To know him as personal Savior and Lord in a firsthand living way; to help others to know him in a firsthand living way; these two things sum up the meaning of our Christian faith. They are the alternate beats of the Christian heart. They mean inflow and outgo, receptivity and response.
O Lord, I thank you for the rhythm of your salvation; it provides for my needs and the needs of others, and it provides for them equally. I thank you. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: Today I shall make “to know him, to help others to know him” a living fact in me.