Experience

It seems man has a passion for the “School of Hard Knocks.”  Not wanting to listen to others who have trod the path they are about to head down, man goes about to gain his own experiences…learning experiences…taking some “hard knocks” along the way.  Well, that’s OK…”everybody learns that way”…they say!

Michael Wells shows us Jesus did things differently…

Even if I have truly erred, my error lodges with me. --Job 19:4

Our people must also learn to engage in good deeds to meet pressing needs, so that they will not be unfruitful. –Titus 3:14

A friend may show you a shortcut that saves several hours of walking, and you may prove your friend correct once you take his suggestion and walk the new way. If at a later time this same friend tells you that the path is destroyed and you are to go another way, should not your history with the friend dictate that you listen and follow through with his altered advice? Learning from his experience would help you not experience the wrong path yourself.

Experience is way overrated! Look at what experiencing is teaching our society! It is teaching that immorality can kill, set the wrong course for a young life, and set in motion addictions that can be fought for years. Experiencing is showing couples the damage done to marriages through bitterness, self-centeredness, and unfaithfulness. 

Jesus did not need to experience every dull thing; He learned by a more excellent way, the way of faith. He became a man, lived as a man, and experienced living by every word that proceeded from His Father. Experience is good, but the experience we need is from listening to God, our Father. What Jesus teaches in Matthew 5 - 7 is not just a revelation from heaven that facts of earth do not confirm. All of life proves what He taught, for His teaching is written into creation itself. Therefore, we do not need more experience in going the opposite way, not only breaking the commands of the teaching but breaking ourselves against them. There is nothing new to be learned through experience; all guiding principles have been learned and written down in Scripture, in the visible and invisible world, and within man.

I guess this boils down to us deciding whether we want to try FAITH or EXPERIENCE.  As Michael points out, “the experience we need is from listening to God, our Father.”

I love Michael’s last words: “There is nothing new to be learned through experience; all guiding principles have been learned and written down in Scripture, in the visible and invisible world, and within man.”  Well, amen.

One of my most favorite hobbies is to compile what I like to call “Life Verses.”  Those words from a page of Scripture that bring Life to my life!  When I read the words of John 6:63, (Jesus speaking) “It is the Spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are Spirit, and they are life”…I have to declare these words bring such joy unspeakable to me.  I want LIFE in my life!  I want to have all that God can give me from His Holy Scriptures.  I have had all the “hard knocks” that I can stand!

And you know what is CRAZY?!?  Three verses later, “many of His disciples went back, and walked no more with Him.”  Why?  Verse 64 tells us, “But there are some of you that BELIEVE not.  For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that BELIEVED not, and who should betray Him.”            (capital letters for emphasis)

Do we as man “believe not,” and must try things out (experience things) instead of trusting God’s words first?