I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that
ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy acceptable unto God,
which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world:
but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may
prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.
(Rom 12:1-2)which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world:
but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may
prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.
But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you.
My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me:
And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish,
neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.
(John 10:26-28)
The voice of God comes to the sheep of God, and to no other. The topic of hearing the voice of God is much more than only a process to be learned, or formula to be developed. It is a life of turning away from the pattern of this world. At the heart of the all learning on this topic is the discipline of being and staying one of God’s sheep. We can hear and follow other voices: for there are many voices in the world. There is only one true voice of the God of the Bible.
The voice of God comes to the sheep of God, and to no other. The topic of hearing the voice of God is much more than only a process to be learned, or formula to be developed. It is a life of turning away from the pattern of this world. At the heart of the all learning on this topic is the discipline of being and staying one of God’s sheep. We can hear and follow other voices: for there are many voices in the world. There is only one true voice of the God of the Bible.
There is something which comes before any hearing of Gods voice, it is the laying down of our lives before the living God. Until our life is surrendered to God generally, His voice speaking to us is particularly will be of no value. If in your heart you are still seeking your way, your plans and following your will there is no room for His; therefore God is silent.
Who is actively running your life Right now? Are you choosing your own way? Do you believe that any path through life is acceptable to God, as long as it is accompanied by Christian ethics, morals and regular church attendance? If God was to make instant changes in your life what would you be most afraid of losing? Or most anxious to be rid of?
It is assumed that surrender is no longer a valid when a person makes a confession of faith. Even after having followed the Lord to the cross, a person can at any time take the reins of their life back from God. To assume that a confession of faith at one point in time is sufficient to be counted as submission for a lifetime is unrealistic. This is not a discussion of the doctrine of salvation, but it an exploration of hearing the voice of God and the surrender that must accompany it. We must become and remain a sheep. Without the literal, actual and current surrender of your life to God: you will proceed no farther in hearing the voice of God, there is no need.
God alone is the determiner of the quality of this kind surrender. He knows us better than we know ourselves, and is fully able to be God to us. Our first learning of God is that He loved us so much that He came to us, suffered and died the most shameful of deaths on our behalf. After such a lavish display of love, should there be any doubt of His goodness toward us? If we are convinced of His love, and His fatherly care to us, we should feel at liberty to surrender all to Him without reservation. If we are not hearing God’s voice and God’s leading in our lives it might good indicator of the quality of offering we have placed before Him, that it might not be lamb at all, but possibly goat.
Have we been paying games with God? Surrendering only that which we find convenient and easy, and dismissing the rest as being “under the blood”? Are you really ready to hear a word from God, a word which will shakesthe very foundations of your life? Or have we places a blemished offering before God? Are we ready to die personally, actually and painfully to being the God of our own life?
I am persuaded of better things of any who would seek any writing on hearing the voice God. The nature of the topic alone is enough to indicate that a person is seeking a deeper and more complete relationship. Nevertheless, examine yourself and see if you be in the faith: for making a deepening commitment to Him is required to grow into hearing His voice. If this is not at the core of your seeking after God, there is no need for Him to speak. If this is not the very attitude of our hearts, there is no need for us to hear.
I am persuaded of better things of any who would seek any writing on hearing the voice God. The nature of the topic alone is enough to indicate that a person is seeking a deeper and more complete relationship. Nevertheless, examine yourself and see if you be in the faith: for making a deepening commitment to Him is required to grow into hearing His voice. If this is not at the core of your seeking after God, there is no need for Him to speak. If this is not the very attitude of our hearts, there is no need for us to hear.
Playing with Idols
Son of man, these men have set up their idols in their heart,
and put the stumblingblock of their iniquity before their face:
should I be enquired of at all by them? Therefore speak unto
them, and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Every man
of the house of Israel that setteth up his idols in his heart, and
putteth the stumblingblock of his iniquity before his face, and
cometh to the prophet; I the LORD will answer him that cometh
according to the multitude of his idols;
(Eze 14:3-4)
God made it very clear to Ezekiel the costs of not fully surrendering to the will of God before seeking to apprehend the voice of God. Leaning our lives toward anything else but God for support is the definition of New Testament idolatry. Idols own us when we need them more than God: our relationships, our career, our health, or our beauty, our retirement accounts, our credit reports. Anything that we can claim as "ours" independent of God, is not ours, but we belong to it. If our surrender before God has been honest and pure, God will deal with the idols one by one. If we presumptuously approach God, without consideration the state of our hearts, He will answer us according to our lusts. We will get what we wanted, but we will not like what we have gotten.
The person walking this path will eventually find that God has lead them into nothing but troubles. These troubles themselves are not the problem, but getting the idols out of their hands is. Many will turn back at this point because they do not knowing the ways of God. They did not know that He must accomplish a work in them, before promises can be fulfilled to them. Until that process is complete, we are unable to walk in the things which God would speak into our life, and unable to enter our promised land.
God has a way of shaming our idols before our own eyes. If our trust had been in our ability to earn income, we might suffer job loss. If our trust has been in our career path, He might place a supervisor over that suffocates our hopes. He will place immovable objects before us, like mountains and leave us with no resource of our own able to remove it. Eventually we become tired of our idols, and we judge them as unable to save. Everything we once trusted in, all of what we counted as "our best" and "our strongest" has now been shown useless. The only answer allowed to remain is God, but to grab hold of Him we must first let go of our idols.
Our Attention
Wherefore (as the Holy Ghost saith, To day if ye will hear his voice,
Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation
in the wilderness: When your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw
my works forty years. Wherefore I was grieved with that generation,
and said, They do alway err in their heart; and they have not known
my ways...)
(Heb 3:7-10)
An overemphasis on righteousness and willful ignorance of sanctification and holiness is trouble. It is leaving many without the basic tools needed for Biblical Christian living. Had we been attentive to the scriptures, we would have seen our oversights. We have a false confidence in righteousness. We have substituted its definition over the words holiness and sanctification, so that we have erased them from our usage. Fortunately God has written a book without any omission and it is highly recommended reading for anyone considering living as a Christian! Any deficiencies can be reestablished in the life of anyone literate. If we bold enough to take the scriptures seriously and to take God at His word. We need our Bibles!
The Living God has gotten our attention off of our idols and onto Him. We have surrendered to Him. Becoming sheep we are made dependent upon the Great Sheppard, whom we are grasping toward. We now desire to know the living God, and to hear His voice directing the particulars of our life. We should start by returning to what He generally said. The best examples of God are on display for us in the scriptures: what He might say and how He might act is in the pages of the Bible. I have heard the Lord many times using the some question from the Bible with me personally. He has asked me the same challenging questions, when I came with a heart worth of the Biblical Pharisees.
Foundational to hearing God is the nature of God. He does not change, and so neither does His voice. He has spoken in the scriptures, and at hearing His voice there upon the pages of the Bible, we can recognize it when it comes. This is new to us because previously looked into the scriptures to find if our will was consistent with His. Now we are considering this consistency in regard to the voice of God. The voice of God will have the same spiritual sound; meaning to the untrained ear it might at first be indistinguishable from the scriptures. Isn't this how it should be?
Finding ourselves lead into desert places by God has an effect on our approach to the scriptures: we become amazingly attentive. The warnings in the book of Hebrews become real to us, and we will find them highly useful in understanding our own journey into our promised land. The historical narrative of Israel in the desert now becomes alive to us, with spiritually practical object lessons made personal. The truthful observation has been made that after God took the children of Israel out of Egypt, but it still took forty years to get Egypt out of them; though we hope will it be so long a journey for us.
God’s Dealings vs. Personal Reformation
For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son
For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son
whom he receiveth. If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you
as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?
But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then
are ye bastards, and not sons…
…Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but
…Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but
grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of
righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.
(Heb 12:6-8,11)
It will be clear to you after this wilderness is passed that God has done a work in you, distinct from the circumstances around you. Looking back many are horrified by the reflections of their own pasts, but now speak favorably of such dealings they once begged to an end. This is God’s work in us, a work which we cannot do for ourselves. We previously may have tried to do this work ourselves, but that is only personal reformation. Personal reformation has its season, but there is a work which only God can do.
God is recovering His rightful position in our life as God.. We are once again becoming sheep and He our Great Sheppard. The promise of yielding the “peaceable fruit of righteousness” is only to those who “are exercised thereby”. Take account if your willingness to follow the voice which you are about to hear. An entire generation of Israel perished in the wilderness when they followed God half heartedly. You will inherit a land flowing with milk and honey, but not without laying down all first. Half hearted following yields half hearted results, which is only enough to lead you into the desert, but not enough to lead you out. God will cleanse you, but in a place without resources save for Him.
The holiness and sanctification, which we had only heard about are become a reality in us. I had eluded our grasp when we tried to obtain it through personal reformation; but now we count it a cherished gift from God. If God had allowed us to apprehend it by our own efforts, pride would become the new idol of our promised land. The existence of pride requires this working to not be our choice, but a work which God chose to do in us.
A new humility becomes resident in our hearts, which was not present before the pressures were applied. Life springs up from once dead places in our souls. The scriptures come alive not just to us, but in us; taking their rightful place in our life. Reading the Bible becomes an adventure, a constant companion and living guidebook, rather than the object religious duty. In short, the life spoken of in the scripture is at work within us.
The process of rooting out idols began with the offering of our lives before God. He has been waiting for us to come. It ends when God says it ends, because these times (by the mercy of God) are seasonal, not continual. When it ends we might not judge ourselves fully clean before God, but the wisdom of God for our sake is at work here. We can see in ourselves that farther work needs to be done, but some things are left for the sake of humility. Even as Paul sought the Lord three times to have His buffeting removed, only to have the reply be “No”. Fear not, He will fully cleanse us; but this process is in His hands, not ours.
Goodness of God
For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy
to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.
(Rom 8:18)
It will be clear to you after this wilderness is passed that God has done a work in you, distinct from the circumstances around you. Looking back many are horrified by the reflections of their own pasts, but now speak favorably of such dealings they once begged to an end. This is God’s work in us, a work which we cannot do for ourselves. We previously may have tried to do this work ourselves, but that is only personal reformation. Personal reformation has its season, but there is a work which only God can do.
God is recovering His rightful position in our life as God.. We are once again becoming sheep and He our Great Sheppard. The promise of yielding the “peaceable fruit of righteousness” is only to those who “are exercised thereby”. Take account if your willingness to follow the voice which you are about to hear. An entire generation of Israel perished in the wilderness when they followed God half heartedly. You will inherit a land flowing with milk and honey, but not without laying down all first. Half hearted following yields half hearted results, which is only enough to lead you into the desert, but not enough to lead you out. God will cleanse you, but in a place without resources save for Him.
The holiness and sanctification, which we had only heard about are become a reality in us. I had eluded our grasp when we tried to obtain it through personal reformation; but now we count it a cherished gift from God. If God had allowed us to apprehend it by our own efforts, pride would become the new idol of our promised land. The existence of pride requires this working to not be our choice, but a work which God chose to do in us.
A new humility becomes resident in our hearts, which was not present before the pressures were applied. Life springs up from once dead places in our souls. The scriptures come alive not just to us, but in us; taking their rightful place in our life. Reading the Bible becomes an adventure, a constant companion and living guidebook, rather than the object religious duty. In short, the life spoken of in the scripture is at work within us.
The process of rooting out idols began with the offering of our lives before God. He has been waiting for us to come. It ends when God says it ends, because these times (by the mercy of God) are seasonal, not continual. When it ends we might not judge ourselves fully clean before God, but the wisdom of God for our sake is at work here. We can see in ourselves that farther work needs to be done, but some things are left for the sake of humility. Even as Paul sought the Lord three times to have His buffeting removed, only to have the reply be “No”. Fear not, He will fully cleanse us; but this process is in His hands, not ours.
Goodness of God
For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy
to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.
(Rom 8:18)
The severity of God cannot be compared with His goodness! The promises draw us to the living God for fulfillment, but it is His goodness that led us. The rebuke of Israel in the wilderness was because of their faithlessness that God was going to make good on His promise. The same hope we have from God in our lives and we do well not to lose sight of it. No dealing for the present seems joyous, but afterward, afterward is the blessing. The goodness and the promises are sure, thought the path might be as straight as we first believed.
The promises God made to you personally are true, for God is not a man that He should lie. At times we might be tempted to believe God has led us into a wilderness to kill us, and in a manner of speaking He has. We died in the wilderness, yet a new life sprang up within us. Both literally and figuratively, the promises God made are larger than the death we died.
God’s promises are eternal, larger than life or death. This is far beyond our understanding of simple honesty. If something God speaks is not true at the time, His power will create it into being. Obtaining such promises is not easy, as we witnesses in our wilderness walk, but if it were easy it would have no value. God who has promised us will bring it to pass.
But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh
to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them
that diligently seek him…
… Through faith also Sara herself received strength to conceive
seed, and was delivered of a child when she was past age, because
she judged him faithful who had promised.
(Heb 11:6,11)
It is impossible to fully articulate these things for everyone. They are individualistic, personal and must pass directly from God to you. They are to be cherished, recorded in notebooks, and shared with spiritual friends as testimonies. The Lord will do the most personal and touching things as a display of His care for you is. The harshness and severity of God in the wilderness sometimes shakes our faith that He cares for us, but God takes opportunities to show us just how well He knows us. This is just one such story:
I was on my way to work one morning and was going to stop for the coffee I skipped because my stomach had been upset. As I positioned myself to turn off, the Lord spoke to me saying, “No!” When I asked Him why, His immediate response was, “I have commanded my servant to give it to you.” I proceeded to work and found that a coworker had purchased a coffee at the same location for a friend who was out of the office that day, so she offered it to me. I thanked her with a warm smile, but upon opening it found it to be prepared with cream and sugar. In my heart I mused that I normally took my coffee black with sugar, the Lord replied, “It’s for your stomach!”
Nearly twenty years after that morning it still provokes me to tears at how God loves us, knows us personally, understands even our aches and pains. Surely the hairs of our head are numbered, for He has counted them while looking upon us while He was thinking of us!
He knows you, not just as a memory exercise, but with personal attention and thoughtfulness toward you; this is known as love. He formed you and has a path for you, a course and race for you to run in life which He has marked out. This course requires His personal leading; hearing His voice, apprehending His will and allowing Him to be God to you. He will speak to you directly, make promises to you personally, and keep them.
The ethics and morals of the Christian faith are not enough to follow God, and while they are not to be discounted or discarded they are yet insufficient. The scriptures themselves point to a life in God beyond their pages: a real life, in a real relationship with the Living God. The most basic message of the Gospel is that He is alive and risen, so we can no longer think of Him as dead and gone. He has spoken in the scriptures and continues to speak to any who would dare follow Him on an adventure by submitting their lives to him, and following after His leading. God bless you in it!
It is impossible to fully articulate these things for everyone. They are individualistic, personal and must pass directly from God to you. They are to be cherished, recorded in notebooks, and shared with spiritual friends as testimonies. The Lord will do the most personal and touching things as a display of His care for you is. The harshness and severity of God in the wilderness sometimes shakes our faith that He cares for us, but God takes opportunities to show us just how well He knows us. This is just one such story:
I was on my way to work one morning and was going to stop for the coffee I skipped because my stomach had been upset. As I positioned myself to turn off, the Lord spoke to me saying, “No!” When I asked Him why, His immediate response was, “I have commanded my servant to give it to you.” I proceeded to work and found that a coworker had purchased a coffee at the same location for a friend who was out of the office that day, so she offered it to me. I thanked her with a warm smile, but upon opening it found it to be prepared with cream and sugar. In my heart I mused that I normally took my coffee black with sugar, the Lord replied, “It’s for your stomach!”
Nearly twenty years after that morning it still provokes me to tears at how God loves us, knows us personally, understands even our aches and pains. Surely the hairs of our head are numbered, for He has counted them while looking upon us while He was thinking of us!
He knows you, not just as a memory exercise, but with personal attention and thoughtfulness toward you; this is known as love. He formed you and has a path for you, a course and race for you to run in life which He has marked out. This course requires His personal leading; hearing His voice, apprehending His will and allowing Him to be God to you. He will speak to you directly, make promises to you personally, and keep them.
The ethics and morals of the Christian faith are not enough to follow God, and while they are not to be discounted or discarded they are yet insufficient. The scriptures themselves point to a life in God beyond their pages: a real life, in a real relationship with the Living God. The most basic message of the Gospel is that He is alive and risen, so we can no longer think of Him as dead and gone. He has spoken in the scriptures and continues to speak to any who would dare follow Him on an adventure by submitting their lives to him, and following after His leading. God bless you in it!
