Crossroad

The Bible teaches that we should question ourselves, our teachers and our experiences to see if they are of God. So how do we?

There are just certain things that you don’t mess with in our society and the validity of someone’s experience is one of them. If you said to someone “are you sure (blank) happened?” They would say ‘yes’ or ‘maybe.’ But if you began to push on them that they might be confused or mistaken about something that they are sure of- watch out. You just grabbed the third rail called the “I’m infallible, don’t push me’ rail. If the category in question is ‘did or didn’t you tell me you were hanging out with someone else tonight’ or ‘did or didn’t you tell me you were hanging with the guys tonight (BTW- guys, you can’t win this. Don’t try),’ then the stakes are not the high really, even though the emotion might be.

But do the same thing in something that really matters- say like a religious experience. You’ll get a curt, if not downright snotty “I know what I experienced.” Now let’s take a look at the Scripture says and see what happens. In Matt 24:24, Jesus tells us that Jesus warned us that there will be powerful delusions that will come that would deceive ‘even the elect, if that was possible.’ Now, whether you believe in election or not, you get the point here. This is saying that ONLY THE POWER OF GOD HIMSELF can shield the people of these times from the delusion that comes. In 2 Cor 11:13-15, Paul warns that false teachers and apostles will come and cloak themselves in righteousness because even Satan himself uses the disguise of an “angel of light.”

Now put these two things together and we get this simple question- are you unwilling to question experience? Are you going to say ‘there is no way that wasn’t God?’ The slippery slope of this is that some will question true experiences with God so much that one begins to believe that they weren’t valid. So what is the happy medium? How do we rightly question?

I think that the answer is- what was the eventual fruit? Was it a week of repentance and then a return to the old? Can we honestly say that was truly a conversion or repentant episode? If on the other hand, we see that an experience has shaken itself into the soul and there is a result of a newness of life, then we have the Biblical evidence called for.

Let me boil it down like this: true experience yields true result.

As we begin a new corporate worship journey in Crossroad, I pray that the Lord would bless us with the grace to truly experience Him, and more, that He would plant and reap a harvest of righteousness within us.