Experiencing God

INTRO: Can you imagine how difficult it would be for one who has never tasted ice cream to simply read the recipe and describe to another who also never tasted it. just how good it is? Ridiculous? Certainly it is. The only way one can describe the pleasure of a tasty dish is to experience the taste first.
In Romans 5:3,4 we read these words, "Knowing that tribulation worketh patience, and patience experience, and experience hope."

Just as one can commit all manner of recipes to memory without ever knowing how they taste, so can we learn what God's Word says ABOUT many divine truths without ever experiencing them. For instance, Jesus said, By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if you have love one for another. The love of God in the hearts and lives of his disciples will prove his Presence in their lives, but just knowing what the Bible says about that love will do nothing. Divine love must be experienced to be effective.

In these verses we have just read in Romans, Paul describes the full circle of Christian living; Tribulation, or trials, teaching us patience, patience or waiting on the Lord resulting in experiencing His blessings, that experience, causing hope to blossom as we face further trials and testing, for we have learned by experience that patient waiting will bring about further experiences of His blessings, which will further increase our hope! Christ taught not just abstract truths and ideas while here, but those Divine truths that he had personally proven in his own experiences. Prayer, personal righteousness, love of the truth, forgiveness of ones enemies, are not presented only as things which he personally had proven to be useful and workable as well. So can we today experience in our lives the truths of God's Word.
In Psalm 34:8 a challenge is made, "Oh taste and see that the Lord is Good; blessed is the man that trusteth in Him. "Salvation is a very definite experience.

When Jesus said to Nicodemus "Ye must be born again" He spoke not of an abstract philosophy but of a very real birth of the Spirit which can be experienced. Do you ask proof that it is real and can be experienced? I can tell you I have experienced it, and refer you to the testimony of multitudes of others who have experienced this new birth by coming in repentance to accept Christ by faith. But though you might be overwhelmed by the evidence, and convinced that such as experience is possible, the only way you will ever know the joy we feel and the peace that has now become ours is to accept the challenge of God, Taste and see that the Lord is Good!

Men are constantly arguing about the way God saves sinful men, but the experiencing of the new birth ALWAYS settles the question for the individual. Experience taught Moses that God meant what he said and was able to perform any thing he promised to do. Through all the plagues in Egypt, across the Red Sea, in his provisions for the necessities of the people in the wilderness, in his anger against those who doubted Him; in all these Moses had learned by experience and his faith and hope grew as he saw more of the hand of the Lord, but he soon forgot and disobeyed God by striking the rock.

The most beautiful and moving of all the Psalms are those in which the Psalmist sings of his own experiences. When he sang the song of the Lord, his shepherd, he sang not just of those things he had been taught but of those things he had experienced. When he faced Goliath in battled, he had faith that God would be with him, but that faith was not a blind unreasoning faith. With God's help he had already slain a bear and a lion to protect his flock. He knew by experience that God was his helper! When he had to flee from the face of Saul the presence of his Lord was very real. He experienced then the companionship of a very real friend when all earthly friends had turned aside.

Paul had experienced many times in his service for the Lord, God's ability to protect and deliver. From the howling rioting mobs and the cunning craftiness of those who conspired secretly to take his life, God had delivered him, as well from other times of peril, from storm, starvation, and imprisonment. AS he stood on the deck of the ship in Acts 27 it mattered not to him that everything looked hopeless to everyone else on board. He was able to say, based on a long life of experience, "I believe God, there shall be no loss of any man's life!"

God had proven His ability in the past and that past experience now caused Paul to be filled with hope, even when all others were filled with hopeless despair.

After a person has experienced that very real event called the new birth, other grand experiences await him. In my record library is a recording of an old spiritual called, `I wouldn't take nothin' for my journey Now.' As I look back on the experiences I have had with Christ they are truly priceless. The first time I stood before the church and made public profession of Christ as my Savior, and then when I followed my Lord in baptism at the hands of that dearly beloved aged brother that I look upon as my `father' in the ministry.

Then there are all of God's provisions of material and spiritual blessings down through the years. All are memories of His fulfilled promises and answered prayers. Wonderful experiences, but experience teaches us that the best is yet ahead in the service of the Lord! Every child of God can experience in their lives these wonderful happenings as they serve the Lord. Surely, there will be trials and tribulations, but how else could we exercise that patience that brings about the experience of God's power and strength in our lives?

I would like to pose a direct question to you who are saved by the grace of God and know it. What are you experiencing in your life? Confusion perhaps as to how to serve God? We are told in 1 Corinthians 14 that God is not the author of confusion. Frustration? This is not one of the fruits of the Spirit promised to God's people. Fear? A disquieted spirit? Jesus said, `My peace I give unto you'.
These things are not God's will for His own and yet all too many of His people do experience them instead of the love, joy, peace, long-suffering, goodness, meekness and temperance that are the fruits of the Spirit. Why? Simply because these fruits grow and abound only in that heart and life that is committed to the service of God according to His Word and without reservation!

SHOWERS OF BLESSINGS

When the blessings fall from heaven
be it Sunday Morn or Night,
those who find the greatest bounty
are the ones whose hearts are right.

For, the cold, indifferent Christian
with mind on worldly things,
can't recognize real pleasures
like the blessings heaven brings.

Instead of yielding to the Spirit
he can only criticize,
Or, sit and make excuses,
While others get the prize!

then while others are rejoicing,
he mumbles and complains,
and gets not a single blessing,
while around, a shower rains!

Now, if you're not enjoying services,
Try yielding Christ your heart,
Then when blessings fall from heaven
You'll surely get your part

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