Topic : Experience
Spiritual Experience
How to test spiritual experience?
1. Is it scriptural' We dare not allow experience to become the touchstone of truth, giving it greater authority than the Bible.
2. Who is enriched' Both personal enrichment and church enrichment are important, but when they conflict, we must prefer church enrichment. 1 Cor 13 is sandwiched between 12 and 14. Love must control the expression of spirituality in church. “When you come together, everyone has a hymn;, or a word or instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. All of these must be done for the strengthening of the church (1 Cor 14:26).
3. Is it orderly' “God is not a God of disorder but of peace (1 Cor 14:33). God doesn’t want chaos in our meetings because that brings confusion and unrest. To the church at Colosse Paul wrote: “I delight to see how orderly you are” (Col 2:5).
4. Is it intelligible' Being spiritual doesn’t mean being mindless. “I would rather speak five intelligible words to instruct others than 10,000 words in a tongue (1 Cor 14:19).
5. Is it sensitive to the unbeliever' Since unbelievers come to church, love requires us to worship in a way that shows God is real and present, and doesn’t make unbelievers regard the gospel as unworthy of serious consideration.
6. Does it bear fruit' Jesus said, “by their fruit you will know them (Matt 7:20). We test spiritual gifts and their manifestation by their results. Are Kingdom purposes achieved? Do they encourage evangelism, discipleship, repentance, praise to God? When Barnabas was sent to Antioch to investigate reports of God’s activity in Antioch, he “saw the evidence of the grace of God” (Acts 11:23).
7. What is my motivation for testing' Some err in becoming critical, corrective, or cynical when assessing phenomena associated with revival. They become “puffed-up experts” in passing judgment, but are themselves without fruitfulness or spiritual vitality.
Over the Dam
Only a few years before she became the toast of the international literary community with her best-selling book The Shipping News, writer E. Annie Proulx was virtually unknown. She did not publish her first book of fiction until she was in her early fifties.
“I certainly don’t regret becoming a writer later because I know a lot more about life than I did 20 years ago, ten years ago,” she says. “I think it’s important to know how the water’s gone ever the dam before you start to describe it. It helps to have been over the dam yourself.”
Quoted in Current Biography, Reader’s Digest, January, 1996, p. 97.
Two pals are sitting in a pub watching the eleven-o’clock news. A report comes on about a man threatening to jump from the 20th floor of a downtown building. One friend turns to the other and says, “I’ll bet you ten bucks the guy doesn’t jump.”
“It’s a bet,” agrees his buddy.
A few minutes later, the man on the ledge jumps, so the loser hands his pal a $10 bill. “I can’t take your money,” his friend admits. “I saw him jump earlier on the six-o’clock news.”
“Me, too,” say the other buddy. “But I didn’t think he’d do it again!”
Quotes
- Experience comes from what we have done. Wisdom comes from what we have done badly. Theodore Levitt, Harvard Business School
- Experience is not what happens to you, it is what you do with what happens to you. - Aldous Huxley
- Experience is knowing a lot of things you shouldn’t do.
- Experience is a wonderful thing, it enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again.
Chinese Proverb
Experience is a comb that nature give us when we are bald. - Chinese Proverb
