Hearing That Still Small Voice

We have been looking at knowing the will of God in decision making. Have you heard this before? “I prayed about it. And when I pray, I don’t talk to God, but I listen to him. And through prayer he told me to go.”

I struggle when people tell me these things because I it seems these folks believe they have received special revelation either audibly or via “the small still voice” method.  Also, If God told them through prayer to go, then it’s a command for them to do so. This is akin to Abram leaving Ur for parts unknown except in his case it was a command and their case it is not. This idea however is very entrenched and hard to dislodge. 

 “Be still, and know that I am God;I will be exalted among the nations,  I will be exalted in the earth.” Psalm 46:10 (NIV) or Cease striving and know that I am God (NASB)

Couple of further comments on this as I think what I’m saying can be easily misunderstood. As a young Christian, I was very much on fire.  I loved to go to our Bible study and loved to learn what really was in the Word. 

Through my experience with leading the women’s Bible study and assisting the leader in the Women’s Ministry I thought it would be good to lead it someday. It’s actually why I enrolled in Bible school. Nevertheless, I do recall praying about these things in the form of asking for guidance and so forth. The prayers though were broad and had to do with other life decisions.  Nevertheless, I knew early on that I’d like to lead the Women’s Ministry. 

And so one day when I learned that our head of WM was moving back to Arizona I had the distinct impression in my head that said “you can do this.”  I had not been thinking of it and it just kind of popped in. Clearly, it was a not so still voice from God encouraging me. 

Or was it?

I used this very story when I talked to my pastor about taking over as head of WM as a type of verification of my “inward call.” My, how spiritual I was. At the time I honestly thought it was what the charismatics might call a “word of knowledge.” 

Listen-it’s impossible to argue with a person’s personal experiences because they are subjective and not subject to any type of objective analysis.

Our friend Pastor Bruce Roeder tells a story about how he was chatting with a friend who had a heavy charismatic background. They got on this subject of hearing God’s voice in prayer. The guy told Bruce he had no way of discerning between his desires, God’s voice or the devil’s. 

In other words, how do you know when your desires are responsible for your thoughts, whether they just “pop in,” or were floating around in the back of your skull all along?  Being quiet in Scripture meditation or just being quiet in prayer does not mean you are going to get a message or thought confirmation right from God.  That is real risky business especially if its night time and the pepperoni pizza you just ate is hard at work.

Yes, God communicates through His Word, but how? Can you and I go to Scripture and turn to page 1143 and find the answer to our dilemma? It simply does not work that way! 

The way God speaks through His Word first of all must be through the Holy Spirit. You cannot separate the Word of God from the Holy Spirit.  He inspired the writing of Scripture and does not trump it by revealing extra stuff. The Word of God is enough. You must be indwelt and filled by His Spirit and you must fill your heart with His Word. 

Pray for a greater understanding of Scripture (Psa. 25:4) not for some extra revelation or special insight.  You don’t need more than what God has provided. If more was needed, it would be in the Bible already!

I would suggest praying for more wisdom in application (Ja. 1:5). 

In God’s providence He will bring into your life circumstances and the scriptural principles to think through as you study His Word in an effort to rightly divide it (2 Tim. 2:15).

Having That Sense of Peace

Most Christian are sincere about wanting to be in “God’s will.” We hear this prayed all the time. People think they are using the Bible in their decision making because they remember something about this passage:

Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body; and be thankful. Colossians 3:15 (NASB)

We have already established in the previous posts that we are an “emotional” culture. If it “feels right” then it must be right. We rely on having a “sense of peace” in our heart as confirmation we are doing right and making a good decision. 

Perhaps they have never read or forgotten Jeremiah 17:9. 

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?

Why on earth would we place any confidence in a message the heart gives us? Why would a person believe that if they do not have this sense of peace then perhaps I’m not in God’s will? 

Quoting Colossians 3:15 is often equated with using the Bible for decision making. However, there are a couple of things wrong with this as it’s a lame application of what this passage means.

The interpretation and application of the passage hangs on what is meant by “the peace of God.” I personally think the “feeling based” church culture we live in, a culture, largely ignorant of theology or the principles of interpretation are responsible for the wide spread misuse of the verse. Nowhere in the context of this passage is it implied that this peace of God is related to making decisions. Instead, the word “peace” is in reference to the call of God to salvation. 

Remember, that the unsaved person is at war with God-he is not neutral. In salvation, it is God who takes the initiative to make peace. Then this peace refers to the attitude of rest or security we have in God because we know now He has made peace with us.

Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, Romans 5:1 (NASB)

Yet, so many people, continue to use the word “peace” as if God gives them a sense of it when making a decision. 

Ladies, you can have a sense of peace while going out and getting drunk, carousing and being involved in debauchery but God did not give that sense of peace-you gave it to yourself.

Sensing “peace” is a bad plan for decision making and not found in Scripture.

Last but not least we must not rely on or seek supernatural signs to help us in making decisions or knowing the will of God in a decision. Seeing something on TV, reading a book, meeting someone from an exotic place does not constitute a super natural event of revelation. If you are looking for supernatural signs you may as well just read your horoscope in addition to all the rest.  It is Christianized hocus pocus to live that way and to make decisions that way. 

All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work. 2 Timothy 3:16-17 (NASB)

… as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, 2 Peter 1:3-5 (NKJV)

We do not need additional revelation. We do not need signs and wonders; we do not need the supernatural. We have the Word of God to lead us and guide us and to aid us in making our decisions. 

Being Led By God

For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. Romans 8:14 (NASB)

My husband and I are in the process of making a very huge and crucial decision. It is one that will drastically affect our lives and our future. We truly desire to know what God would have us do and don’t want to make the wrong decision. We need to know the will of God in this situation. 

We looked last time at two of the methods commonly used in decision making and determined that both the selfish and superficial methods of decision making fall short of the glory of God. 

Today we will look at making decisions or finding the will of God by following dreams, visions, feelings, circumstances, fleeces, and so on. This is particularly prevalent in certain denominations that are more charismatic leaning. 

In many ways this is probably the biggest problem in decision making and due to the influence of the charismatic movement, with its emphasis on signs and wonders, feeling and sensations, which has greatly influenced the church. Whether you realize it or not this thinking and belief system has affected the church at large. 

Things like God's audible voice, dreams, or visions are no longer necessary because we now have a completed canon. There is nothing that needs to be revealed in our age and the sign gifts and special revelation has ceased.

If you are not sure about this may I encourage you to challenge your theology by reading these resources and studying these and other relevant passages of Scripture.

John 16-16; 1 Cor. 13:8-10; Eph. 2:20; 2 Tim. 3:16-17; Heb. 1:1-2, 2:3-4; Jude 3; Rev. 22:18 

I once heard of a man who determined he was to be a missionary in a foreign land because he met a stranger in an airport parking lot who was a missionary to that country. The man told him that God spoke to him and said he would meet the person who was to go along as a missionary. Based on this account, the man was unable to raise support (prayer or financial) for his trip to that country. The decision to go anyway, against all solid biblical counsel was pure foolishness and in the end it was dangerous as his children were targeted for kidnapping over there! 

Now I am not saying that all who are charismatic leaning add to the Scripture when making decisions-what I am saying is that many do and many of us do so as well when we put importance on dreams, experiences, feelings and such and we use them to trump what God’s Word clearly says and does not say.

Another subjective method is to rely on mental impressions or promptings, feeling the Lord is leading you to do this or that. God’s will is never revealed in some spooky feeling. 

We live in a feelings based culture and often times my counselees live there too. When it comes to making decisions they are looking for a “feeling” that they assume comes from God. I have been told things like, “I feel that God revealed to me I have to divorce my husband.” That’s a spooky (and unbiblical) feeling! 

I know, I know, it sounds so spiritual and noble to say that but it’s based on a feeling that amounts to the person saying “God told me” to do this or that or not do this or that.”  How exactly does God tell you anything? Is it a feeling or a whisper or some impression?  Whatever it is, it is elevated to the status of a specific command to do this or that, thus adding to the Scripture. How can a person biblically substantiate that? When there is an an emphasis on subjectivity there is little to no accountability if a person “feels” God is telling them to do this or that.

Remember, God’s will is never revealed in some spooky feeling! God leads us through a proper understanding of His Word. More next time!

Knowing the Will of God

My husband and I are in the process of making a very huge and crucial decision. It is one that will drastically affect our lives and our future. We truly desire to know what God would have us do and don’t want to make the wrong decision. We need to know the will of God in this situation. 

There is much confusion today within evangelical Christianity as to how we might know God’s will. I think most Christians want to be “in God’s will,” but because they are confused about what this means or how to get/be/stay in God’s will they don’t really understand the implications of their decisions made thinking they are operating within that will. Many are also internally conflicted when it comes to making decisions.

The confusion stems from the fact that many churches do not teach theology within their preaching and teaching and so people are left to their own devices to answer this important question.  And to make matters worse, how to know God’s will is frequently taught in an erroneous way thus making for even more confusion!  

If you are seeking to know the will of God in a situation the first bit of counsel I have to offer you is to get into the WORD! God’s Word is the only source of absolute inerrant truth.  Read the Word, devour the Word, meditate on the Word, and follow its precepts. 

Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. Philippians 2:3-4(NASB)

According to this passage, we need to check our motives for why we want to do something or have something. If you find yourself thinking along these lines, “what’s in it for me or what am I gaining,” then you have a motive issue. 

Conceit means “empty glory” meaning the pursuit of personal glory, the driving force behind selfishness. I am not saying that having personal interests is always wrong, or that it is wrong to make a decision that does personally benefit you. But when the primary controlling motives are self-centered- that is a heart issue, you are seeing personal glory. If that’s your motive your decision is not going to be a good one because it does not glorify God.

When I was a younger Christian I heard a story about how one person made an important decision about what to do with his life. He said he would close his eyes and open his Bible and put his finger on the unseen page. He determined to do whatever the verse said to do, trusting that God was going to show him that way. He was shocked when he opened his eyes and his finger rested upon Matthew 27:5:

…Then he went away and hanged himself.

Seriously, that’s goofy thinking about guidance. But I know people who have tried such a method of determining God’s will for their lives and thankfully they realized it before they followed through with the hanging! 

Along the same lines, is when we are doing our daily Bible reading or devotions and in the background of our minds we have some decision to make. We come upon a verse that “speaks to me” and interpret that to mean God is speaking to us. 

I’ve seen people do this in regards to making job decisions or moving decisions just because they want A over B and then they use the misinterpretation of the passage as a type of “God told me this morning in my Bible reading what to do.” 

What is usually the case is the person is ripping the passage from context and giving it a personal application that is driven by desire and is not faithful to the passage’s single meaning. We are not free to derive application by ignoring context and the bigger picture as to what the passage means. 

Both the selfish and superficial methods of decision making fall short of the glory of God. I am going to continue to develop this important topic tomorrow.

An Example to Follow

For you have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps, 1 Peter 2:21 (NASB)

The call of the Christian is to follow Christ, to be Christ like, to be identified with Christ. It is inescapable that a part of that calling is painful and sorrowful. 

While teaching a seminar recently on suffering I was once again reminded of the personal cost there is to the Believer to be a Christ-follower. Of course, it is nothing like the cost that was paid for our redemption but it is costly nonetheless. 

I am reminded that God did not redeem (buy back) the sinner unto salvation for that person to live life as they please- to live life for themselves. We have been bought for a purpose and we have a mission ahead of us.

Some of us will have small tasks that appear insignificant in light of what others are asked to do. Keep in mind that any request made by the King is an important one! There are no unimportant servants in His kingdom! Others will be given large or important roles to play in advancing God’s earthly agenda. These people can plan to suffer much, for to whom much is given much is required. 

The lessons learned in the classroom of suffering are what prepare us to be effective servants to our fellow man. These lessons are often very painful and break us down emotionally, physically, and spiritually. They take us to the deepest depths of sorrow and grief. Our sufferings remove our prideful self-sufficiency and teach us the truth- without Him I can do nothing, with Him all things are possible.

Some of our lessons reveal that we lack humility in the most basic things. We learn things about ourselves that are downright ugly. We see behind our stated motives and are given a glimpse at our prideful heart. We view with tremendous clarity the idols we have propped up to encourage ourselves and to “tell” us how good we (think we) really are. As God schools us, with open eyes and outstretched hands we once again realize that we are nothing but dust, we are nothing without Him.

The education of the servant of God brings with it sorrow and suffering because God must strip away the desire for all that we hold dear on earth. Our attachment to homes and cars, clothes and entertainment has to come to mean nothing or next to nothing when placed alongside our desire to serve Him with our lives. This is painful! Many of us have a love affair with stuff of this world that has caused our focus to change in yet another idolatrous manner. It is never easy to release things we hold tightly to and love. Yet, it is what we are asked to do…

Our purchase from sin and death was not for the things of this world or its pleasure; we have been purchased for His use and for His glory.