Truth Versus Experience

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Many times, bible truth does not coincide with our experience in the mundane world. For instance, we are told to be holy for God is holy. That's truth. We can be holy. Otherwise, God would not have told us so. But actual experience tells us otherwise. We find it easier to fall into sin than live in holiness. So, some people conclude, it's impossible to live holy in this world. That's why we are saved by grace.

But God intended that grace and righteousness should go together. "Grace would reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord" [Rom.5.21]. It's not grace versus holiness but grace and righteousness. It's a package. However, just because in our experience we often fail to live righteously, we conclude that holiness is not really feasible in this life so we must rely on God's grace alone. Then we form doctrines out of that, saying no matter how we live, as long as we hold on to God's grace, we're okay.

The same with perfection. Jesus told us to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect. That's bible truth. But because we fail miserably with perfection, we conclude that no one's perfect and no one can be perfect in this life. Again, we form doctrines out of this and become careless with our character and morality because no one is perfect anyway and we are saved by grace.

Then there's the tongues issue. Just because we fail to understand the gift of tongues and do not experience the gift, we conclude that it has ended or become obsolete. Worse, it's from the devil. Some mock about it. But it's there in the bible. It's bible truth. The same thing with other gifts---prophecy, signs and wonders, miracles, discernment, etc. Just because they don't experience them, a lot of churches have denied their existence.

And the apostles and prophets in church. They would rather stick with being "missionaries" because they can't do signs and wonders which, according to Paul, is the mark of a true apostle [2 Corinthians 12.12]. So they conclude, there are no more apostles and prophets today and replaced them with "missionaries." All you have to do is graduate from seminary and you become a missionary and go live abroad and get better pay. I know there are real missionaries who go abroad to answer genuine calls from God. But many are just after better salaries. I've also heard of churches who consider it heretical to have apostles and prophets in church.

I also know how there are many fake apostles and prophets who just get people's money to enrich themselves. But so are many missionaries and pastors and church leaders. Bad eggs in the offices of apostles and prophets do not mean we should get rid of them altogether. There are a lot of bad church members, too. What do we do with them?

We must stick to bible truth whatever we experience in real life. Experience is good, but we base our faith on God's truth. Jesus came as a lowly carpenter's son, yet he claimed to be King. The religious leaders trashed his claim because in their experience, kings were rich and powerful. But Jesus was unfazed. He lived by God's truth. He also claimed to be God's Son but the religious leaders dismissed it because in their experience God cannot be a human being.

You are God's child and co-heirs with Christ. That's bible truth. I don't care what your experience is now, if you have poor finances or live below poverty line. You have to hold on to God's truth---that we reign with Christ and that whatever he has is also ours because of God's declaration in his Word. We cannot be guided by our experiences or opinions if we want to do God's will. It should be God's truth or nothing.

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