The Value of Experience

REFERENCE: Acts 26:13-16, 22b-23 "One day I was on such a mission to Damascus, armed with the authority and commission of the leading priests. 13 About noon, Your Majesty, as I was on the road, a light from heaven brighter than the sun shone down on me and my companions. 14 We all fell down, and I heard a voice saying to me in Aramaic, 'Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It is useless for you to fight against my will.’ 15 "'Who are you, lord?’ I asked. "And the Lord replied, 'I am Jesus, the one you are persecuting. 16 Now get to your feet! For I have appeared to you to appoint you as my servant and witness. You are to tell the world what you have seen and what I will show you in the future'". . . . 22b "I can testify to everyone, from the least to the greatest. I teach nothing except what the prophets and Moses said would happen - 23 that the Messiah would suffer and be the first to rise from the dead, and in this way announce God’s light to Jews and Gentiles alike."

Observation: There has been, for quite some time, a controversy about the place of experience in the Christian life. Some believe that there is way too much emphasis placed on it, and that this leads to the danger of being led astray from biblical orthodoxy. Others will make the point that Christianity is by nature an experiential religion. While they acknowledge the dangers in this, they also realize this is the way God seemed to have planned it.

Into this discussion comes this story of Paul. He had, no doubt, studied the scripture from the time of his youth and when the Christians began saying that Jesus was the Messiah, he opposed them and their ideas to the point of having them imprisoned and even killed. So what happened to him that made him the greatest proponent of Christianity? It was an experience. We see in this passage, very clearly, that Paul himself interpreted scripture, very clearly, in the light of his experience. After his encounter with Jesus in a dramatic vision, he went back to the Old Testament and found the Jesus was predicted by the prophets and taught that to anyone who would listen.

What can we learn by this? Certainly not to take every experience and make a new orthodoxy ought of it. Both God and Satan are in the experience business. Yet it ought to make us become more open to allowing God to speak to us through experience. Certainly, having had the experience, we should, like Paul, go back to scripture to authenticate what has happened to us. Still, we need to see that God reveals His truth to us both in His Word and directly in what happens between us and Him. The kind of insight that comes purely by revelation is no less valuable and important.

God wants us to be people who know Him, experience Him and learn from our interaction with Him. Let’s just be careful not to allow our experience to negate the written Word of God but rather to give us new insight into it and confirmation of what it says.

Application/Confession: My daily reading and journaling can take so much time that it can interfere with my worship and personal interaction with God in prayer. I have noticed that over the last year I have grown tremendously in my understanding of God’s Word and that has brought growth, maturity and wisdom into my life. Unfortunately, I have also noticed that I have also had less time to simply commune with Him. I need to change this. God is calling me to a balanced approach - both the Word and the Spirit, and in that balanced discipline is great safety and deep intimacy.

PRAYER: Dear Lord, please give me the time and draw me into the experience of simply being with you. I have found such joy there and I want to back. Forgive me for being unbalanced. I want to know you!