Journal for Christ: Lord lead and guide us: Part 3

These studies on God's leading and guiding have been helpful to me, even as I review them again. I share them with you and ask for your feedback on them. If anyone reads this between now and Monday, please pray for me as I travel to see and speak with my wife, who I have not seen for over a year. Thank -you my brothers and sisters in Christ!

September 14, 2015:

Worship: The Unmaking by Nichole Nordeman

This is where the walls gave way
This is demolition day
All the debris, and all this dust
What is left of what once was
Sorting through what goes and what should stay

Every stone I laid for You
As if You had asked me to
A monument to Holy things
Empty talk and circling
Isn’t that what we’re supposed to do

What happens now
When all I’ve made is torn down
What happens next
When all of You, is all that’s left

This is the unmaking
The beauty in the breaking
Had to lose myself
To find out who You are
Before each beginning
There must be an ending
Sitting in the rubble
I can see the stars
This is the unmaking

The longer and the tighter that we hold
Only makes it harder to let go
But love will not stay locked inside
A steeple or a tower high
Only when we’re broken, are we whole

What happens now
When all I’ve made is torn down

This is the unmaking
The beauty in the breaking
Had to lose myself
To find out who You are
Before each beginning
There must be an ending
Sitting in the rubble
I can see the stars
This is the unmaking
This is the unmaking

I’ll gather the same stones where
Everything came crashing down
I’ll build You an altar there
On the same ground

‘Cause what stood before
Was never Yours

Had to lose myself
To find out who You are

https://youtu.be/VQkHD15J7HI - official video

https://youtu.be/P9560Ccwd_E - Nichole explaining the song

Witness:

I can relate to this song. Looking back at my life as a Christian; I see a crooked path of success and failure. I once wrote a piece comparing my life to a rollercoaster. Much of my life has been a failure here and a failure there. Fear and idols mark the way. Distraction after distraction kept me from growing and maturing in the Lord. Perhaps others saw it differently, but that is how I have seen it. However, that is not how I see it now (Oh the old feelings still haunt me from time to time, but the Lord restores my soul and they disappear again). You see, I could say: “Why has it taken so long to get through to me?”;“Why have you chosen such a time as this to reach me?”. Yet, I know the two fold stream of truth that flows through Scripture; of my responsibility and His sovereignty. I see God working in people like Jacob and Moses, where transformation took years to make them into the men God used to form and lead a nation to the promise land. There were years of unmaking and breaking before God could use them, but all in God’s eternal plan and sovereign purpose. The alter built at Bethel by Jacob in Genesis 28:18-22 surely had fallen into ruin when years later he finally returned to Bethel and built a new altar to God (Genesis 35:14). It’s been years, but now God through a series of events in my life that began last year, has begun to demolish my past attempt at building a work dedicated to His glory, which was shamefully a work built more for my glory, if there was any work at all. In the midst of the rubble, He is rebuilding through me a work that I believe will glorify Him, and so I begin my prayer time each day with the petition and desire that He would be glorified in everything I do and say.

Word:

1 The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
2 He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.
3 He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.
4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
5 Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.
A Psalm of David.
KJV

1The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing.

2He makes me lie down in green pastures,

he leads me beside quiet waters,

3he refreshes my soul.

He guides me along the right paths

for his name’s sake.

4Even though I walk

through the darkest valley,^a

I will fear no evil,

for you are with me;

your rod and your staff,

they comfort me.

5You prepare a table before me

in the presence of my enemies.

You anoint my head with oil;

my cup overflows.

6Surely your goodness and love will follow me

all the days of my life,

and I will dwell in the house of the Lord

forever.

A little more on God’s guidance; J.I. Packer in his classic masterpiece, Knowing God, devotes a whole chapter to the subject. He begins the chapter with these words:

For many Christians, guidance is a chronic problem. Why? Not because they doubt that divine guidance is a fact, but because they are sure it is. They know that God can guide, and has promised to guide, every Christian believer. Books and friends and public speakers tell them how guidance has worked in the lives of others. Their fear, therefore, is not that no guidance should be available for them, but that they may miss the guidance which God provides through some fault of their own. When they sing:

Guide me, O thou great Jehovah,

Pilgrim through this barren land,

I am weak, but Thou art mighty,

Hold me with Thy powerful hand:

Bread of heaven

Feed me now and evermore

—they have no doubt that God is able both to lead and to feed, as they ask. But they remain anxious, because they are not certain of their own receptiveness to the guidance God offers. (from Digital version of: Knowing God, ©1973 by J. I. Packer. Published in the United States of America by Intervarsity Press, Downers Grove, Illinois, with permission from Hodder and Stoughton Limited, London. Text Americanized and completely retypeset in 1993, p 225)

For some, it is a problem of ignorance. They are ignorant of how God guides His flock and they do not look for His presence in their life. For some, they have let something get between them and the Shepherd and cannot see where He is leading. Some are driving a pick-up and have put the guide back in the truck bed with the window shut, and depending on whether they have him by the window or back by the tailgate, is how well they will hear him. However, God takes no backseat, or truck bed for that matter. He wants to ride shotgun, the place of privilege, or He will not come along for the ride. Of course, all analogies break down and by now, some of you are ready to tear them apart. I understand the analogy of a guide on a trip breaks down, because in life the guide directs someone to where they want to go. With God as guide we are to go where He wants to go and in some ways, God is not only the guide but the driver as well.

Enough of these analogies! Some do not follow our Shepherd at all because of another kind of ignorance. Ignorance of who God is is at an all-time premium these days. Theology is out, or just for the “professionals” (Seminary Professor and students, and of course, the pastor or elder). People erect an image of God made in the image of man. Note what Packer says in the same chapter:

Not all, however, have yet come so far. In our day, as we have frequently noted already, knowledge of God has been obscured—turned, in effect, into ignorance of God—by the twisting of our thoughts about God. Thus, the reality of God’s rule, God’s speech, God’s independence, God’s moral goodness, even God’s personality, has been queried not only outside the church but inside it also. This has made it hard for many to believe that divine guidance can exist at all. How can it, if God is not the sort of being who can, or will, give it?—and that is what, in one way or another, all these suggestions imply. (p. 225)

Just two more things and I will move on. First, I cannot caution you more on how one approaches Divine guidance. Many weird things have been done in the name of Divine guidance. Packer says:

Earnest Christians seeking guidance often go wrong, Why is this? Often the reason is that their notion of the nature and method of divine guidance is distorted. They look for a will-o’-the-wisp*; they overlook the guidance that is ready at hand and lay themselves open to all sorts of delusions. Their basic mistake is to think of guidance as essentially inward prompting by the Holy Spirit, apart from the written Word. This idea, which is as old as the false prophets of the Old Testament and as new as the Oxford Group and Moral Rearmament, is a seed-bed in which all forms of fanaticism and folly can grow. (p. 226)

[*A person or thing that is difficult or impossible to find, reach, or catch.]

And later he says:

But the true way to honor the Holy Spirit as our guide is to honor the holy Scriptures through which he guides us. The fundamental guidance which God gives to shape our lives—the instilling, that is, of the basic convictions, attitudes, ideals and value judgments, in terms of which we are to live—is not a matter of inward promptings apart from the Word, but of the pressure on our consciences of the portrayal of God’s character and will in the Word, which the Spirit enlightens us to understand and apply to ourselves. (p. 231)

He warns:

So never expect to be aided to marry an unbeliever, or elope with a married person, as long as 1 Corinthians 7:39 and the seventh commandment stand! The present writer has known divine guidance to be claimed for both courses of action. Inward inclinations were undoubtedly present, but they were quite certainly not from the Spirit of God, for they went against the Word. The Spirit leads within the limits which the Word sets, not beyond them. “He guides me in paths of righteousness” (Ps 23:3)—but not anywhere else. (p. 231)

Finally, Divine guidance is not ultimately about us, nor should it be. Remember, it’s His plan and ultimately it’s to bring glory to Himself, for to do less would be idolatry. He wants to satisfy not gratify and that can only be found when we find our ultimate joy in Him and are satisfied in Him alone. This can only be done when He does all things for His glory. Packer reminds us:

Again, God seeks his glory in our lives, and he is glorified in us only when we obey his will. It follows that, as a means to his own end, he must be ready to teach us his way, so that we may walk in it. Confidence in God’s readiness to teach those who desire to obey underlies all Psalm 119. In Psalm 23:3 David proclaims the reality of God giving guidance for his own glory—“he guides me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.” (p.226)

I could just continue to quote from J.I. Packer on guidance. Instead, I will recommend that you get the book and read it or download the Digital version on-line. Mine only cost $9.88 to download from CBD. I have the paperback version, but it is easier to copy and paste it than to copy it from the paperback version. Also, review John Pipers article from the previous day. Go to the Desiring God website and search for more articles and sermons on the subject.

From the Celtic Book of Prayer:

Blessing
May the peace of the Lord Christ go with you,
wherever He may send you.
May He guide you through the wilderness,
protect you through the storm.
May He bring you home rejoicing
at the wonders He has shown you.
May He bring you home rejoicing
once again into our doors.

+ In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

May the God of peace and grace and truth be your guide as you begin your day. May he go ahead of you and prepare the way. May he come behind you and protect you. May he surround you and make you aware of his presence. 31 Days of Blessing

by Max Lucado • March 22

https://maxlucado.com/read/topical/31-days-of-blessing/

Acts 17:11

Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.

2 Peter 1:19

We also have the prophetic message as something completely reliable, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.

Journal for Christ

Friday, March 4, 2016

Lord lead and guide us: Part 3

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