The whole point of mysticism in Christian religion is in the official definition: It involves the effort to encounter God directly. The point is to know Him and receive His guidance, as noted in the first paragraph of the linked webpage. All the other supportive explanations have to do with the history of people who claim to engaged this kind of thing.
While their experience may be instructive, no one is bound by it. The whole point is that you need to get alone with God and let Him indicate to you how you fit into His plans. There is no single right answer for everyone. No human (or group of humans) on this earth has the authority to tell you what it means to obey God’s calling on your life. All they can do is decide to include or exclude you from their own efforts to obey Him.
The personal connection takes precedence over the intellectual. This is simply a matter of the heart ruling over the fleshly nature. In the final analysis, you need to know Jesus, not simply know about Him. When you know Him personally, you are in the right position to decide whom you should associate with and how.
We ridicule the notion of objective or propositional truth. The only thing worth knowing is the Person of Jesus Christ. The historical record will support and set some boundaries on what you can expect from Him in your flesh, but the higher realm of ineffable spiritual connection is the substance of things.
Again and again: The only thing that really matters is the personal connection. Everything else is dubious. In the Radix Fidem community we refer to human reality as fundamentally dubious. This world is a big lie; our human reality is not ultimate reality. It is a construct, a deception that we all have embraced because our flesh is unable to see beyond it’s senses and reason. This is Satan’s domain; God granted it to him as part of the punishment that fit his crime.
At some fundamental level, we all participate in Adam’s choice to submit to Satan’s authority and enter his realm. But it remains a subsidiary grant, a feudal assignment under the Creator’s ultimate authority. There are conditions and limitations; the Devil’s authority has boundaries. Those boundaries are indicated in the Bible.
We don’t belong here. We weren’t created for this, and it was not created for us. It was created for the Devil. We exist for some other purpose. The hardest thing to embrace is that we have very little significance in the grander scheme of things. We are used as pawns because that’s all we are good for. The first giant hurdle in seizing our eternal destiny is recognizing our insignificance. Our mortal fleshly nature is the big liar, telling us that we must be important.
It’s the paradox of faith: We must embrace our insignificance in order to take hold of the high privilege reserved for us in Christ. We cannot climb out of the the sewers of sin until we recognize where the ceiling is and grab hold of it. That’s where we find the Cross. There is no higher place for us than to be lifted up with our Savior.
So, while we are the Chosen, the Elect, we are chosen for a rather low purpose of proving the Devil is wrong and Jehovah is right. The means of doing so is to embrace Jesus and His Covenant. It should indicate just how easily the Enemy of our souls can be defeated if mere pawns can break his power and authority by choice. We stand in his realm and defy his dominion. The Covenant of our Lord stands on a higher authority than Satan’s.
The signature of that defiance is our ability to love each other. We look past all the human reasons to ignore each other and embrace in the fire of His love. If we can do that, everything else will take care of itself. We must be a community in defiance of the Devil.
Yeah, Christian Mysticism is personal.
