St. John Studies

Time after time Dr. Willard tells us to go to the Bible to get a word from God.

Of course this raises a question. If we want to hear God and we would like to hear God’s voice, how can we hear a voice from a page?

Well, he is not talking about just “reading” the Bible. He is talking about God “seizing” him as he is reading the Bible.

How do we read the Bible?

Let’s be honest; often we just call out words as we are asked to read scripture in public. Sometimes we may read the Bible because of a commitment to read it through in a certain amount of time.  Both of those types of reading are not what he is talking about.

Do we read, think and even meditate on God’s word?

Maybe not.

Dr. Willard describes his experience: “I find myself addressed, caught up in all the individuality of my concrete existence by something beyond me.” This is the power that he is talking about when the Bible seizes him.

Is this an audible voice?

A couple of nights ago, my wife questioned me about an experience I had nineteen years ago. I was in a horribly tense situation and I was seriously crying out to God for help.  I had never really done that before but I was in a mess.  I had lost all hope.  My world was turned upside down and I did not know where to turn.

I cried out for an answer and I felt I heard an audible voice. I felt that it was God.

She said, “If I was with you, could I have heard God’s voice?”

The answer is no. The voice was for me.  I was in serious need of an answer and He gave it to me.  I don’t believe she could have heard God’s audible voice on that day.

Most of the time, for me and others,  God’s voice is a thought or a perception and in the reading of God’s word, that is probably what happens when God “seizes” Dr. Willard from the Bible.

You may think that he is a special man; a scholar of the Bible and the fact that he is gives him special insight into the meaning of the Bible. He disputes that.  All a person needs is to be open to God as your read and be humble as you ask God to expose His message to you in your reading.

This attitude is so helpful because we need frequent exposure to the Bible for four reasons:

1.The Bible is available to all of us 24/7. When we are “in the Bible,” we have a “computer terminal in place, from which we can communicate, act and interact with God in His work.” The beauty of finding God’s voice in the Bible is “direct, daily kingdom access for all believers” [Willard, 185].

2.We need a source of “confidence, comfort and peace” from time to time. Dr. Willard knows that as human beings we all go through hard times, stresses, upsets [the list goes on and on.  The reading of God’s word can calm us down as it sends us to a more peaceful state of mind.

3.Protection from mad religionists and legalists is a further advantage of the Bible’s “open line.” People have their hidden agendas, some folks want to try to manipulate others using God’s word.  Certainly we can point to “religious leaders” who have benefitted from twisting God’s word for personal gain.  The eighties saw Jim and Tammy Baker.  In the nineties, we saw Jimmy Swaggert.  In 2006, Ted Haggard suffered from his indiscretions.  The list goes on and on as people are caught in their efforts to speak one way and live another.  Ready access to God’s Word is a protection against a manipulator.  Ready access to God’s Word can also protect us from a legalist who makes us feel we are not working our way to heaven; these people put more guilt on good Christians because they are the ones who are making up the rules [can anyone say Pharisee?].  We all fall short from the legalist’s point of view.

4.The Bible can give us a “realization of a biblical quality of life.” Dr. Willard cites examples of the sons of Jesse and  famous Bible personage King David,  and makes the case that we need the Bible to relate to these people from another time.  Without the Bible as our reference, understanding their lives would be a mystery.  God has them in the Bible for us to learn from their lives, for us to figure out their impulses.

Before we get too caught up in searching for an audible voice from God, maybe it is better to go to our “computer terminal”.

Think of your Bible as God’s permanent address, “the telephone installed so we can take the heavenly orders and participate in decisions as we do kingdom business” [Willard, 185].

Hearing God  is about just that; hearing from our Lord and Savior.

Does Dr. Willard acknowledge other voices?

Yes he does…he acknowledges that Satan has a voice too.

In my life I have heard that voice.

Have you?

I have friends who refuse to believe that Satan exists.  I have one friend who got angry when a discussion of Satan came up.  He left the discussion.

Is he real?

Dr. Willard seems to think so.  He states “Satan…will speak in our heart once he sees he no longer holds us in his hand.”

What do we do when this happens?

First of all acknowledge that this is really happening.  Turning your back on evil will not defeat evil.  Joking about evil will not defeat evil [the “devil made me do it”].

What happens when this happens?

You have a thought or perception and it is not from God.

Is it some manifestation of Satan in the form of an evil figure?  No it is just a thought or perception…but it is opposite of the thoughts and perceptions of God.

As Christians we must be ready to identify this voice.  The appropriate term may be “discern.”  The dictionary definition of discern is  “to perceive by the sight or some other sense or by the intellect; see, recognize, or apprehend.”  This is something that happens over time as a Christian develops a strong sense of God, through study of the Scripture, attending church or hanging out with other intelligent Christians.

New Christians may have problems with discernment.  They just don’t have enough experience with God to know His principles.

As a child I was told by my parents about the concept of conscience.  That was a helpful concept, a helpful lesson.  You know the story.  The angel is on one shoulder telling you to do the right thing.  The devil is on the other shoulder telling you to do the wrong thing.  The devil is red with pointed ears, carrying a pitchfork and he has a tail with a pointed arrow tip on it.  It was a story and some may have thought it funny but underneath the story is a serious message.

Satan wants us to listen to him.

Just because we are  believers, we are not immune to the powers of Satan.  We are fallible.   Dr. Willard says “Our walk with the Lord does not exempt us from the possibility of error, even in our experienced discernment of what His voice is saying.”

We can fall to evil.

When I see a person who performs some action that I don’t approve of and I think horrible judgmental thoughts, that is not the voice of God working in me.   When I say something to my spouse that is not positive, that is not the voice of God working in me.  When I  pass along information about another person to someone and I don’t have the whole story, that act is not of God.  I could go on and on but you get the point.

I am far from perfect.

I am subject to fallibility.

Some would say, “I wish I weren’t so fallible”.

But that would put us in the garden with Adam and Eve wouldn’t it?  The world would be perfect and we would never tempted.  We have a flawless relationship with God.  He loves us; we love Him and we know no wrong.

But God has put sin into our lives.  The human element gives us the power to choose.  It is in the choosing that we demonstrate our love for God, for He knows we have other choices that we can make.

Jesus was tempted and He successfully resisted temptation.  In Matthew 4, Jesus encountered Satan at a time of dire need.  He was terribly hungry and in need of food.  He could have turned stones into bread but He had a laser vision of what God wanted from Him.  He had a special Divine Connection.  Dr. Willard says “He refused to allow Himself to be turned away from learning that God’s word is sufficient for His every need.”

If Satan is an active force in this world, what does all of this mean for us?

We need to make the best choices we can as we make positive responses to the voice of God.  We need to be in charge of our own growth or spiritual formation if you will.  What this means is we need to seek after the Lord and the more we seek Him, the more we will get to know Him.  This concept of discernment does not happen overnight.  It happens over time as we spend more time with our Bibles, in Bible studies and going to church.  The more you have a hunger for God, the more you will be able to discern.

As Christians we want to hear the voice that offers us the bread of life; we want to ignore the voice that destroys.

“Prosperity theology (sometimes referred to as the prosperity gospel, the health and wealth gospel, or the gospel of success) is a Christian religious doctrine that financial blessing is the will of God for Christians, and that faith, positive speech, and donations (possibly to Christian ministries) will increase one’s material wealth.”*

Dr. Willard states that in recent years, “innumerable spokespeople for God have offered ways we can use God and His Bible as guarantees of health, success and wealth.”

In short, Dr. Willard is not enamored with people who preach the prosperity gospel.

It is more than that though; he is not willing to say that Christian believers will be exempt from trouble.  Job 14:1  “Mortals, born of woman, are of few days and full of trouble.” 2 Timothy 3:12  “In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.”  Here are two Scriptures that say otherwise about the topic of trouble.

In short, Dr. Willard is not enamored with people who preach that Christians won’t go through trouble.

No one bypasses problems.  Dr. Willard refuses to call belief in God a “spiritual panacea”.  In fact,  he goes further and says “any voice that promises total exemption from suffering and failure is most certainly not God’s voice.”

However, we do live life and work through problem after problem with a source that can help us with our trouble.  That source is God.

But Christians go through the “mill of life” just like anyone else.

Before I became a believer, I watched Christian people a lot.  I watched them go through trouble.  Now as I think back on what I saw, I wondered about their demeanor.

How can they continue to carry on?

How can they function in their work?

How can they have some sense of hope?

The answer to all three questions?…

They were not of this world.  They lived in this world but they were experiencing a different life, a spiritual life that was connected to an eternal power.

I have had my share of trouble for the past nineteen years.  I have not always had it easy as some severe problems have showed up on my doorstep.  Early on, I felt the need to grow through my troubles.

What does this mean?

Trouble does not last forever.  It passes.   Some like to quote the Bible and tell us that “This too shall pass” regarding trouble but that phrase is not in the Bible.  It has a grain of truth in it though because trouble does not last forever.  As time passes, trouble does too.

Trouble teaches us hard lessons.   Some people repeat the same mistake over and over and they never learn.  I am one of those people that  when I touch a hot stove, I don’t have to touch it again and again.  I remember not to touch it after I get burned once.

Trouble allows us to help others.  When we experience trouble, that experience can be turned into valuable advice that we can share with others.  I have had problems in my past that uniquely equip me to help with problems that other people have.  I am not proud of my problems but I can speak from first-hand experience about some pitfalls that others may have found.  I have been there.

As Christians, we know that we will all have a time to experience no trouble.  That time will be when we go to heaven.  We know we have glory awaiting us in heaven and we must ever keep our eyes upon that goal no matter what we have to face in this world.

But while we are here on earth, it is important to remember that God does not promise you prosperity if you give to a preacher on tv, promising that you need to sew a seed for Jesus.  The seed will cause you to reap a bountiful harvest a hundredfold more than the seed you have sewn.

It is important to remember that God will never promise a life that is exempt from trouble.  I heard a Christian say, “if trouble is not present in your life right now it was recently and if not recently, it will be here soon.”  Problems are just a part of living.

In the context of Hearing God, if you think God is telling you these kinds of things, think again.

He’s not.

*From Wikipedia

Mark 8:35 “those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for My sake, and for the sake of the Gospel will save it.”

What in the world does that mean?

Truly for many this is one of the most esoteric passages in the Bible.  Jesus is speaking after predicting his own death and after rebuking Peter with the famous words “Get behind me Satan.”  He calls a crowd around him along with his disciples and talks to them about losing their lives.

Do we take the passage literally?   Is Jesus advocating suicide?

Of course He is not.

He is talking about dedication to Jesus, to God and to the Gospel.  If you dedicate your life to God [or lose your life] you will save your life.

This is a very important idea that is being expressed in God’s word.  This is “something you can take to the bank”.  This is God speaking through His Son.  It is an example of what Dr. Willard calls “a principle” of the Bible.

Too often people who say they study Scripture get wrapped up in the incidentals of Scripture.  Incidentals are specific instances of Scripture that apply to particular people in particular instances.  Do they apply to all people?  Are they general pronouncements?  No they are not.

In my Sunday School class we have been studying The Grave Robber, a focus on seven miracles of Jesus.   Recently we had a class on the miracle of the lame man at the Baths of Bathesda.  Maybe as we look at this miracle we can get insight about what Willard means about incidentals and principles.

For thirty-eight years an invalid had gone to the Baths, known for their healing powers.  He certainly needed a healing.  Superstition said that when the baths bubbled, the time was ripe to jump in and receive a healing.  The problem the invalid had was he could not get off his mat to get to the pool in time.  He was lame and had been for his whole life. Others jumped ahead of him.  When Jesus arrived on the scene, the invalid asked if Jesus could help him get into the waters as they are stirred.   Instead Jesus said “Pick up your mat and walk.”

Of course I am using this story to illustrate the difference between principles of the Bible and incidentals of the Bible.  What is the incidental?  Jesus is violating a Pharisaical rule that one must not work on the Sabbath.  This day was the Sabbath.  Jesus was telling the man to “pick up his mat” and “do work.”   This was providing Jesus’ detractors just another reason for Him to meet His death at the hands of the Jewish religious leaders, another “incidental” violated.

But dig deeper about what has happened.  What did this poor man need?  He needed a healing.  One of my Sunday School class members said it so well:  “Grandpa told me that when the ox is in the ditch, you had better get it out.”  He means certain circumstances supersede the incidental rules.

This is one of the meanings of the story of the invalid.  Jesus did what needed to be done.  Did He break a rule?  He did.  Should He have broken the rule?  You answer that one.   He was faced with a man who had been on a mat for 38 years waiting for a healing.  He healed the man.  He told the man to pick up his mat because he did not need to lay on it any more.  Maybe it was symbolic of his healing.

What’s the problem?  The problem is with the people who focus on the incidentals of scripture.

I have been writing about the words of Scripture lining up with what we are about to do.  Perhaps we feel God is giving us direction.  Perhaps God has spoken a word to you.  You have your doubt.  So you turn to Scripture for confirmation.

What if you start looking for incidentals?

You are probably going to be confused.

Dr. Willard says we need to focus on principles “something that wells up from the whole Bible and the totality of the experience of God’s people through history.”

Principles are the big issues that God and Jesus have expressed in Scripture, not the issues that will have us as Christians “lost in the weeds.”

Let me end on a principle that Dr. Willard cites, one of the most significant principles in the whole Bible [Mark 12: 30-31] “ Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”

Big idea?

It is.

Challenge for all of us to obey?

Oh yeah.

A principle to take to the bank?

You betcha.

*I hate to use the expression “take to the bank” but I think it communicates that you can rely on this idea.  That is my intention.

A very significant part of any message is the content.

Communication theorists state that all messages break down to two basic parts:  the content level and the relationship level.

The relationship level of a message is the part of the message that includes the powerful feeling dimension of the message.  Examples of the relationship-level factors include how the message is delivered [the tone], other nonverbal factors like facial expression, closeness of the communicator and even factors like what your relationship is to the person sending the message.  People who study how humans talk to each other will tell you that the relationship-level of a message is so significant that it can overpower the content of a message.

Let me give you an example of the power of this element.  I once knew a man who had a deep baritone voice.   Everything he said sounded authoritative.  I knew this guy so well that I knew he lacked intelligence.  In fact, he lacked intelligence in many areas of his life.  But he spoke in a commanding manner and usually got his way.  The relationship level of his message got results.

But what about content?   I have written about the “weight of authority” of God’s voice and I have written about the “spirit” of God’s voice.   Those factors may be akin to the relationship level of human communication but what about the content of God’s messages to us?

Literally, the content is the information that is being conveyed in the message.

Sadly, the content part is often overlooked as we react to the other factors.

But should it be overlooked?

Of course not.

Dr. Willard states “The content of a word that is truly from God will always conform to and be consistent with the truths about God’s nature and kingdom that are made clear in the Bible.”  Dr. Willard cites Pastor Charles Stanley who is even more direct: “God’s voice will never tell us to engage in any activity or relationship that is inconsistent with the Holy Scriptures.”

What if you are angry and you hear a voice in your mind telling you to talk badly about another?  That’s not God.  What if you are really needing money and you are in a position to take some money from someone and not be detected?  A small voice says “take it.”  That’s not  God’s voice.   You are having marital troubles and you are very sad about your relationship with your spouse.  You hear a voice that says leave your spouse.  That’s not God.

I hope I have not upset you but I feel strongly about the content of God’s messages.  We truly do not pay enough attention to the literal message that we think comes from God.

What happens to throw us off track is the interpretation of these messages?  We think we want something and we convince ourselves that we just have to have it.

Put another way, this is called rationalization.

This can cause serious problems in a person’s life.  What we want is not necessarily what God wants for us.  Yet we want it anyhow because we are so self-centered. We twist and turn our desires around in so many directions that we convince ourselves that we just have to have it.  Yes, we may even tell others that God has spoken a word to us.

What is the major factor that guides us in the content of a God message?

It is something that is consistent with the Christian worldview expressed in God’s word.

Ephesians 4:29-31 “Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear. Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice.”

The Bible is full of verses telling us not to speak ill of others.

Exodus 20:15 “You shall not steal”  Enough said.  That’s pretty clear isn’t it?  That voice urging us to take something is probably from Satan.

1 Corinthians 7:10-11  “To the married I give this charge (not I, but the Lord): the wife should not separate from her husband (but if she does, she should remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband), and the husband should not divorce his wife.”  God would not recommend that you leave your spouse.  That is your desire, not His.

In closing, it is impossible to know the entire Bible and say that you cannot find some part that will support an ungodly desire that you have.  That is called “proof-texting” which is not a realistic way to study the content of the Bible.  Pulling a verse out of context to support your position is not good.  That’s why Dr. Willard says we need to be such good students of God’s word that we can make good judgments about the “dimension” of the content of the Bible.

If one knows Scripture well enough that he or she can interpret messages from God based on the overall knowledge, in most cases that will be good enough.

When it comes to hearing from God, let us not focus so much on relationship factors that we make mistakes about God’s will for us.

Think about what God is telling us to do…the content of His message.

Dr. Willard says that the “weight of authority” is the first element of the voice of God.

Then he states that the next element is the spirit.

Spirit is a tough thing to quantify, tough to describe, tough to explain but that is what comprises God’s voice, Part 2.

What is spirit?

He uses the words “exalted peacefulness,” “confidence,” “joy,” “sweet reasonableness” and “goodwill.”

Let’s explore those a bit.

Lack of peacefulness is something we all have from time to time.  When we don’t have a “solid” feeling about life, it is troubling.  Sometimes lack of peace is associated with worry about an uncertain future.  Sometimes lack of peacefulness is caused by not knowing what to do or experiencing indecision.   Sometimes lack of peace can be caused by dissatisfaction with our behaviors.  You get the point.  There is some reason for turmoil in your life.  I have had moments of turmoil but I have also had times when the turmoil was totally erased by God.   A few days ago, I was in transit to an event where I had to participate in multiple things and I did not know how I would do all that I had to do.  I was extremely anxious.  I was talking to God alone in my truck and then I felt sudden peace.  At that moment, I knew that all was going to be ok.  And folks, it was ok.  I made it through the day very well [thanks be to God].

Confidence is a misused word.  Confident people draw on lots of sources from new age thinkers to some “get rich quick” seminar leaders.  But can honest, humble confidence come from God? It surely can.  My spouse has an arrogance meter.  By that, I mean that she senses when I am a little too “full of myself” and she “helps” me adjust myself.  I don’t mean to feel confident by what I do all by myself; that is a prideful man’s trap.  I have to admit that I sometimes slip into that frame of mind.  I desire for my confidence to come from God instead of man because it will be based on something substantial.  God will allow me to do a lot more than I can do by myself.  It is “right-minded” to have confidence sourced from God because we want to do our best work and we want to have reasonable, humble attitude, not an arrogant attitude.

Joy is another thing that characterizes the spirit voice of God says Dr. Willard.   It means excitement about life.  You see a future challenge and look forward to it.  You have a “can do attitude” even in the face of obstacles.  I will be honest; joy is infectious.  People may show interest in the negative; I am convinced that news organizations lead with negative news just to get our attention.  The term “breaking news” is now so common and when you see it on the screen, it means something negative.  Newspapers may be dying but they are going out using the negative.  Bad news dominates the front page usually.  But just show some joy in your life.  People will gravitate to you because they really want that.  I don’t believe that humans want to be miserable.  They want to enjoy life.  They just don’t know how.  The key is living a God-led life.  That will bring joy.

Have you ever been around a person you would describe as having sweet reasonableness?  What does that mean?  After doing some research, I believe it means moderation.  People who have sweet reasonableness have a spirit of fairness and gentleness about them.  Today, I am afraid that extreme is the word of the day.  Politicians make extreme statements to garner attention from the news media.  Religious groups carry out extreme acts to terrorize the general public.  Even churches do extreme things to put their message into society [ever hear of Westboro Baptist Church from Topeka Kansas]?  A person with sweet reasonableness is not extreme.

Goodwill is the last word that characterizes the voice of God.  Goodwill is a seminal idea in our faith.  Luke 2:14 states “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men”, a foundational idea that is expressed from the very birth of Jesus Christ.  Jesus’ whole life is a study of goodwill.  God does not mean harm to us when He speaks to us.  He wants to show goodwill to us and wants us to pass along goodwill to others.

Dr. Willard writes, “The sweet, calm spirit of God’s voice carries over to the lives of those who speak with His voice”  He cites examples of a man who heard the voice of God tell him that he neededjkmnkm to go back to school.  The man described the experience as a word “spoken straight and strong right into my spirit…. I knew it was the Lord.”

It was not a demanding, urgent voice.

It was a peaceful, confident, joyful, sweetly reasonable voice, a voice that exhibited goodwill for the listener and for all the people he came into contact with.

What a wonderful God we have, with a wonderful spirit-filled voice.

When I was a speech teacher in college, I spent a little time toward the end of the semester talking about the human voice.   I always joked with my students about how there were so many other things to work on that I did not have time to spend on the voice. However, the voice is an important part of hearing a message.

Dr. Willard speaks of three factors in God’s voice that we need to attend to.

Today we are going to talk about one of those, the weight of authority or what I am going to call vocal quality.

Vocal quality on a basic human level is the sound that a person makes with the vocal equipment that God has given them.   We make sounds depending on certain physiological factors like nasal passages, vocal folds, and lung capacity.  The mouth cavity has an impact, especially how we manipulate the tongue, jaw and lips.  We can alter the quality of our voices on purpose.   For example, we can have the guttural sound of a pirate with manipulation of our vocal equipment.  As well, we can sound like an insecure person through the use of pitch, speech speed and a halting delivery.

But when we are normally talking, we have our own distinct vocal quality.

What would you think God would sound like?

Dr. Willard says God’s voice has the “weight of authority.”

What does that mean to a speech teacher?  If I wanted to show authority in my voice, I would do three things.  1. I would talk at a slower pace.  A slow pace shows confidence and thoughtfulness whereas a fast pace may mean excitement and lack of thought.  2. I would talk with a low pitch.  A lower pitch shows a person who is in control whereas a high pitch may indicate more lack of control.  3. I would speak at a steady cadence rather than a halting, unsure speed.

Some may argue with my descriptors, but a policeman or figure of authority would want to exude authority, not insecurity.  They would want to exude seriousness because they expect a response.  They would want to demand attention rather than encourage a person to ignore their commands.

Jesus spoke with authority to those He addressed in His earthly ministry.  Dr. Willard cites Matthew 7:29 “for He taught them as one having authority, and not as their scribes.”  When I was in the business of creating scholarly writing in my university classes, I tried to learn as much as I could about my topic but my main authority rested on the expert sources that I cited in my footnotes.  My authority rested on others who knew my subject.

When you turn to Jesus’ words in the New Testament He did not reference others as He spoke His words.  He had the power of God behind Him.  His words had the “weight of authority.”  Dr. Willard describes the people who spent time with Jesus.  [They] “left the presence of Jesus with heads and hearts full of thoughts and convictions that He had authored in them through the power of God’s voice and word with which He spoke.”

I find it fascinating that Dr. Willard draws from John Wesley’s first sermon to describe the qualitative voice of God.  “How, I pray, do you distinguish day from night?  How do you distinguish light from darkness; or the light of a star, or a glimmering taper, from the light of the noonday sun?  Is there not an inherent, obvious, essential difference between the one and the other?  And do you not immediately and directly perceive that difference?…. In like manner, there is an inherent, essential difference between spiritual light and spiritual darkness…and that light wherewith the Sun of Righteousness shines upon our heart and that glimmering light which arises from ‘sparks of our own kindling.’”

In my experience, as with Dr. Willard, I have become more aware of God working within me as I have felt His word affect me and others around me.  Keep in mind that when God reveals something to you it is a special revelation for you and you alone. When I have revealed God’s words to me to others, something has been lost in translation.  That’s ok.   The word was not for others; it was for me and me alone.

I am going to close with a quote that Dr. Willard uses to describe God’s word of authority.  From Adele Rogers St. John: “You can mistake rhinestones for diamonds, but you can never mistake a diamond for a rhinestone.”

When you hear that voice with its weight of authority, you will know.  When you act on that command, you will know…

God’s guidance.

We sometimes look for a formula, a means of assurance, some notion that we are doing things right.

I hate to write this, but it is true.

We are about to enter a season of the year, a season that celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ.  That should be the focus of our attention.

Sadly sometimes it is not.

One of the many distractions that take away our focus is the desire to start the New Year with a healthier body.  Get ready, the television will be flooded with ads for weight-loss products, gym offers and countless miracle exercise machines that “guarantee” results.  You will look like the buff young man or the fitness model if you can just commit 20 minutes per day.  We look for a secret formula.

Dr. Willard states that there are even formulas for hearing the voice of God too.  Wouldn’t you know it?

One of these is called the “Three Lights”.

The formula works like this.  We are not supposed to believe that we have a true communication from God until three things line up together: the circumstances of our life, our impression of the Holy Spirit and passages of support from the Bible.

Some may see this as a formula that assures that God is speaking to us and that is a good thing.

Others may think it is just confusing.

Let me get personal. I hope that is ok.

I believe God’s voice helps me to discern when I am supposed to act.  Many of my actions are small and to many people, very inconsequential. However the voice or the “feeling” is there and I act on it without consulting Scripture or questioning my Holy Spirit.

This past week I had a visit from my son and all the while he was here, I kept looking for God to direct me about what to do to enjoy his visit.  He lives in Chicago and I don’t see him much and he is not going to be at our home for Christmas.  He is going to his in-law’s home in a foreign country.

I prayed about his visit, asking God to help me enjoy all the moments I had with him, asking God to help me adjust my schedule in a way that I could make him feel welcome and loved.  I even asked God to help me prepare food that would please him and give him and my wife opportunities to enjoy time together without the stress of cooking.

It was the best time I have ever had with my son.

God seemed to help me to act in accordance with my prayers.

Did I consult Scripture?  I didn’t.  Did I question my Holy Spirit about the authenticity of God’s voice?  I didn’t.  Were there circumstances that allowed me to act on the situation that was before me?  There were, and I did act on those circumstances.

I give you this critique of the “Three Lights” to say that I can’t imagine a person waiting until three things in life “line up together”.  That can cause us to be frozen when we need to act.  That can cause us to be indecisive while we wait for the perfect moment.

What about the young person who is waiting for the “Three Lights” to line up about taking a job?

What about the man or woman who is waiting for the “Three Lights” to line up about starting school?

What about the person who is waiting for confirmation about the person they are going to marry?

Is there a possibility that opportunities will pass a person by?  Yes, I am afraid so.

In my experience, I can feel God’s presence in some of the things I do.  When I have that feeling, I think I need to act and then watch the flow.  If it is there, I will continue to feel like things are working out right.  I sense that I am doing the right thing.  I don’t have to have a formula to tell me when to act (or slow me down).

Dr. Willard states “when God speaks and we recognize the voice as His voice, we do so because our familiarity with that voice enables us to recognize it.  We do not recognize it because we are good at playing a guessing game about how the occasions through which His direction comes do or do not match up with each other.”

If Dr. Willard is going to reveal to us how to recognize the voice of God in Chapter 8, it will not be through a formula.

Maybe we need assurance, maybe we need a quick fix, but maybe God prefers action based on faith.

Here we are in Chapter 8, entitled “Recognizing the Voice of God”.

I began posting on Hearing God on August 24^th with the first post “Meet our Author Dallas Willard”.

Since then it has been a wild ride as Dr. Willard has discussed numerous aspects of hearing God from “Guidelines for Hearing from God” to “The Still Small Voice.”

As we near the end of the long journey (there is a Chapter 9 and an Epilogue) we wonder when he will really talk to us about The Voice.

Maybe in Chapter 8?

I find it interesting that human beings question if the voice of God is authentic or not.  Dr. Willard cites voice recognition in nature in Chapter 8.  Chapter 8 begins with John 10: 2-4, 14 and 27,  when John talks of the shepherd and the sheep.  The shepherd calls his own sheep by name and they follow him because they know his voice.  Jesus is the Good Shepherd, our Good Shepherd.  He knows us and we know Him.  Of course, if we are His good sheep, we follow Him [my paraphrase].

When I was growing up, I lived my first 17 years on a farm.  My Dad held many jobs over the years but his foremost passion was his job as farmer.  He had hogs and he had cattle (no sheep).  As a boy I was always amazed at Dad’s animal calls.    He had a whhhhooooooooo! sound that he used to call his animals for feeding.  He also had a sound that he used for directing them around in the fields.  The amazing part was his ability to command the animals.  They knew what to do when he made his sounds.  As a kid, I tried to make my own animal sounds but they never responded the way they responded to Dad.

How do they know what to do?  Why won’t another person’s voice work?

Because experience taught them to recognize my father’s voice.

What does this have to do with us?

How will we recognize the voice of God?  What if the voice we hear is the voice of Satan?  What if the voice we hear is our own self speaking what we want out loud?

What can we do to determine if we have really heard the voice of God?

Dr. Willard states that sometimes it is obvious.  If the voice is telling us to do something contrary to God’s word, then it is not God that is speaking to us.  He cites an example of worshipping an idol or coveting something.  Those two things are obviously violations of the Ten Commandments.

We also have to be aware that people can use “proof texting” against us, which is a fancy way of saying someone is quoting the Bible out of context.  When that is done, a person can use the Bible to prove all kinds of things that are contrary to the teaching of God.

As we have seen in the previous post “Confession—Let’s Get Honest About Bible Reading”, Dr. Willard asks us to apply the Bible to our lives. He does that again in Chapter 8.  The words of the Bible “have to be applied to us as individuals and to our individualized circumstances, or they remain no part of our lives.”

“What is my life like since this is true and how shall I speak and act because of this?”

Those are the questions he implores us to ask as we read God’s words.

He also states that those of us that have been given “new birth” in Christ can learn by experience to hear God as He speaks.

But there is a catch.

Campbell Morgan states that “the doctrine of the inner light is not sufficiently taught” [from his book God’s Perfect Will ].

Dr. Willard says we need assistance.  We don’t automatically know who is speaking to us just because we have a born again experience.

Is Dr. Willard going to provide that assistance?  Is he going to help us to understand the voice of God that is there for us to hear?

“Without qualified help, which works alongside our own desire to learn and readiness to cooperate, God’s direct word will most likely remain a riddle or at best a game of theological charades.”

My prayer is that Chapter 8 will be a seminal chapter for us as we seek to hear God’s voice in our lives.  Dr. Willard says that today there is great confusion about what it means to walk with God and where there is confusion; “evil impulses” can move in and sweep us away.

To be a man is to question if God’s voice is authentic or not.  Maybe we would be better off if we were animals.   We would follow and not have so many questions.

Dr. Willard ends Chapter 7 with a very surprising recommendation for reading the Bible.  He states “the eager use of the Bible leads naturally and tangibly to the mind of God and the person of Christ.”

But what gets in the way of Bible reading?

Why don’t more Christians read the Bible regularly?

Part of the answer is found in attitude.   We think it is so big and written in a way that makes it hard to understand.  Well, it is a big book compared to a short, easy to read magazine article.  It is often written in a way that is hard to understand until you get a good version that is easier to read but even then, the context of the Bible is tough.  Our culture does not understand the culture of the Middle East and add to that the writing is from a time thousands of years ago for the Old Testament and two thousand years ago for the New Testament.

Yet Dr. Willard says that Bible reading leads to the mind of God.

We should read it.

I like his easy going method of reading.  We should not read the Bible to impress others.  What is your goal?  Do you want to be a scholar of the Bible?  Do you want to show off your Bible knowledge to others?  Some fall into the trap of trying to read the Bible in one year?  Why do that?  Is that to feel pride about your accomplishment?

Dr. Willard clears all that away, the obsessive compulsive attitude of the legalist, the individual who wants to work themselves to heaven.

What is our goal for our reading?

He said it above, I have paraphrased it once and here it is again—to lead us to the mind of God.

1.Start with the passages that we are most familiar with and pray that God’s desire for His will for us will be revealed in those passages.  This is very different from many Bible teachers who say start with Romans or read passages in the Old Testament and alternate passages of the New Testament.  “Your aim must be only to nourish your soul on God’s Word for you” [Willard, 162].

2.Do not read a great deal at once.  It is better to think deeply about a few scriptures than skim over hundreds.  Again the idea is to meet God in the pages; not brag about how fast you tackled “God’s Book.”  Dr. Willard cites 2 Corinthians 3:6 “the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.”

3.Recognize that your chosen passage is where you will have a “holy meeting with God”.  Prayer is needed.  Pray that the spirit of God will bring you fully into the reality expressed in the Scriptures.    Dr. Willard recommends two questions that all readers need to ask:  “What is my life like since this is true and how shall I speak and act because of this?”

These questions lead to what Dr. Willard calls invocation and appropriation.  Invocation means what you think it means; we invoke God to make the passage a part of our lives.  We know the passage is true but now we ask Him to make it true for us.  Appropriation means that the statement that we have been reading becomes “a statement of fact about you.”

This reading of the Bible cannot be forced and it cannot be faked.  You want to find God in the Bible and you want God to move in your life.

This is an approach to Bible reading that is more about prayer over God’s Word than reading a certain number of pages, chapters or books of the Bible.

I was having a discussion about Christian faith the other day with a family member and I was shocked by what she said.  A man who was from another denomination visited her church and he kept coming back.  My family member expressed irritation by the habit the visitor had of always bringing his Bible with him.

I wondered why she was irritated.

Why would someone feel irritation about a man carrying around a Bible in church?

Then I thought, maybe that is where we are today in our relationship with the Bible.  We revere it but we don’t actually read it.  We may take it to church but maybe people would wonder why?

We need help.

We need to read our Bibles.

We need to remember that those pages lead us to the mind of God.