How You Experience Christ

This week we’re talking about the question Jesus asked his disciples: Who do you say that I am? Yesterday we looked at how Jesus had that question answered by his Father. Today we look at how the early church leader Paul answered that question.

The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. - Galatians 2:20

Paul’s statement here is not so much a sentence out of a creed as it is a sentence out of a love letter. Paul felt loved by Jesus. He experienced Jesus moving towards him, giving himself to Paul. That’s how Paul summarizes faith. It’s not a doctrine. It’s not a credo. It’s not even a belief. It’s a way of life (‘the life I live in the body…’) and it’s an experience of being loved.

How might it change the way you think about Christianity, about faith, to look at it the way Paul does? What have you experienced in Christ? Are there ways you feel loved? Do you experience Christ extending towards you, initiating towards you? Maybe there’s another way you experience it. See if you could write down a sentence that summarizes it.