Isaiah 51

Isaiah 51:6-7, 17 NIV

Lift up your eyes to the heavens,
look at the earth beneath;
the heavens will vanish like smoke,
the earth will wear out like a garment
and its inhabitants die like flies.
But my salvation will last forever,
my righteousness will never fail.
"Hear me, you who know what is right,
you people who have taken my instruction to heart:
Do not fear the reproach of mere mortals
or be terrified by their insults.

Awake, awake!
Rise up, Jerusalem,
you who have drunk from the hand of the Lord
the cup of his wrath,
you who have drained to its dregs
the goblet that makes people stagger.

Experience does not equal truth. Israel had drunk deeply from the cup of God's wrath. That did not mean that he had rejected her. It did not mean that he did not love her. It did not mean that he had given up on her, or that he had forgotten his promises to Abraham. I'm sure it felt that way to those people who were experiencing God's discipline, but experience does not equal truth.

The problem with experience is that it is so limited. Experience is only past and present. We serve a God of the past, present and future. He sees what we can only dream of. He knows what we can only hope for. The earth and sky seem to us to be the most permanent things in our experience, yet God says that they will wear out and vanish, "But my salvation will last forever, my righteousness will never fail."

God says that there will be a day when Israel's experience of God's blessing will outlast the earth. He says that there will be a day when they will never again experience his discipline. He says that there is coming a day when the enemies they fear will be trampled down and destroyed, but Israel will flourish.

As believers we are not people who live according to experience, but people who walk by faith. We look not to what we see and hear, but to what God promises. We live in the clarity of hope that comes from the promises of God despite the fog of our experience. Like a pilot flying by instrument, we keep our eyes fixed on the Word of God, not the cloud and the darkness through which we're flying.

Father, experience is often so much more real to me than the truth of your word. Yet I know where truth is found. Today may I fly by your instruments and not become disoriented by the fog of experience that surrounds me.

By His grace,
Rick Weinert