In the ancient church, [spiritual] experience was the act of baptism into union with Jesus in the pattern of his death and resurrection. The focus was not on an emotionally charged decision I made for Jesus but on the lifelong commitment to live in the pattern of dying to sin and rising to the new life of the Spirit. . . . The confidence in spirituality is not my experience but my baptism into Christ, with the focus on Christ embracing me in his death and resurrection.
-Robert Webber, The Divine Embrace: Recovering the Passionate Spiritual Life (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2006), 74.