I don’t know about you, but sometimes I feel like I need someone to guide me through life. The weight of everything is just too much to bear sometimes and it can be suffocating. Maybe you think you don’t need a guide and can handle this all on your own. If you’re a Christian, you can choose to live in a world that is fairly neutral and get by with the Christianity of tips and techniques. Or you choose to wake up to a world that is full of spiritual warfare and is hell-bent on blinding others from the Truth. If that’s the case, then we’re going to need a Guide. A really good one. Luckily this has already been promised to us. “You have made known to me the path of life...” Psalms 16:11a
One of the coolest things about God is that while He is the Creator, Alpha, Omega, Comforter, Father, etc. He is someone we can talk to. Probably the ultimate goal of Christianity, in my opinion, is intimacy with God. A church could have programs set up to help you live by principles that bring honor and glory to God, but they can’t teach you how to be intimate. This is something we all have to accomplish on our own. “Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’”Matthew 7:23 Jesus called some people out who were doing things in His name, living a “Christianly life.” He says He never knew them though because they lacked an intimate relationship with Him. I can’t sit here and tell you can be intimate with God by doing this, this, and this. You have to walk beside Him, daily, in order to figure that out. Only by walking with God can we hope to find the path that leads to life and that is what it means to be a disciple. A Christian. A follower of Christ. Not ideas about Him, not principles. Him.
After we become a Christian, we have a good heart. (See my other posts if you disagree with this) A lot of Christians haven’t learned how to live from their hearts though. This is a very dangerous thing too because if we go to war with an untrained heart, hurt and ruin could follow which would lead us back to the gospel of Sin Management and that’s not the kind of life we want to lead or the kind of life that God has created us to lead. In order do this we have to “train.” We need to practice seeking wisdom from God and having intimacy with Him in our daily lives. If you were a general about to enter a war-zone you would definitely be doing as much strategizing about what you were about to do as you possibly could. Why should we not treat life the same way!? We must study His Word with the intensity of someone about to storm the beach of Normandy on D-Day if we hope to fight this battle victoriously. We must walk with Him intimately.
As important as wisdom is though, we cannot live by it exclusively. God doesn’t always work in the most logical sense to us. It didn’t make sense for Gideon to trim his army from 32,000 to 300 men or for Joshua to march around Jericho and yell at the city to make it collapse. Both of these men trusted God though because they walked intimately with Him and listened to Him. A lot of churches these days make their decisions based on principles and expedience but they are devoid of the supernatural. Where is the living God at in this case? We can only find Him if we truly seek for Him and listen to His voice. How can we listen to His voice? Scripture would be an obvious choice, but so many of us fail to read it or study it thoroughly. (I am in no way trying to undermine the importance of reading Scripture btw) That isn’t the only way He speaks to us though and that is why so many people fail to recognize the voice of God. He speaks to us through our situations and the people around us as well.
“The man who enters by the gate is the shepherd of his sheep. The watchman opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice.” John 10:2-4 It’s funny how the analogy of a sheep compared to us is so true. I don’t know about you, but I am so dumb sometimes. I let myself fall into temptation, walk straight into it, think I know what’s better, or just don’t trust God. Yet He is my Shepherd and will fight off bears for me and bring me back to the flock to watch over me. This whole semester God has been trying to tell me that He is in control and I just need to follow in His steps and watch Him work because He’s got this. He speaks to me all the time through different circumstances and experiences and other times He speaks by just creating a peace in me about something particular that I know only He can bring. What He tells me doesn’t always make sense and it doesn’t have to. Part of the journey is trusting in God above all else.
Our hearts are key when we try to listen to the voice of God because this is the dwelling place of God. How can we distinguish what’s pulling on our hearts when so many things are vying for our attention? You must first remember that your heart is good. If you are feeling angry, jealous, lustful, etc. then it is your flesh speaking and not your heart. We must reject this because it is not of God. Your flesh is going to try to use your freedom to get you to do things you shouldn’t do. Anything that brings discouragement, accusation, or condemnation is not from God. Neither is confusion, or anything that would cause you to disobey something that you know. The Holy Spirit will tells us when we do something wrong, but it is never condemning. “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Romans 8:1 His convictions bring a desire for repentance. “Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death.” 2 Corinthians 7:10
Most Christians and even non-Christians view the Bible as a book for Christian principles for how to live and leave it at that. If God had intended His Word to be a book of doctrine He would have wrote it like that. Of course we learn a ton about Christian doctrine and character in the Scripture, along with a great deal of wisdom. But if you flip it from cover to cover you’ll notice it’s a giant storybook of men and women who walked with God. When you read God’s Word, don’t view it as a manual of Christian principles but rather a testimony of God’s friends on what it means to walk with him through a thousand different episodes. When you are at war, when you are in love, when you have sinned, when you have been given a great gift-this is how you walk with God.
Having an intimate relationship with God is something that isn’t easy. There are days when I get lazy and hardly pray at all or I just go through a busy day and ignore the people around me. God is calling out to us and desires to be close to us though! As screwed up as we are, He has made us beautiful and I want to know this King who loves me so. I pray that your relationship with God won’t be the same after reading this. Don’t try and live a life of principles because it is ultimately lacking a personal relationship that is the greatest gift ever given. Let me know if there’s anything I can pray for you, don’t hesitate to do so.
In Love,
Bill
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