St. John Studies

Dr. Willard promises at the end of Chapter 3 that we will be getting into the nitty gritty of hearing from God in Chapter 4.

But…

He wants to make one more point before he begins.

“Indeed, if you call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding, and if you look for it as for silver and search for it as for hidden treasure, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God” [Proverbs 2: 3-5].

We must make sure that we understand God.

I found an interesting point or two on the “Christianity Net Website” about this topic. A human being trying to understand God is like a gnat trying to understand an Archangel.

Well that may be an exaggeration but you get the point.

What makes it hard?

According to “CN”, “As human beings, we are created – we don’t have our origins within ourselves, but because of someone else. And we are finite, whereas He is infinite. We are in time; He exists outside of it. To Him, every time is now and everything is possible, a mere expression of His will. By contrast, I can’t even prevent myself from doing the very things I know in my heart I don’t want to do. To say that humans and God are different is the ultimate understatement. No wonder we have a hard time understanding Him.”

The reasons we don’t understand God can go on and on but you know how hard it is…it’s hard.

Yet Dr. Willard says that hearing from God is based on our “correct general understanding of God and His ways.”

What help?

The Bible of course. However many people approach the Bible as a series of stories that are supposed to be meaningful. The Bible is more than that. It is a pathway to know God.

Still, many Christians struggle to understand the Old Testament and this is very believable. It is the story of God’s effort to contact man but the effort is basically through a “top-down” autocratic relationship. That is not to say that the God of the Old Testament was not benevolent from time to time but He could be judgmental from time to time too.

Then along comes Jesus, God’s Divine intercessor, God born into a human body, growing up and learning as a child, suffering and struggling just like all human beings do. This can be our best avenue to know God, but we still struggle.

I have been around a lot of Christians and it seems many of them want it “easy.” I hate to say this, but a truly hungry Christian is rare. Here are some things I see daily.

Adult Sunday School students who don’t read their lessons and come to class unprepared.

Adult Christians who thrive on study that is on a junior high level of reading.

Adults Christians who never open their Bible at all.

Don’t get me wrong, I believe God has to meet us where we are and then He will move us along. However, could you move yourself along a little bit? Commit to learning as much as you can. Make a habit of reading good Christian materials. Attend Sunday School and read the lessons and come prepared to discuss.

I sound fussy! My wife gets on me about this a lot, but as we enter this next section of Hearing God, Dr. Willard calls it an “intellectual and spiritual hard hat area” where many Christians may receive injury to their practical faith in God.

Don’t look for the easy; deal with the challenging.

Don’t be satisfied with comfort; study the tough ideas and experience real growth.

John Stott [many of you know he is one of my favorite authors] wrote a little book called Your Mind Matters. In his book he gives reasons why it is important for us to think: 1.God created us with minds 2.to understand God, we are going to have to think on the highest level we can 3.thinking renews the mind and we all need that from time to time 4.we are judged by our knowledge [on earth and in heaven].

So let’s do what Dr. Willard says we need to do: “Put on your hard hardhat, your hard nose and your best brains, and prayerfully dig in.”

To conclude Chapter 3, Dr. Willard talks about three mistaken interpretations of God’s Word. Even though I will draw heavily from the book, I want to discuss each of the three misinterpretations.

Let’s comment on the “message-a-minute view.” Some may think that God will tell you what to do every step of the way on your walk with Him but Willard says that God is unlikely to have that “constant” communication with us.

The problem: He wants us to make some choices on our own. He wants us to make our mistakes and learn from them.   Being a father myself, it is so hard to see a child goof things up but it is in the mistake that the lesson is learned. That has been my personal experience, as I violate a commandment, I suffer consequences.

What do I learn? I don’t want to do that again.

Dr. Willard says that God treats us “like a plant” and I know from personal experience that this is true. In growing things, you have to put them in the best condition that you can and you need to leave them alone. You can actually impede the growth process if you fiddle with the plant too much.

He says that too much direction can make robots of humans and that is not what God wants either. In working with humans, Dr. Willard states that God knows we work best as “unique” people who live in His glory. Could God give us moment by moment direction in our lives? Sure He could. “He could give us ten or a thousand messages a nanosecond” if He wanted. But what would be the purpose?

Choosing to live for God is much more significant than someone believing they have no control over their lives. They have to dedicate their life to God.

“I want to dedicate my life to God” is the statement that God wants to hear, that God wants to see.

The “it’s-all-in-the-Bible view” is erroneous too. Willard says it “is seriously misguided and very harmful.”

The fact of the matter: the challenges we have to face in life today are not all covered in the Bible.

Dr. Willard does say that the principles that we need to live a good life are in the Bible but the details about how life is to be lived are not and it is the details that we have to deal with in day to day life.

Will God give you the words you need to say to get a job? Maybe; maybe not. Will God tell you the prayer you are supposed to pray before the church? Maybe; maybe not. Will God tell you what to say to bring a person to Christ? Maybe; maybe not.

It is foolhardy to depend on God’s direction for all the details of life by turning to the Bible. Some can begin to use the Bible like a superstitious object. Dr. Willard uses the example of the Pastor who feels that your birth date will lead you to the verse that casts light on what you need to do. Another instance is the person who plops the Bible open and blindly puts their finger on the page, to a particular verse that is meant for them.

Dr. Willard calls this Biblical roulette. Carrying out acts based on these random visits to scripture can cause hurt, harm and maybe cause irreparable damage due to poor decision-making.

The “what-ever comes view” is the third mistaken view of God’s communication.

So many people who are Christian say that whatever happens is the will of God.

This view assumes that God is in control of everything on earth. I hate to disagree but often man interjects his will on earth and we have to deal with the effects of man’s will and not God’s. Some would argue that God can control everything and does, but the choice factor comes into play again.

If God is in total control, there is no role for human choice. We have no choice but to love God, but where does that leave God? He has “robot worshippers” as His kingdom.

Wouldn’t God rather have people who choose Him over other distractions? If God has total control, man has no responsibility because God has done it all for man.

To be honest, some of the horrendous things that happen in life today don’t need to be blamed on God.

The blame needs to fall exactly where it should.

Man.

Where is Dr. Willard leading us by discussing these three erroneous views?

The conversational view of interacting with God.

The view he will be discussing in the remainder of his book.

It is the conversation we want to have, a conversation with God.

“Do not be like a horse or mule, without understanding, whose temper must be curbed with bit or bridle.” [Psalm 32:9]

Dr. Willard* uses this Psalm to get us thinking about our role in the process of receiving a word from God.

Willard has talked about blind faith, about corporate sensing of the presence of God, and about the Divine effects of God’s word, the miraculous effect of His word on peoples’ actions.

But what if there is more?

I know that many Christians are content with what they have, saying that God has provided all that they need. I understand that. At times I feel like my blessings are extremely bountiful. Also, some Christian people believe that suffering is what we have to do on this earth and death and eternal life are our only true reward.

But look closely at these words quoted from the book by Brother Lawrence [my editing] “An actual presence of God; or, to speak better, a habitual, silent or secret conversation of the soul with God, which often cause me joys and raptures inwardly, and sometimes also outwardly, so great that I am forced to use means to moderate them and prevent their appearance to others.”

What is he talking about here?

Pure joy. The knowledge that he is on his right path toward God, the Father.

He is talking about more.

Here on earth, while we are alive.

Dr. Willard says that God can speak to us in a conversational relationship, “individually as it is appropriate—which is only to be expected between persons who know one another, care about each other and are engaged in common enterprises.”

To anyone reading this, this is personal development.   This is God giving you what you need to make you what He intends you to be.

How can this be?

It can be because we are humans with minds. Genesis 1:26: “So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.”

In short, God is not guiding some robot when he communicates to you and me. He is guiding a person who has a will.

We have the ability to choose and we should never forget that. This ability sets us apart from other organisms on earth.

We are unique, we have our own understanding, we have our own deliberation and we make our own decisions.

We can govern our own lives.

We can also experience more.

But here is the “catch.” We have to listen for a word from God and after we get it we have to obey.

Sounds simple but today it is not.

Listening is hard because it takes attending. We live in an ADHD world [my apologies to those who suffer]. There is too much going on. When I taught speech communication, I spent time trying to get students to grasp the need for attention-getters in speeches. Why does the audience need attention getters? Because they are straying far away from the speaker, paying attention to 5, 6 or 7 other things going on in the environment or in their mental world.

God needs to get our full attention. Too often He does not have it. We are ADHD sufferers trying to exist with too much information coming at us.   I likened it to having 5, 6 or 7 television sets on in front of you with good programs on each set. You want to watch all seven programs but you can only really watch one.

One set, the biggest set, the loudest set needs to be the God tv set. He is number one. The other sets might as well be background noise.

Hurdle number one is attending.

Hurdle number two is acting. If we attend to the Word, what are we going to do with it? Letting it set there is doing us no good.   God wants us to make a move. God wants us to take action. God wants us to change.

Oh no!

That would be too hard.

Yet without action, the Word does you no good.  1 John 3:18 “Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.” James 2:17 “In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.”

Let’s say this happens: God speaks and you act. You do what He has asked you to do.

What is next?

Joy and rapture…

Sounds simple but it is not. I wish I could count the number of times when I felt that I should do something yet I did not do it. I wish I could count the days when I was too overwhelmed and did not take the time to think, to listen, to even put myself in a position to receive a word from God.

I must remember that [in the words of Dr. Willard] “We are led by—guided by—reasonable, intelligible communication, not by blind impulse, force or sensation alone.”

Pure joy. The knowledge that I am on my right path toward God, the Father.

That is where I want to go…

Right now.

*author of the book Hearing God

Google “blind faith.”

You see two definitions: 1. complete trust or confidence in someone or something 2. strong belief in God or in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual apprehension rather than proof.

In my opinion those two definitions show the essence of the problem with blind faith for the Christian.

Complete trust or confidence is a good thing.

Don’t we admire it, the man or woman who takes on a task for God and maybe they don’t have the skills, the materials or the money to do the task. But they do it anyway. They have blind faith, complete faith that the Lord will provide.

This kind of faith is inspirational. I read a Christian classic, Experiencing God by Henry Blackaby a few years ago where the theme was “God will provide”. Over and over, Christians believed that God would supply their needs and over and over, the check arrived in the mail just in time. I was amazed at the number of illustrations of blind faith. Believers felt they had direct support from God.

Who are we to question that?  We can’t.  However, does Dr. Willard advocate that we become “blind faith” Christians?  He doesn’t.  Dr. Willard states, “Those who understand God’s presence only in these ways must be encouraged to believe that there is much more for them to know and receive. Otherwise, they will never enter into their capacities as kings and priests, never ‘reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ’” (Romans 5:17).  Why would he say that?

Let’s look at the second definition of blind faith, “strong belief in God or in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual apprehension rather than proof.”  He feels that the foundation of a Christian’s belief should not be based on blind faith: “[blind faith is not] an adequate foundation for sustained spiritual growth.

As you look at the second definition, key words jump out. One is “spiritual apprehension.” What does that mean? To get a clear definition is difficult because the word apprehension means “anxiety or fear that something bad or unpleasant will happen.” That can throw someone off the trail as it seems that belief is based on fear but that is not what spiritual apprehension means. One of the best definitions I was able to find was contributed by Pastor Joey Rodgers who says that “While God has given us brains and we are all capable of understanding and appreciating many of the lessons of life, spiritual truth always requires Divine interpretation. In fact, the primary reason God gave us a brain was not so that we would attempt to figure it out for ourselves and do life on our own, but so that we might have the sense to turn to Him. There is a difference between comprehending and apprehending. This is the task of the Spirit. While we might gain head knowledge through our human reasoning and ingenuity, heart knowledge comes as a result of the work of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit interprets the deeper things of God giving us an apprehension of truth. Truth requires revelation, and revelation is the responsibility of God” [italics mine].

So spiritual apprehension is not a bad thing but it relies on God communicating to us via the Holy Spirit.

Again, why would Dr. Willard write that “there is much more for them [the blind faith Christians] to know and receive.”

Dr. Willard, I feel is very much in line with John Wesley on this matter. The Anglican founder of Methodism was a practical man and he developed a four-prong approach to spiritual growth called the Wesleyan Quadrilateral. Wesley believed, first of all, that the living core of the Christian faith was revealed in “scripture”. The Word of God was at the center of Wesley’s concept of understanding God. However, doctrine had to be in keeping with Christian orthodox “tradition.” So, tradition became in his view the second aspect of the so-called Quadrilateral. What we know from the past does not need to be discarded. Traditional knowledge can inform present interpretation. Being a man who had some knowledge that God can communicate with us via our spirit, Wesley felt that we can all experience God in our daily lives. He called that “experiential” faith. The last “leg” of the quadrilateral was every doctrine must be able to be defended “rationally.” He did not divorce faith from reason. He was a highly educated man, a graduate of Oxford. Being a man of the Bible, he explained that tradition, experience, and reason, however, are subject always to scripture, which is primary.

I have not read Hearing God to the end. I am reading and writing as I go and this book has plenty to write about, but Dr. Willard is not content to say to us as Christians that we can just rely on blind faith to get us through life. He will not be content to disregard “head knowledge” in favor of “heart knowledge” if we have heads that are capable of understanding God’s word.

Too often Christians are attacked because we can’t articulate the basics of our faith to others. Is it because we have accepted God on blind faith? Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you [Matthew 28: 19-20]. How can we teach what we don’t know? How can we make disciples of the unchurched with blind faith as our tool or persuasion?

We can’t.

Chapter 3 in Hearing God is entitled “Never Alone” but Dr. Willard talks a lot about what can cause us to be alone.

We can work hard at being social and can have friends that surround us. Of course, if we are reasonably tolerable, family will allow us to hang around. The old adage of “get rich and you will never be lonely” will cure your loneliness problems but what about loneliness from God?

What can cause loneliness from our Father?

Dr. Willard points to Psalms 51:11 as an example of terror in the face of loneliness from God: “Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your Holy Spirit from me.”  What can cause this to happen?

Sin.

There are many areas of human life where temptation and sin come into play.  First of all, since Adam and Eve ruined man’s relationship with God by choosing to sin, man and woman have had sin as part of their human makeup. We have a natural tendency to sin and to be honest, it is impossible to avoid it.  Now that may offend you.  But it is true.  “For we know that the Law is spiritual, but I am of flesh, sold into bondage to sin.   For what I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate.” [Romans 7]

In the context of being alone and away from God, read Paul’s words carefully.

Are they excuses?

Are they explanations?

Are they just a “cop-out”?

Or is Paul just being honest?

I go through periods where I feel ok about my behavior. Sometimes I feel like I am getting somewhere. And then I “act up.” What causes it? Feeling too good about myself can cause it. Things going very well can cause it. Things going poorly can cause it. Feeling badly can cause it [physical feelings and mental feelings]. It seems that temptation and sin come at the time of the greatest highs or the lowest lows. Hardly ever in the “in-between times.”

When I am “on a high” I feel “bullet-proof” and when that happens, the devil knows I am easy pickings. He knows what to do to steer me in a sinful direction. Of course, I am never “bullet-proof.” I always have to give God the glory for whatever good happens in my life. Yet I don’t. I want the credit. I actually get in God’s way. I forget that I am not the trunk, I am merely a branch and through me I may have a chance to bear fruit but the fruit comes from God, not me. God is the energy that grows the fruit. I am merely the channel to send energy to the fruit.

When I am “on a low” it feels like very little matters. I get depressed in a short-term way and lose my ability to care what happens to me. I can get very selfish when I throw a pity party and I feel like I deserve something to “pick me up.” So I indulge. Do you ever give yourself a little reward to lift your spirits? What if that reward is a sin?

Guess what? Short-term depression can become longer-term depression because you know you have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory.

I am going to be honest here, like Paul.  When I sin, I am ashamed.  I have a hard time facing up to God.  My prayer time is difficult.  I beat myself up and feel guilt-ridden.  I feel alone.  I have disappointed my best Friend.  I ask “why would He want me?”  Too often I answer the question with “He doesn’t want you. He doesn’t want anything to do with you.”  This is the essence of loneliness.

To compound the problem I sometimes don’t want to be around other people because I realize I am a fraud. I put on a “righteous act” and that is what it really is—it is an act. I can’t stand to do this when I sin because I feel so hypocritical.

Then I realize that maybe I have set the bar too high. God realizes I am a human and He knows my weaknesses better than I do. He created me and knows my heart. He knows the areas of my life where I am weak.

I don’t want to keep on sinning. I realize that it is a “dead end road” that can lead to spiritual death.  Spiritual death is greater than separation from God through sin. When Adam and Eve heard the voice of the Lord, they “hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God.” The fellowship had been broken. They were spiritually dead.

When we sin and don’t want to turn back from it, we can begin to fall so deeply that we don’t even want to hear of Christ, read about Christ, or even think about Christ. All we want is the pleasure of sin [we think it is pleasure].

But things of this world cannot measure up to the love and acceptance we can feel from God’s love. I want to repent and turn away from sin. I want to reestablish my relationship with God. I hate being alone.   I want Him back and I know He wants me. He offers me an avenue back to Him, His forgiveness. This is motivation for me to turn away from sin, believe in Jesus Christ once again and receive His Grace by Faith. This reconciles me back into fellowship with God and His Love.

I can stand to be by myself and away from people for short periods of time, but I don’t like it. I definitely don’t want the ultimate suffering and punishment, spiritual death.

The bottom line: I can’t stand to be away from God.

When I sin and feel far from God, I really feel alone…and I hate it.

“It was Pride that changed angels into devils; it is humility that makes men as angels.” – St. Augustine

Evagrius of Pontus was a monk who drew up the eight deadly sins and slowly they came to the attention of the Catholic Church. In the late 6th century, Pope Gregory the Great reduced the list to seven items, folding vainglory into pride, acedia into sadness, and adding envy. Beginning in the early 14th century, the popularity of the seven deadly sins as a theme among European artists of the time eventually helped to ingrain them in many areas of Catholic culture and Catholic consciousness in general throughout the world.

They are not in the Bible.

However the idea of humility, the opposite of arrogance and pride is a common idea expressed in the Bible and humility was certainly a characteristic that one could attribute to Jesus Christ.

Google “humility in the Bible” and you will see numerous verses devoted to the need for humility, many of those very words were spoken by Jesus.

For most of my life, I have struggled to understand how one can be humble and yet effective in life; most of those years I stumbled along unsure whether I had remained humble or if I had crossed the line into pride. I want to be effective in my service to my Lord, yet in being effective, I find myself in a leadership role from time to time. When that happens, the fine line between humility and pride is so hard to walk.

In Dallas Willard’s book Hearing God the idea of hearing messages from God is the topic and in Biblical history, many Bible characters received communication from The Lord. When that happened, it always seemed to have a humbling effect on the recipient of God’s message.

Dr. Willard states that the normal human response is “Who am I even to suppose that God might guide me or speak to me, much less that my experience should be like that of Moses or Elisha?”

In short, “Who am I that I should receive Divine guidance?”

Dr. Willard feels that when man receives God’s word, it can lead to two mistakes. Number one is that we have a humble response and deny that the word is real. He calls that the “Moses response”. Moses stated that he was not worthy of the words from God and God was asking him to do something that he was incapable of doing.

When I receive praise from a person, I admit that I struggle with it. I can say thanks. I can deflect it to give credit to other people. I can deny it and say “it was nothing.” I can say “It is God working through me.” I have blogged on the last response, which for Christians might be the best.  They are serving God, doing His work with His help.

However the most common response to God may be the “Moses response,” pleading inadequacy.

Dr. Willard says the response is irrelevant. God gave His message to you and He wanted to. He had his reasons. Don’t doubt them. We all are special enough to receive a word from God.

The second mistake is claiming that receiving a word from God makes us special or important.   If we think that God’s effort to communicate with us makes us important, that response cancels the positive effect of God’s connection to us.

In short Dr. Willard states “His guidance will pretty certainly be withdrawn.” This mistake is pride and God does not want us to be “puffed up” by the reception of his word. He wants us to heed it, respond to it and use it to further His kingdom.

1.Refrain from pretending we are what we are not suitable

2.Do not presume you have a favorable position with God because you have received a word

3.Don’t use God’s message to push or override the will of others in whatever context you are in

These three rules are what Dr. Willard says are “the fail-safe recipe for humility.” In fact, he jokingly says try this recipe for a month and there is a money back guarantee if it does not work.

Pride is a problem for many of us. It is hard to be humble. It is a mystery to walk the fine line between effective living and the temptation of pride and the practice of humility.

Maybe we should all emulate Moses, even though he errs on the side of being too humble and doubting God’s confidence in him. He was a humble man and God admired this trait. Nevertheless, it says in Psalm 25:9 “He [God] guides the humble in what is right and teaches them his way.” Maybe we need to have faith that God will do this for all of us.

He has our best interest in His heart.

Our way should be the humble way.

Ok, I admit it.

I tend to put people up on pedestals.

Especially spiritual, righteous, religious people like pastors.

That’s what Dr. Willard says we should not do.

Today we are going to explore why he would advise us not to do this.

First of all, distance is a term I use when I refer to the level of understanding between one person and another. Distance is the amount of “space” between a speaker’s message and a listener’s comprehension. The more distance, the harder it is for the listener to understand, certainly to empathize.

I see this all the time in everyday life.

The person who says, “I could never do what you do” to the artist. The person who says “I don’t know why she said that” about the individual who has expressed outrage. The person who says “why did she go back?” to the young abused woman who has gone back to her abuser husband.

Examples of distance are everywhere.

Sometimes we like it. It is a comfortable cushion between us and others, a barrier to separate us from having to deal with problems we are too lazy to comprehend.

But when it comes to hearing God, distance is a killer.

Dr. Willard cites passages from Acts when the people in the crowd are stirred by Paul’s actions. They want to offer sacrifices because they think the gods have come to them in human form. The Apostles realize this and they say “we are mortals just like you.” [Acts 14: 11-15].

What are the Apostles doing?

Trying to decrease distance.

What are the people doing?

Trying to increase distance.

It is a common human response to see someone living a “righteous” life and saying “I can’t live like that.” The observer shrugs his or her shoulders, creates some distance and keeps on living the same old way they have been living.

It is easy, this distance thing.

It is denial of humanity just because some people have tapped into God’s will a little more. The person who seems to be connected to God spiritually is special.

Can anyone get that connection? Of course they can, but they have convinced themselves that they cannot.

It is easier to say “ I don’t have what it takes” than to develop what it takes.

There is one gigantic kicker in all this: the person who tries to develop “what it takes” is going to get an unbelievable reward.

They will find themselves more open to hearing from God.

The fact that we are human will not bar us from hearing God. Our lack of effort will bar us.   Jesus was a human, God on earth. Dr. Willard lists Moses, David, Elijah, Paul, Peter etc. as example of humans who heard from God.

When confronted with his humanity, Jesus admitted it. What he had that you and I don’t have is a Divine connection. He was also God and He knew it. The plan that God had was to have a human [Jesus] on earth to connect with us and to show us that He [God] was approachable. Nothing else since the Garden of Eden had worked, so now he was using Jesus to send us a strong message.

The message is connect with Me.

The message is I am approachable.

The message is don’t create distance between yourself and Me.

Talk to me.

Don’t fall prey to that tendency to put people up on pedestals. When we do that, we have to shout up to them. When we want to touch them, they have to reach down and we have to strain to reach up.

It is ok to admire pastors. Don’t get me wrong. There are some excellent men and women out there, leading churches in a world that is not friendly to their work, inspiring people to come to God when there are countless distractions to take them away, preaching a message that is often ridiculed by people who just don’t understand.

They work for God, not man. They let God use them.

That in itself is admirable.

But don’t create distance. Many have been right where you have been. Some have been in worse places, yet they are right there, doing God’s work every day.

Before you think you can’t hear from God because you are unworthy, before you think you can’t do more in your life because people who work for God are special, you need to think about this list of spiritual celebrities [this has been around the block a time or two in Christian circles].

“Jacob was a cheater, Peter had a temper, David had an affair, Noah got drunk, Jonah ran from God, Paul was a murderer, Gideon was insecure, Miriam was a gossiper, Martha was a worrier, Thomas was a doubter, Sara was impatient, Elijah was moody, Moses stuttered, Zacchaeus was short, Abraham was old, and Lazarus was dead…. God doesn’t call the qualified, He qualifies the CALLED!”

Let’s not put them on pedestals. Let’s try to be the best we can be and see if God can use us.

He can.

I was in a Bible study at church the other night and a woman was present who expressed a sentiment that many of us feel.

“I can go to Bible study after having read my assignment and I think I know what the verses mean. I listen to people discuss the verses and then I go home with very different ideas, ideas people have shared around the table.”

Such it is with the parable of the talents [Matthew 25: 14-30] as Dr. Willard expresses a new view [for me] of the famous passage.

Dr. Willard seems to think the parable is about the human perception of God as taskmaster. Of course when the master gave talents to two of the servants, they increased their talents by 50%. The other servant buried his talent and gave it back to his master.

He explained that he did that because he was afraid to lose the money and he anticipated his master’s anger if that happened because the master is a “hard man.”

What made the master mad was his servant’s conservatism, his inability to take the money and make it grow.

What the conservative servant did was misunderstand his master.

It is not too much of a leap to see that the master is God and we are the servants.

Do you see God as a hard man?

Do you see God as a conservative taskmaster?

Do you fear God’s punishment if you make a mistake?

Does that fear keep you from taking action in this world, action which God wants you to take?

Dr. Willard says God does not want to be our “cosmic boss, foreman or autocrat, whose chief joy in relation to humans is ordering them around, taking pleasure in seeing them jump at his command and painstakingly noting down any failures.”

How would God prefer to see us?

Friends

John 15:13-15

“Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.”

Co-workers

1 Corinthians 3:9

“For we are co-workers in God’s service; you are God’s field, God’s building.”

It is a shame that some people don’t understand how God wants to relate to us.

Yet that is what it is for many people.

I had a good friend who told me that he did not want to believe in God because God just keeps “black books” on people. He is waiting for us to mess up so he can put black marks in his book. He told me that that type of life is not for him. He wanted to have fun with his alcohol, his partying and his “fun” lifestyle.

His misconception is keeping him from joining the church. His misconception is keeping him from understanding God. His misconception is keeping him from knowing “the peace that passes all understanding.”

The irony of this misunderstanding of the role of God is that if you want God to be your taskmaster, He will fulfill that role, even though He does not want to fulfill it.

Dr. Willard says “He [God] …often condescends to us because our consciousness cannot rise any higher.” He admits if we have had harsh taskmasters as parents, bosses or other superiors, that can distort our view of God. But that is a shame. God does not want to be our personal autocrat.

To be our friend, we must share our thoughts with God.

To be our coworker, we must be willing to do what God wants us to do.

It is not easy. I know of many people who cannot share their concerns with others. I don’t know if they feel their thoughts are unimportant or if they feel they must live a life of secrecy and they are quiet people who don’t feel compelled to share.

I also know of people who are stuck in a routine that is the opposite of growth. They are mired in concrete, trying to maintain their status quo. I know some folks who are scared to death of change and get ill if anything in their life changes.

As I mention these two problems, I return again to the parable of the talents.

The disappointing servant would not disappoint his master if he had practiced good communication with his master, sharing his perception of his task and asking questions. The disappointing servant would not disappoint his master if he had been willing to take a chance and invest his talent so it would grow.

Question of the day:

What are you doing with your talents? Are you taking what God has given you and doing something with your talents? Are you wasting your talents by being too conservative?

I have written about grace before. It is a term that is so hard to understand. The short meaning is unmerited favor. Why would God extend His grace to us? We don’t deserve it. We need it. We are all flawed individuals, in need of understanding and forgiveness for the sins we all bear, every day.

Another term that is spoken a lot in Christian circles is agape love. Like grace, what makes it so hard to understand is the idea that it goes against our cultural values.

Agape love is what I would call a theme of the New Testament so it is very important that we understand it. So many phrases occur in the NT that help us define agape [Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, Love one’s enemies and pray for those who persecute you. Love is patient and kind, not jealous or boastful, not arrogant or rude. Love is not selfish]. Paul writes so much about an unselfish love, a self-giving love that is the result of living a life of Christ.   The source of this love is God. The response of faith that we have is the result of this love. Paul spells out that the Christian walk we have with God results in an increase of love that we have for others.

The love we feel is given to us via The Holy Spirit.

This is where Hearing God comes into play. Dr. Willard feels that human beings begin to understand agape love through the maturing process of hearing from God.

We don’t have a mindless relationship with God. We come to Him because we want to. We come to him with intact personalities.

He takes us as we are and he works with us to make us better Christians.

The Bible has so many rich images and to me one of the most powerful is that God is working with us just as a potter works with clay. Jeremiah 18 references the image of Jeremiah going to the potter’s house where he saw the potter working at the wheel. He was shaping the clay and it was marred. He started over with another pot. God explains to Jeremiah that He can do to Israel what the potter is doing to the pot.

What God is doing to you and me is shaping us, just like that potter shapes the pot on the potter’s wheel.

Dr. Willard states that we are already established as the clay is established. He goes further by stating that we are not without a mind, we have our freedom and we have personalities.   God knows us intimately. God is willing to work with us with the idea that we have intelligence, freedom of choice and personality.

At times, I wonder why He would want to develop me, with all the flaws that I have.

But He does.   To develop people into better people is a major goal of God. That’s why He wants to establish a relationship with us. Over time, we learn from God as he communicates his messages to us and one of the best messages He communicates is a deep understanding of agape love.

What stands in the way of this message?

Again, agape love flies in the face of American cultural values. Today we [as a culture] are pretty selfish. The idea of grabbing as much as you can in life is pounded into us from all types of media sources. Giving love to others is not the prevailing thought. The prevailing thought is that we should get love from others, mostly a love that is centered on physical pleasure and satisfaction.

Agape love is not centered on physical pleasure and satisfaction; it is about benevolence, it is about selflessness, it is about others, not me.

To understand this complex concept, one needs to hear the voice of God and comprehend it.   One needs to hear the voice of God and realize that the Voice is about growth. One needs to hear the voice of God and realize that God wants us to mature as Christians.

People who struggle to understand agape love the most are the unchurched and Christians who are stuck. Stuck Christians are not growing. They are not interested in learning. They are mired in their own problems to the point that their thoughts are centered around themselves.

The person who understands agape love knows that others need their love and people who need it most are the people who struggle the most, the poor, the down-trodden, the lost, the sick and yes, your enemies.

Dr. Willard says that our “primary goals are not just to hear the voice of God but to be mature people in a loving relationship with him.”

One of the most important “primary goals” is to work to understand and implement agape love in our lives.

In Chapter 1, Dr. Willard says there are three general problem areas that humans have regarding receiving messages from God.

I know he comments on them but I want to discuss them also. They deserve extra attention.

Problem Area # 1

It is human nature but sometimes we want to inhibit the Lord and His power. However, Dr. Willard says God can communicate to us in many forms. He is all powerful and He will use any means that He wants to use to send us messages.   Too often you hear things like “The same issue keeps showing up again and again — maybe it’s God trying to tell me something.” “I don’t feel at peace about something, there may be a message in my turmoil.” “I feel at peace, there is a message in that.” “A similar idea or theme keeps showing up in my life; perhaps there is something to learn from God in this recurring idea.” “A door has closed in some area of your life; perhaps there is something better or different on the horizon.”   These are common signs that people cite as instances of God communication but as Dr. Willard says, “God is willing to reach out to humanity in whatever ways are suitable to its fallen and weakened condition.” If we get fixated on certain things happening, we may miss a message from God when He gets creative in His message delivery system. Our preferences for certain communications can limit our ability to receive His word.

Problem Area # 2

We have wrong motives for seeking to hear from God. I don’t know how much time I spend in my day thinking about what I am going to do. It disturbs me greatly that I don’t pay more attention to what I am doing in the moment. What I am saying is I want to know my future.

This obsession about knowing my future can weaken my faith in my Lord as I want to hear what God has in store for me. Many of us are like that. We want to glare into the crystal ball and see where we will be next week, next month, and next year!

We want to know God’s will for our lives. We want to know how to get prepared.   We want to see a bright future. That knowledge of the future is powerful but it is not the main reason to know God’s will.

Most of us are so preoccupied with ourselves that we don’t want to be surprised. We want to be safe and comfortable.

What if God does not want us to be comfortable? What if he wants us to rely on Him a day at a time? The Israelites were promised by God that He would provide for them as they crossed the desert and God did, but they were not happy. They wanted to store the manna that God provided but He said do not store it. It will spoil. They chose to disobey His commands and it did spoil. God was not happy at all.

What did God want?

He wanted them to depend on Him day by day.

We want to know what to expect tomorrow and the day after.

Problem Area # 3

How we perceive God can be a problem. I have commented in a past entry about some people who see God as a benefactor. Some see God as a friend and some see God as a change agent.

How we see God can have a profound effect on how we receive messages from Him.

I have heard countless times of people struggling to know God. The major stumbling block can be how they were treated by their earthly father. If a child has an abusive father, that can make a relationship with the Heavenly Father tough. If a child has a permissive father, that can make a relationship with the Heavenly Father tough.

I have heard people say “I could not relate to God until I cleared away my thoughts about my earthly Dad from my experience.”

God is not going to be domineering. God is not going to be too directive. God is not going to be controlling.

God wants you to choose your behaviors. He may guide you and me but He wants us to be active in the way we shape our behaviors.

I had a counselor tell me one time about the love of the Lord. He does not want us to be caged birds.   He wants us to be birds that live in a cage with an open door. The cage shows us some boundaries but we are free to live as we want. What makes God happy? We fly back to the cage and choose to live with Him.

That’s a pretty simple explanation of God’s unconditional love and His desire for us to have free will.

He does not want to treat us like children. He wants us to live a life of adults, making adult decisions, living adult Christian lives, choosing Him over the distractions of everyday life.

Dr. Willard uses John 10:27 to summarize this point: “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.”

As we move on into Hearing God, Dr. Willard will address these three problems in greater detail, but I am sure that he will say that these impediments to hearing God must be dealt with if we want to have Divine communications.

As we reflect on the three problems, they are caused by our lack, not God’s. We are the ones who want God to talk to us in agreed-upon ways. We are the ones who want God to predict our futures, and we are the ones who want God to be more directive or less directive. God wants us to have free will.

If the rest of Dr. Willard’s book is as good as what he has written so far, the three general problem areas will not be left undiscussed, unanalyzed and unsolved.

These barriers to hearing from God will be removed and we will be all the better for having studied them.