These are the places in this chapter that challenged me. What challenged you?
"If we focus exclusively on God's written Word when looking for God's activity in our lives but don't watch and pray, we'll miss the unfolding story of his work. We'll miss the patterns of the Divine Artist etching the character of his Son on our hearts." p. 242
"If we believe Scripture only applies to people in general, then we can miss how God intimately personalizes his counsel to us as individuals. We can become deists, removing God from our lives. But everywhere in Scripture we see God speaking to us with a personal touch, prompting us to obey and love." p. 242 & 243.
" Seeing God's activity in the details of our lives enhances the application of God's word...What is at stake here is developing an eye for the Shepherd. I need to tune in to my fathers' voice above the noise of my own heart and the surrounding world--what C.S. Lewis called "the Kingdom of Noise." I need to develop a poet's eye that can see the patterns in my Father's good creation. Like a good storyteller, I need to pick up the cadence and heartbeat of the Divine Storyteller." p. 243
"When people call their own thoughts or feelings 'God's voice', it puts them in control of God and ultimately undermines God's Word by elevating human intuition to the status of divine revelation. Unless Scripture guards and directs our intuitions, we can easily run amok and baptize our selfish desires with religious language." p. 244
"The problem is that the Holy Spirit comes in on the same channel as the world, the flesh, and the Devil. The Lord does lead--we just need to be careful that we aren't using the Lord as a cover for our own desires. If we frequently interpret random thoughts and desires as "God speaking," we get weird." p. 244
"To correctly discern when God is speaking to us, we need to keep the Word and Spirit together." p. 245
Review the illustration on p. 246.
"There is a tendency among Christians to get excited about "listening to God"...this elevates an experience with God instead of God himself...When referring to communication with God, Scripture assumes that I know what God is saying. The problem isn't the activity of listening, but my listening heart. Am I attentive to God? Is my heart soft and teachable? Am I remembering His ways, His commands? Psalm 25:15 says, "My eyes are ever toward the Lord." The means of communication is secondary to a surrendered heart. Our responsibility is to cultivate a listening heart in the midst of the noise from our own hearts and from the world, not to mention the Devil." p. 247
"The interaction between the divine Spirit and my own spirit is mysterious. David captures this mystery in Psalm 16:7--'I bless the Lord who gives me counsel; in the night also my heart instructs me.' The parallel structure of the verse suggests that 'the Lord who gives me counsel' is identical to 'my heart (literally 'my gut') instructs me.' So what happened? Is David's heart talking to him, or is God giving him counsel? the two are impossible to separate." p. 248
This chapter reminds me of all the times Vikki has reminded us of the importance and "essentialness" of knowing the Word: reading it, meditating on it, memorizing it so that it is with us --deeply ingrained into our minds and hearts.
1 comment:
Doesn't it always go back to our heart issues? My favorites are your quotes from pg. 247 & 248. These speak to the fact that we need the Lord to teach us His way and we will walk in His Truth; that He give us hearts that are united (KJV); undivided hearts,(NIV), that fear His Name.
Ps. 86:11
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