Someone asked recently about hearing clearly from God.
"Should we not be visited by an angel from God, how can we hear God's truth?" The question came as a group of us recently spent time in Acts 27, where Paul was visited by an angel and told what would happen.
Unfortunately, most of us do not get regular angelic visits. At least not the kind where we see the angel and hear a voice (though, quite frankly, we Jesus followers probably get more daily, angelic help than we realize...see Hebrews 1:14!).
But what about regularly HEARING GOD'S TRUTH? Can we hear from God regularly?
No doubt about it. Here's how.
FIRST - take time to READ A BIBLE. Why? Jesus said it - actually, He prayed it. "Father, set apart my disciples by your truth. Thy Word is truth" (John 17:17). Any person who will prayerfully set aside time to read and reflect on what he/she is reading in the Scriptures will "hear" the Spirit of God speaking. "For the word of God is quick (living) and powerful (active), piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, discerning the thoughts and intentions of (my) heart" (Hebrews 4:12).
GO ahead...try it. Read Ephesians chapter 4 or 1 John 1, or Philippians 2. Take 30 minutes and read it over 5,6,7 times and think about what is saying...while you ask the Holy Spirit to speak to you. Unless the heart is hard and the ears of the mind stopped up, you will hear God's Spirit.
SECOND - take time to DISCUSS WHAT YOU'VE READ WITH SOME FRIENDS. "Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. We impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual" (1 Corinthians 2:12-13).
Did you notice the "group" dynamic in those verses. "We...we...us...We...to those" I've never been in a group of Jesus followers who are discussing Scripture without hearing from the Holy Spirit.
THIRD - ASK FOR WISDOM from GODLY FRIENDS WHO KNOW GOD'S WORD and ARE FULL OF GOD'S SPIRIT. I believe you can bring just about any "practical" question to a set of serious Jesus' followers who will listen and then open the pages of Scripture...and you will hear from God. Proverbs 12:15 "The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to advice." God "gives wisdom generously, and is not stingy" (James 1:2-4).
My sense is this - there are plenty of God's "ministering angel-spirits" (Hebrews 1:14) who are at the ready to make God's voice clear as a bell in your everyday life. Read the Word, discuss the Word, listen to people of the Word.
Monday, February 16, 2015
When Life Throws You Overboard
In the "big wave" scene in THE PERFECT STORM, a crew in a small boat is caught in something which captain Billy Tyne (George Clooney) realizes "won't let us out." Their one against-the-odds chance is to gun the engines and run their ship up the face of the wave, hoping to crest the top before the crest tops them.
They don't make it. Screaming yells are drowned in an overpowering wave. The boat bobs to the surface upside down.
Life gets that way sometimes. Whiplashing circumstances, declining health, unforeseen setbacks, accidents, attacks, economic crash, hurricane or flood or 8' of snow, you name it -- sometimes our fault and sometimes not...and suddenly we feel completely swamped. Because we are.
The boat upon which we were sailing through life suddenly starts to come apart under the unrelenting storm winds and sea waves. Disoriented and throw around, we're just hoping for a plank upon which we might safely drift to shore. If we don't freeze to death first.
Someone asked me recently in a public Q-A time, "How can we call upon God when our life becomes 'shipwrecked.'?"
WHY SHIPWRECKS HAPPEN
Why can't life avoid major setbacks? Why do so many of us in the human race (arguably, ALL of us) find our boats overwhelmed and overturned.
The Biblical answer is SIN. But that answer needs explanation.
First, the Bible teaches that Adam and Eve invited the CONSEQUENCES OF SIN into our physical world when they morally disobeyed God (Genesis 3:1-19). Pain in childbirth for women. Toil in work for humanity. A "very good" physical order was now under the curse of God's judgment against sin. Humans designed for eternal life and the good blessings of God, would now die under the relentless curse and consequences of sin. "The creation was subjected to futility," Paul explains in Romans 8. It "longs to be set free from its bondage," and awaits "the revelation of the sons of God." Until then (and there is coming a time when it will happen), the physical world we live in doesn't work right. We have to fight to make our living quarters cooperative.
All human beings since the first couple have struggled with these consequences.
This means that some of our "shipwrecks" come from simply living in a world that still physically struggles under the judgment and curse of sin. We get sick. Our genes can be faulty. The whole physical order (including the natural world, the animal kingdom, and the human race) needs to be recalled due to its innumerable defects, which makes life unpredictable and painful. Greedy, self-centered humanity abuses individuals within the race. The thief (Satan) loves to "steal, kill, and destroy" according to Jesus (John 10).
It's the fallen world we live in, and sometimes we get hit with the full force of its fallenness simply because we live here.
Second, the Bible also teaches that when human beings CHOOSE TO SIN, they invite yet a further expression of disaster into their lives. James 1 teaches that sin always results in the death of something good. People can choose to repeatedly sin in their daily living, to repeatedly ignore God's wisdom, and in so doing, to invite additional "shipwreck" to happen in their lives. "The wages of sin is death."
WHAT TO DO IN WHEN SHIPWRECKED
So what if you are "shipwrecked" by the overwhelming difficulties of living in a fallen physical order? What should you do?
The Bible urges all men who are struggling with a fallen physical order to realize their only true hope is found in God the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. "I have come," Jesus said, "that people might have life, and have it more abundantly" (John 10:10). Peter tells us that the God-man, Jesus, came to reclaim God's rule over a fallen universe and to redeem made in-the-image of God men and women and boys and girls into the family of God. He died to pay sin's penalty and rose from the grave to reverse sin's curse. No matter what the shipwrecks of life have done to you, you can turn to Christ and find real hope, and the promise of eternal life to come will be free from the shipwrecks of this.
This is why Jesus' servant Paul could write this about our hope: "I consider the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us...the creation itself will be set free from its bondage and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God" (Romans 8:19,21).
Even the severest physical struggles we face will someday yield to the joy and life that is found in the life to come. When we belong to God by faith in Christ, we have the promise in this life that God "works all things together for the good, to them that love God" (Romans 8:28).
But secondly, what if you are "shipwrecked" by the difficulties which you have invited into your life because you've ignored God' wisdom and are suffering from the consequences of personal sin? What if you sinfully invited the "shipwreck" into your life?
You may remember that Jonah did that. God called him to "Go to Ninevah" and preach a message of God's impending judgment. Not wanting to give the Assyrians a chance at forgiveness, Jonah fled the other way, in a boat, headed west to Tarshish. In the Mediterranean sea, the storm came and the boat was about to be shipwrecked. The sailors had to throw the disobedient prophet overboard, only then to be swallowed by a large fish (yep, it's possible).
Jonah's "shipwreck" had been self-imposed. The solution? Personal repentance. "I called to the Lord out of my distress, and He answered me; out of the belly of Sheol, I cried, and He heard my voice" (Jonah 2:2).
God hears a broken voice that comes from a repentant heart. He hears. He forgives. And He can rescue from the shipwreck.
That abundant life Jesus promised can be had when someone humbly calls from floating on the plank.
They don't make it. Screaming yells are drowned in an overpowering wave. The boat bobs to the surface upside down.
Life gets that way sometimes. Whiplashing circumstances, declining health, unforeseen setbacks, accidents, attacks, economic crash, hurricane or flood or 8' of snow, you name it -- sometimes our fault and sometimes not...and suddenly we feel completely swamped. Because we are.
The boat upon which we were sailing through life suddenly starts to come apart under the unrelenting storm winds and sea waves. Disoriented and throw around, we're just hoping for a plank upon which we might safely drift to shore. If we don't freeze to death first.
Someone asked me recently in a public Q-A time, "How can we call upon God when our life becomes 'shipwrecked.'?"
WHY SHIPWRECKS HAPPEN
Why can't life avoid major setbacks? Why do so many of us in the human race (arguably, ALL of us) find our boats overwhelmed and overturned.
The Biblical answer is SIN. But that answer needs explanation.
First, the Bible teaches that Adam and Eve invited the CONSEQUENCES OF SIN into our physical world when they morally disobeyed God (Genesis 3:1-19). Pain in childbirth for women. Toil in work for humanity. A "very good" physical order was now under the curse of God's judgment against sin. Humans designed for eternal life and the good blessings of God, would now die under the relentless curse and consequences of sin. "The creation was subjected to futility," Paul explains in Romans 8. It "longs to be set free from its bondage," and awaits "the revelation of the sons of God." Until then (and there is coming a time when it will happen), the physical world we live in doesn't work right. We have to fight to make our living quarters cooperative.
All human beings since the first couple have struggled with these consequences.
This means that some of our "shipwrecks" come from simply living in a world that still physically struggles under the judgment and curse of sin. We get sick. Our genes can be faulty. The whole physical order (including the natural world, the animal kingdom, and the human race) needs to be recalled due to its innumerable defects, which makes life unpredictable and painful. Greedy, self-centered humanity abuses individuals within the race. The thief (Satan) loves to "steal, kill, and destroy" according to Jesus (John 10).
It's the fallen world we live in, and sometimes we get hit with the full force of its fallenness simply because we live here.
Second, the Bible also teaches that when human beings CHOOSE TO SIN, they invite yet a further expression of disaster into their lives. James 1 teaches that sin always results in the death of something good. People can choose to repeatedly sin in their daily living, to repeatedly ignore God's wisdom, and in so doing, to invite additional "shipwreck" to happen in their lives. "The wages of sin is death."
WHAT TO DO IN WHEN SHIPWRECKED
So what if you are "shipwrecked" by the overwhelming difficulties of living in a fallen physical order? What should you do?
The Bible urges all men who are struggling with a fallen physical order to realize their only true hope is found in God the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. "I have come," Jesus said, "that people might have life, and have it more abundantly" (John 10:10). Peter tells us that the God-man, Jesus, came to reclaim God's rule over a fallen universe and to redeem made in-the-image of God men and women and boys and girls into the family of God. He died to pay sin's penalty and rose from the grave to reverse sin's curse. No matter what the shipwrecks of life have done to you, you can turn to Christ and find real hope, and the promise of eternal life to come will be free from the shipwrecks of this.
This is why Jesus' servant Paul could write this about our hope: "I consider the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us...the creation itself will be set free from its bondage and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God" (Romans 8:19,21).
Even the severest physical struggles we face will someday yield to the joy and life that is found in the life to come. When we belong to God by faith in Christ, we have the promise in this life that God "works all things together for the good, to them that love God" (Romans 8:28).
But secondly, what if you are "shipwrecked" by the difficulties which you have invited into your life because you've ignored God' wisdom and are suffering from the consequences of personal sin? What if you sinfully invited the "shipwreck" into your life?
You may remember that Jonah did that. God called him to "Go to Ninevah" and preach a message of God's impending judgment. Not wanting to give the Assyrians a chance at forgiveness, Jonah fled the other way, in a boat, headed west to Tarshish. In the Mediterranean sea, the storm came and the boat was about to be shipwrecked. The sailors had to throw the disobedient prophet overboard, only then to be swallowed by a large fish (yep, it's possible).
Jonah's "shipwreck" had been self-imposed. The solution? Personal repentance. "I called to the Lord out of my distress, and He answered me; out of the belly of Sheol, I cried, and He heard my voice" (Jonah 2:2).
God hears a broken voice that comes from a repentant heart. He hears. He forgives. And He can rescue from the shipwreck.
That abundant life Jesus promised can be had when someone humbly calls from floating on the plank.
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