On Faith and Experiences

I've seen their kind before. The churches whose entire service is based around experiences. The ones whose worship services play to your emotions, and whose messages are based on what they think you want to hear. That's the kind of church we visited last weekend.

Experiences. Since when is faith based on experiences?

What is the definition of faith?

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Heb 11:1 NKJV

Things hoped for, things not seen. Not a word of faith coming from emotional experiences. That's not to say that God doesn't often reveal something of Himself to us in experiences, but they cannot be the foundation of your faith.

If your faith is based on what you feel, what happens when you don't feel it anymore? What happens when your child is injured, your spouse leaves, your parent is dying, you are betrayed and wounded - the pain inside of you is the strongest thing you feel, and God is silent? What happens then?

Faith that is based on experiences is too fragile to withstand the storms. And I have lived long enough to know that all experiences can be explained away in other ways. An emotional experience, a whisper in the night, a miracle, a dream come true - maybe God, maybe your own suggestiveness and the consequences of your own or others' actions. And a lack of those things does not mean God is no longer there.

God is more than the experience. When you can't feel Him, He's still there. When you can't see Him moving, He hasn't stopped caring. When you can't hear Him, He hasn't left you alone.

The experiences are great, but the solid foundation of truth in His recorded word is greater. Emotions can lie to you. Many people have done completely ungodly things in God's name because they had an experience. Simply to feel is not enough - you have to know, you have to believe, you have to accept.

Too many churches today are hawking this kind of faith, the kind that relies on an emotional experience and leaves you feeling buoyant and positive at the end of the service with no change, no conviction, no truth spoken.

Others swing to the opposite side of the spectrum and leave no room for the Holy Spirit to move, relying only on what has been said before. This is just as wrong, as the scripture is clear that we are not to quench the Holy Spirit, whose job it is to convict and encourage believers. Just be careful it is the Spirit's voice and not any other voices you listen to, and match what you hear and feel with what you know of God.

You cannot base faith simply on experiences, but experiences can strengthen and encourage your faith. And we will keep searching for a church body, one that can find the middle ground between the extremes and grow us in the right direction. I miss having a church body to fellowship with, but every church we've tried around here keeps leaving us disappointed and discouraged. We'll keep praying...