M-G: 3.11.14 // Angel Food

The other day Beverly sent me on a mission to Uncle Wally’s. Admittedly, I am out of my element when I go into the grocery store with a list; I get stressed and discombobulated, overanalyzing deals and nutritional values. While I was down the coffee aisle a lady approached me and said, “I know you! You go to First Baptist; you taught in Dr. So & So’s class.” Because it is a very large class with a membership larger than most Baptist churches, I didn't recognize her face. We exchanged information on how we were doing and began to share supernatural war stories. I told her mine first; then she related one concerning her daughter who was going through a very difficult time in her life.

She stated that her daughter was sitting in a chair when an angel appeared to her. She described the angel as a male, very large in stature, and translucent. He spoke to her daughter inaudibly, “Everything is going to be okay.” Her daughter had looked down at her dog and noticed that the hairs on the back of its neck were raised, but the dog never barked at the angelic visitor. Then the angel vanished.

I told Mrs. S that when we tell such stories most people are attentive but walk away skeptical. But I know from my recent experience of being under spiritual attack by the enemies of darkness while in the hospital last September that I believed that her daughter actually experienced an angelic visitation. There is nothing in Scripture that would negate the possibility of what we both had encountered. In fact, I wrote about mine and tied it in with Scripture: 

http://michael-gram.blogspot.com/2013/09/m-g-92013-psalm-2516-promises-of-god.html.

Since we can neither deny nor affirm a person’s experiences, there is a safe guideline to follow as believers. It has to do with the type of “glasses” we are wearing. Are we evaluating life through the spectacles of our experiences and determining what is true or false, healthy or unhealthy? Or are we looking at life through the lens of Scripture and determining what is true or false, healthy or unhealthy? The danger of perceived truth resulting from our experiences is that it can cut against the grain of the truth of Scripture and be detrimental to our spiritual wellness, being unreliable and misleading. 

For example, when I got saved I witnessed to a friend of mine; I pleaded with him to trust in Jesus as his savior. Since he claimed to see Jesus every night standing in the corner of his bedroom wearing all black, he saw no need for salvation. What’s wrong with this picture? I’m not denying that he saw something in the corner of his bedroom, but it wasn’t Jesus wearing a black robe (cf. Lk 9:29).

If we want to evaluate the value and validity of our experiences in life we need to see it as God does. Everything thing that enters our life is allowed or orchestrated by God, and God will never violate the truth of Scripture, never. The litmus test for our experiences is this; do our experiences sync up with the truth of Scripture, resulting in godly behavior? If it is found to be out of alignment with the truth of Scripture, it should not be considered reliable. Our responsibility is to choose the right path based upon the Word of God, regardless of the experiences; that can be a tall order!

After her sharing her daughter’s experience, Mrs. S and I were having a spiritual hoedown in the coffee aisle. We were both pumped and jubilant. I had to leave so I went one way, and she went the other way. I pushed my buggy to the end of the aisle and made a left turn, parking beside a display separating two aisles on my left. I didn’t pay any attention to it and started texting my wife about why I was running behind. Then I noticed the display. I smiled to myself, left my buggy, and went after Mrs. S to bring her back to see the display. In light of all of the angel talk in the coffee aisle, she looked at the tall display of Betty Crocker’s Angel Food cake mix on sale. We laughed and praised Jesus. Angels are a good deal (Psa 103:20)! <><