Experience or God’s Revealed Truth – My Utmost

This was actually yesterday’s devotional in My Utmost for His Highest. But I just read it this morning because I (terrible excuse alert!) ‘didn’t have a chance to read it yesterday’.

Nevertheless, it was perfectly what I needed to read TODAY. I don’t think I would’ve grasped it the same yesterday, so God still has perfect timing and orchestration (even when I foolishly think I’ve failed Him). I have the old english version that I read, and that one actually hit home even more than the modern english version. But! I’ll still share the modern english one, because it makes just as much sense and it’s easier to copy/paste from an online source than it is to re-write the whole devotional.

I’ve been guilty of what is talked about in this devotion. Relying upon my “experiences” and placing them above Christ, attempting to hold back the Holy Spirit (but more for the sake of my own comfort). The last sentence is a real butt-kicker for me. I just wanted to share it with you. I pulled it from this website: http://utmost.org/experience-or-god%E2%80%99s-revealed-truth/

Experience or God’s Revealed Truth?

We have received . . . the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God —1 Corinthians 2:12

My experience is not what makes redemption real— redemption is reality. Redemption has no real meaning for me until it is worked out through my conscious life. When I am born again, the Spirit of God takes me beyond myself and my experiences, and identifies me with Jesus Christ. If I am left only with my personal experiences, I am left with something not produced by redemption. But experiences produced by redemption prove themselves by leading me beyond myself, to the point of no longer paying any attention to experiences as the basis of reality. Instead, I see that only the reality itself produced the experiences. My experiences are not worth anything unless they keep me at the Source of truth— Jesus Christ.

If you try to hold back the Holy Spirit within you, with the desire of producing more inner spiritual experiences, you will find that He will break the hold and take you again to the historic Christ. Never support an experience which does not have God as its Source and faith in God as its result. If you do, your experience is anti-Christian, no matter what visions or insights you may have had. Is Jesus Christ Lord of your experiences, or do you place your experiences above Him? Is any experience dearer to you than your Lord? You must allow Him to be Lord over you, and pay no attention to any experience over which He is not Lord. Then there will come a time when God will make you impatient with your own experience, and you can truthfully say, “I do not care what I experience— I am sure of Him!”

Be relentless and hard on yourself if you are in the habit of talking about the experiences you have had. Faith based on experience is not faith; faith based on God’s revealed truth is the only faith there is.

1 comment / Add your comment below

  1. This is such a good reminder!!Sometimes I find myself talking about something that happened and how awesome or rare it is and then I am convicted later if I did not use the opportunity to talk about how God made it happen. Giving Him the glory. Saying that this is part of who God is, an all-powerful, all-knowing Father.
    Thanks for the edifying post, dear! :)
    Love in Him,
    Helena

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.