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Raising Our Experience to the Level of Scripture

Healing creates a tension that many Christians recognize. We read the promises of Scripture, hear testimonies, and sometimes experience healing ourselves. We also see people pray without receiving the result they hoped for. The tension is real. The question is what we do with it. I do not believe we should deny experience.

I also do not believe experience should become the final authority over Scripture. The calling of the church is to keep looking at Jesus, keep learning the Word, and keep raising our experience toward what God has revealed.

The Tension We All Recognize

I have prayed for people who were healed, and I have prayed for people who were not healed. I have heard testimonies that strengthened my faith, and I have witnessed situations I could not explain.

Anyone who has ministered long knows this tension. A church that believes the Bible will encounter both sides. Ask people in a Bible-believing Pentecostal or charismatic church whether they have received healing, and hands will rise. Ask whether they have prayed for someone who was not healed, and hands will rise again.

We are not helped by pretending that lived experience does not exist.

The danger comes when we allow experience to tell us what God is like. If someone is healed, we say it was God’s will. If someone is not healed, we may say that was also God’s will. We can end up treating everything that happens as a revelation of God’s desire. It is not. A car accident is not evidence that God wanted a car accident. Abuse is not evidence that God wanted abuse.

Sickness cannot automatically be called God’s will simply because it occurred. The world does not perfectly display the will of God. Jesus taught us to pray for God’s will to be done on earth because it is not yet done perfectly in every circumstance.

Do Not Lower the Bible to Experience

When Scripture and experience appear to conflict, the church often creates an explanation that protects both.

We say that God always wills healing—except when He does not. We say He always answers prayer—except when His answer is no. We add qualifications that may sound spiritual but are not actually found in the text. I understand why people do this. We do not want to deny someone’s pain. We do not want to shame a person who was not healed.

We do not want to appear careless about a difficult experience. Yet if our solution is to bring the Bible down to the level of our experience, we have not solved the problem.

We have simply made our experience the highest authority. I would rather be honest about the gap. Here is what Scripture reveals, and here is what I have experienced. I do not have to deny either one. My responsibility is not to lower Scripture until it agrees perfectly with my present experience.

My responsibility is to spend my life raising my experience to the level of Scripture.

What Should the Church Look Like?

If a church teaches that God does not heal anymore, it should examine that teaching in the light of the Gospels. Jesus healed.

He commissioned His followers to minister to the sick. The church must not give greater authority to an ecclesiastical tradition than to the Word of God. At the same time, a biblical church will not create a culture of pressure or shame. People who are sick need truth, love, patient help, and the presence of the church. They do not need to be accused because their body has not responded as they hoped.

Sickness is not automatically proof of personal sin, and an unanswered question is not permission to invent a cruel answer.

A church that looks like Jesus can hold faith and honesty together. It will teach what Scripture says, pray with confidence, minister with compassion, and admit what it does not know. It will not make a person carry the burden of protecting a preacher’s theology. The goal is not to win an argument. The goal is to become more like Jesus and to help people encounter Him.

God’s Will Is Known Through Jesus

How do we know what God is like? We know God through His Word, and we read the Word with Jesus at the center.

Jesus is the image of the invisible God. He said, “He who has seen Me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). If I want to understand the heart of God toward suffering people, I look at Jesus. Jesus moved toward the sick.

He touched the untouchable.

He restored bodies. He released people from oppression. He did not treat suffering as a theological inconvenience. He revealed the compassion and authority of the Father. That does not remove every mystery. I cannot answer every question about every person. The secret things belong to the Lord our God, while the revealed things belong to us and our children (Deuteronomy 29:29).

I am allowed to say, “I do not know.” What I am not allowed to do is blame God or create a doctrine that makes Him unlike Jesus simply because I feel pressure to explain. Jesus is the perfect will of God. Rather than beginning with what happens and working backward to define God, I begin with Jesus and allow Him to interpret my experience.

Prescriptive and Redemptive Will

I believe God’s will operates in both a prescriptive and a redemptive way.

God gives a standard and calls us to walk in it. When we miss the standard, He does not abandon us; He forgives, redeems, and continues lifting us higher. We understand this in the area of sin. Christians do not usually say that God wants us to sin simply because sin occurs. We recognize God’s grace and forgiveness, but we do not turn our failure into God’s prescription. Paul pressed toward the high call of God in Christ even while acknowledging that he had not already attained it.

I am not comparing sickness with personal sin or suggesting that every sick person is responsible for being sick. Sickness is a fruit of the fall, not necessarily the result of an individual’s sin.

My point is that we know how to live with the gap between God’s standard and our present experience in one area without changing the standard. We should bring the same honesty and hope to healing. Jesus walked in health. He was surrounded by sick people, yet they caught what He carried rather than making Him sick. The life of God in Him was greater than the sickness around Him.

I want to keep pressing into that reality.

Growing in Faithful Ministry

I do not claim that my life perfectly represents everything I see in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. I have not arrived.

But I can forget what lies behind and press forward. When someone is not healed, I do not need to invent an excuse. I can continue learning, continue ministering, and continue believing that Jesus is the standard. I believe it is possible to live free from sin, and I believe it is possible to live free from sickness. I am not claiming that I have reached perfection in either area.

I am saying that I refuse to make my present experience the limit of what I can believe God for.

Many people think of health only as the absence of sickness. I want to believe for the presence of God’s Word established in the heart. “The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death” (Romans 8:2). Divine health is not merely an empty space where sickness has not appeared. It is the life of God flowing in us and through us. We should believe for the sick to be healed, for oppressed people to be set free, and for the church to minister like Jesus.

We should also do it without pretending to know everything. Faith does not require dishonesty. Faith keeps moving toward Jesus.

The Only Standard Is Jesus

I am not a follower of Job, Jeremiah, James, or any other person’s experience.

I am a follower of Jesus. Other people’s lives can teach me, but Jesus is my standard. The church is not called to reproduce disappointment. It is called to represent Christ. Therefore, I will not lower the Bible to accommodate my experience. I will bring my experience honestly before God and continue raising it to the level of Scripture. I will reject both presumption and unbelief.

I will minister with compassion, speak the truth I know, and remain humble about what I do not know. The church should look like Jesus.

Our lives should press toward Jesus. Our understanding of healing should be shaped by Jesus. That is how we live in the tension: not by denying reality, and not by lowering revelation, but by allowing the Word to lift us into a greater experience of the life of God.

A Faith That Keeps Pressing

Pressing toward Scripture is not a single emotional decision.

It is a daily practice. I return to the Gospels and allow the Spirit to expose places where fear has become more persuasive than truth. I ask what Jesus would have me believe and how He would have me serve. Sometimes the most spiritual sentence I can speak is, “I do not know.” That protects me from inventing a doctrine out of disappointment. I can minister without claiming that I have solved every mystery.

I can believe that God is good without pretending that every circumstance is easy. This is how the gap becomes an invitation rather than an accusation.

I do not use another person’s pain to prove my theology. I bring both experience and promise to Jesus. I keep compassion in my heart and my hands available to serve. The church becomes more like Jesus as it refuses both extremes: arrogance that claims to explain everything and unbelief that expects nothing.

Scripture remains the standard.

Experience is brought honestly before it. Faith continues to grow. Keep pressing. Keep learning. This matters.

Scriptures for Study

Deuteronomy 29:29; Psalm 103:2–3; Isaiah 53:4–5; Matthew 4:23–24; Matthew 8:16–17; Matthew 9:35; Matthew 10:1; Mark 2:1–12; Mark 9:23–24; Mark 16:17–18; Luke 4:18–19; Luke 5:17; Luke 13:10–17; John 5:19; John 10:30; John 14:9; Acts 10:38; Romans 8:2; Romans 8:11; 2 Corinthians 3:18; Philippians 3:12–14; Colossians 1:15; Hebrews 1:3; Hebrews 13:8; 1 Peter 2:24.

Questions for Reflection

Where have your experiences and Scripture appeared to be in tension?
Have you ever called something God’s will simply because it happened?
What does Jesus reveal about the Father’s heart toward suffering people?
Where might you be tempted to lower Scripture to your experience?
How can you acknowledge pain without making it your theology?
What does it mean to say that Jesus is the perfect will of God?
How does Deuteronomy 29:29 give you permission to admit what you do not know?
What does pressing forward look like in your own spiritual life?
How can a church hold faith and compassion together?
What practical step would help you raise your experience toward Scripture?

Keywords

healing, divine healing, divine health, Scripture, experience, faith, Jesus, church, God’s will, compassion, Christian ministry, healing ministry, prayer, Gospel, discipleship, biblical authority, suffering, Christian life, faithfulness, church witness, receiving healing, ministering healing, Graham Jones, biblical expectation, spiritual growth

200-Word Summary

Christians often live between what Scripture reveals and what experience appears to show. We may witness genuine healings while also seeing people pray without receiving the outcome they hoped for. This tension should not cause us to deny reality or lower the Bible to the level of experience. We should acknowledge the gap honestly and spend our lives raising experience toward Scripture. Not everything that happens is God’s will. Sickness, abuse, and tragedy cannot automatically be called God’s desire. God’s will is revealed through His Word and perfectly through Jesus, the image of the invisible God. Jesus moved toward suffering people, healed the sick, and demonstrated the Father’s compassion. A biblical church therefore holds faith and honesty together. It does not shame sick people or invent cruel explanations, but it does not abandon the healing ministry of Jesus. God’s will is both prescriptive and redemptive: He calls us higher, and He redeems us when we fall short. Graham Jones explains that he has not arrived, but he continues pressing toward Jesus rather than making present experience the limit of faith. The only standard for the church and the believer is Jesus.

Blurb

How should Christians respond when Scripture promises healing but experience seems to disagree? Graham Jones explores the tension honestly and calls the church to raise its experience toward the revelation of Jesus rather than lowering Scripture.

Pull-Quotes

“Our responsibility is to spend our lives raising our experience to the level of the Bible.”
“Jesus is the perfect will of God.”
“Faith does not require dishonesty.”
“The only standard for the church is Jesus.”

Newsletter Blurb and Captions

Newsletter blurb: Experience can be real without becoming our final authority. Graham Jones examines the tension between Scripture and lived reality and calls us to keep pressing toward Jesus.

Caption 1: Do not lower Scripture to the level of experience. Let the Word raise your experience toward Jesus.

Caption 2: Jesus is the perfect revelation of the Father. Look at Him when you want to know God’s heart.

Caption 3: Faith does not require dishonesty. We can admit what we do not know while continuing to believe and minister.

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