Our Christian “Experience”

Is it possible for born again, evangelical Christians to buy into the idea that they have the ability to define God?  Absolutely!  Sadly, it is a rampant practice in the Church today and it is a cancer on the Body of Christ.  Those who are busily defining God would not say that is what they are doing.  They would say that God is leading them into new revelation via The Holy Spirit and their experience confirms the truth of it.

I don’t know how to be polite about this, so I won’t.   As I move through Christian groups I hear things that would indicate God is really busy giving a lot of people detailed personal instructions about a great multitude of things.  I don’t deny that God speaks to us by the influence of the indwelling Holy Spirit, but I hear people saying that God is telling them to do things that are specifically contradicted in His written word.  God is actually telling people to get divorces among other things.  God is also condoning adultery and many other self-sins.

According to a great multitude of believers, God is also busy revealing Himself to be completely different than who He says He is in His Word.  His Word reveals that His revelation is about Him – not us!   God revealed that we exist for His good pleasure, not our own.  God revealed that to please Him we are to be obedient and suffer anything for His sake.  Don’t blame me if you don’t like this – God said it, I didn’t.    God never promised any believer that he would fill up their bank account or deliver luxury cars to their doorstep if they give enough money to the right television ministry.   In spite of what God said about Himself, many Christians believe His full time job is to perform as if He is operating a cafeteria of human pleasure and blessing.  They believe they can order up just about anything they want God to do for them and He must deliver!  Many are quick to quote the scripture that we may ask anything of God and He will provide it.  They conveniently omit the principle that what we ask must be in His will and purpose!

These flawed ideas and practices stem from believing that we can define God.  At the root of all this heresy (and yes I believe it is heresy) is a Biblically ignorant laity that depends on preachers and teachers to tell them what the Bible says and interpret it for them.  And, many of these preachers and teachers are telling them the same lie that Satan sold Adam and Eve:  That their opinions and their personal experience will help them discern truth!  The moment Christians begin to interpret the truth of God solely by their opinion and experience they are in the clutches of Satan and are being led down dark roads that guarantee they will never fully be what God wants them to be in this life.