Practicing Theology - Word and Spirit

While reading The Valley of Vision this morning, this stood out to me:

It is not inner sensation that makes Christ's death mine
for that may be delusion, being without the Word,
but his death apprehended by my faith, and so testified by Word and Spirit,

This Valley of Vision prayer puts our Xian experience in the proper Biblical perspective. Christ's death is not "mine" because of some inner sensation I have--whether by my own design or orchestrated by others--but Christ's death is mine because I apprehend it by my faith (which has been given to me BY God) and these things are testified to by God's Word and His Spirit.

Don't let the word order of that last phrase escape you, "by Word and Spirit". God has first and foremost given His Word as our foundation, filter, and measure to be applied to ALL Xian thinking, living AND experience. Subsequently, it is His Spirit that He has ordained to illuminate, testify, and confirm what is found in His Word.

We must be students of God's Word in order to understand what the Spirit is doing in and through us--not the reverse. It's too easy for fallen man to feel or experience something and superimpose it over God's Word--that is a man-centered theology.