Guidance - Pt.4

As we continue with this little series on the important subject of guidance in our individual lives, I wish to share with you three means of guidance that are, effectively, available only to the true disciple of Jesus. I say "effectively" because, of course, some of them are used by even previously-proclaimed "atheists" and agnostics - but, in their cases, they are not of any real effect!

The first of these additional means of guidance is, not surprisingly, prayer. Some may remember the words from the old hymn: "What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer." Now that word "everything" includes matters on which we require guidance. So, when I have an important decision to make, I take it to the Lord in prayer. "Am I to go to Bible College, Lord?" "Is this girl the one whom you have chosen to be my wife?" "Do you really want us to move to France, and live there?" And He guides - sometimes giving me the answer even as I pray; more usually, making use of one, or more, of the other methods we are considering.

Another means of guidance is, of course, the Bible - God's written Word to humanity. It is through it that He speaks to us all concerning our sinful state, and His great plan of salvation in Jesus. But He only speaks to us through it as we become familiar with it! There is little point in asking the Father for guidance on a particular matter by lifting a dusty copy of the Bible from a shelf; closing your eyes; opening it at random; and stabbing your finger down on the page! The story is told of one man who did just that and, when he opened his eyes, found that his finger was right on top of Matt.27:5 where are recorded the words concerning Judas Iscariot: "he went out and hanged himself." This, quite obviously, was not good guidance; God wasn't "on form" today! So he tried again - only to find that, this time, his finger rested on Luke 10:37 where we read  Jesus' words to a certain lawyer: "Go, and do likewise"!

But often, when we are sincere in our reading, and study, of God's Word, He speaks clearly to us through it. "Nobody", it has been said, "can read the Bible devoutly, and not learn much about God, about himself, and about his fellows. Nobody who seriously seeks divine guidance, can neglect this most rich and sure way to it."

The third means of guidance which is especially for the disciple of Jesus - while not denied to the unbeliever - is the Christian Fellowship. I may have a particular fault of which I am, genuinely, unaware. But if I am part of a vital Christian fellowship, then there will be those who, in love - and that is extremely important! - will gently point out that fault to me.

Or it may be a call to a particular area of service that comes through the need of the fellowship, and to which I am introduced more easily because of the support of the fellowship. Or, again, it may be confirmation, or otherwise, of guidance that I bellieve I have received by another means. In the "Book of Discipline" of the Society of Friends (better known to some as the Quakers) are these wise words:

"Inward guidance does not mean unchecked individualism, for the follower of the light will be continually correcting his first perception of it by a fuller experience, and by that of others who have followed it more faithfully." Often it is the fellowship that is able to help me to distinguish the true voice of God from the murmurs of vanity and self-will!

Sometimes, it is just one person who brings a word from the Lord. I have certainly experienced that! It was in 1982. Friends of long standing were coming to visit my wife and me. The husband, I knew, had a strong prophetic ministry (remember that prophecy is, more often, forthtelling than foretelling!) and, during the day, I had a very real sense that he was going to bring a word from the Lord for me. As soon as he and his wife arrived, I asked him if he did, indeed, have a word for me. I confess to having been very disappointed when he answered in the negative.

After our meal, the four of us were sitting chatting, as friends do. Suddenly, Ray said, "Brian, you asked me if I had a word from the Lord for you. My answer was true - but it wasn't the whole truth. What He had said was that He would, in the course of the evening, give me a word for you. I believe that I now have it." "Okay," I responded, "so let me have it!" "It is," said Ray, "a bit of a hand-grenade!" "That's okay", I replied, "I can handle it." I had no idea as to what was coming. I should also explain that, although I was no longer in a full-time pastoral ministry, I was preaching regularly for a number of local fellowships - and greatly enjoying doing so. Ray looked at me, and said, "The Lord says that you have to give up your preaching ministry."

This was, some will recall, the year of the Falklands Conflict. I looked at Ray. "That," I said, "is no hand-grenade. That is an Exocet missile!" 

However, suddenly, preaching invitations dried up. I was struggling with this whole idea. I knew (and know!) that I was no Wesley, or Spurgeon; no Peter, or Paul. But I also knew that my messages were always grounded firmly on the Word of God, and that my ministry was usually acceptable. What could I do? 

One night as I was preparing to go to bed, my wife suddenly asked me what I was doing about Ray's word. I told her that I was struggling , "But," I said, "that verse from the hymn keeps going through my head « But we never shall know the delights of His love, until all on the altar we lay. For the favour He shows, and the joy He bestows, are for those who will trust and obey. ». And," I continued, "that word « all » is in giant fiery letters!" I think that it was that night that I did finally surrender my preaching ministry. I simply said that I didn't honestly know if I was saying the words with my heart, or only with my mind, but that if that was what He wanted, I would never preach again.

That was forty years ago - but within a week, the 'phone started ringing again with preaching invitations. I have been preaching fairly regularly ever since - mostly, at this time, in French! I often think of that particular episode in my life as my "Abraham, Mt Moriah, experience" (read Gen.22:1-13).

Guidance - available in so many different ways. Are you seeking that guidance today?

Next week, DV, we will look at how we may test the guidance that we believe we have received! 

Guidance - Pt. 3

Already, in this little series, we have recognised the need for guidance in our lives, and we have looked at some of the promises of guidance found in the Word of God, the Bible. I have sought to make clear that such guidance is, primarily, for those who seek to follow the will of God in their lives - but that even those who are "unbelievers" are often guided by Him, to bring about His will, even if they are not aware of the fact!

In this post, I want to look at some of the means by which this guidance is received. In what form does it come to me? The simple answer to that question is that it comes in many and various forms. It may be, for example, that guidance comes through circumstances.

I recall reading of a man who, as a boy, had wanted to be a soldier, following in the footsteps of his father, his grandfather, and his three older brothers. Nothing unusual in that, we might think! However, when the time came for him to receive a commission, "circumstances" led him to decline it. He died when only 37 years of age and, among his papers, was found this jotting: "If I had not met a certain person, I should not have changed my profession; if I had not known a certain lady, I should probably not have met this person; if that lady had not had a delicate daughter who was disturbed by the barking of my dog; if my dog had not barked that night; I should now have been in the dragoons, or fertilising the soil in India. Who can say that these things were not ordered?" And for those who would claim that it was just a series of "coincidences", may I add that, to the true follower of the Lord, that word is better spelled "God-incidents"?! Guidance through circumstances. 

But guidance may also come through reason - or, a better description might be "common sense" (although as my afternoon Sunday-school teacher used to say: "The problem with 'common sense' is that it isn't very common!").  When I was a young student at Bible College in Glasgow, there were one or two dear souls who took "guidance" to an extreme. They would seek God's guidance as to which pair of socks they should wear; as to whether they should have porridge or cornflakes for breakfast; as to whether they should go swimming, or play football, on our recreation afternoon!

Now it may well be that the majority of were wrong - but I honestly couldn't see that such decisions required divine guidance! Not that I thought, or think, that my heavenly Father isn't interested in such matters, but because I believe that if He had intended for me to go to Him over such comparative trivia, he wouldn't have given me a thinking, reasoning mind in the first place! Nine times out of ten, my decision on socks was dependant on which pair were clean, and didn't require darning; my choice of sport depended on my personal ability - or lack thereof!; my menu was dictated by personal taste and enjoyment.

Of course, reason may also be employed in another sense. I may weigh up the pros and cons of a certain course of action, and find that God is guiding me simply by making one proposition more "reasonable" than another.  

Circumstances; reason, or common-sense; and, tied in with the latter there is conscience - that still. small voice that speaks to my innermost being; that pricking of the mind that leads me to have, and know, an inner conviction that such and such a course of action is right - or wrong! Conscience, which is, I believe, for the true disciple of Jesus, the very prompting of God the Holy Spirit. As one friend of many years ago used to advise: "Follow your peace." If I have an inner peace about something, then there is a strong likelihood that it is right - and the opposite is equally true.

These three means of guidance may, of course, be experienced by the unbeliever just as much as by the follower of the Lord Jesus. However, there are three other means of guidance that are available only to His disciples. That is what, God willing, we shall look at next time.

Until then! 😄

Guidance - Pt.2

Last week, I introduced the concept of guidance in our human experience. I suggested that guidance, from Almighty God, can be very real - by those who don't even accept His existence, as much as for those who actively seek to follow Him. 

It is in the light of that statement that, this week, I want to consider the promise of such guidance. You see, this isn't simply some strange idea that I have thought up, all by myself!  I have actually found that it is assured throughout the written Word of God - the Bible.

For example, in what would surely be a strong contender for the title "the best-known part of the Bible", the 23rd Psalm, we find these words of the psalmist-king, David:

"He leads me beside still waters; He restores my soul. He leads me in the paths of righteousness, for His name's sake." (vs.2-3; emphases added). The promise of guidance.

In Psalm 25: 8ff we read: 

"Good and upright is YHWH; therefore He instructs sinners in the way. He leads the humble in what is right, and teaches the humble His way. All the paths of YHWH are steadfast love and faithfulness, for those who keep His covenant and His testimonies.  For Thy name’s sake, O YHWH, pardon my guilt, for it is great. Who is the man that fears YHWH?   Him will He instruct in the way that He should choose." (emphases added). The promise of guidance.

The 32nd Psalm contains this clear promise:

"I will instruct you and teach you the way you should go;" (v.8; emphasis added) The promise of guidance.

When we look at Psalm 48, the message is even more clear:

"... this is God, our God for ever and ever. He will be our guide for ever." (v.14; emphasis added). The promise of guidance.

Through the prophet Isaiah, God also promises guidance for His people:

"I will lead the blind in a way that they know not, in paths that they have not known I will guide them." (42:16; emphases added)                                                                                                                               "... He who has pity on them will lead them, and by springs of water will guide them." (49:10; emphases added).                                                                                                                                                        "... YHWH will guide you continually," (58:11; emphasis added). The promise of guidance.

And, lest any should be thinking that such guidance only applies to the Children of Israel, God's guidance is also promised in the pages of the New Testament.

The apostle John, recording Jesus' last discourse with His disciples before He was crucified, writes these words of the Master:

"When the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all the truth;", (16:13; emphasis added). The promise of guidance.

Paul, writing to the early believers in Corinth, is able to proclaim:

"... thanks be to God, Who in Christ always leads us in triumph," (II Cor.2:14; emphasis added). The promise of guidance.

But perhaps the greatest promise of all, is what is referred to as "The Great Commission", given by the Lord Jesus, just before He ascended to the Father:

"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age." (Matt.28:18-20; emphasis added).

And, of course, because these are the promises of Almighty God, we may depend upon them. They become, indeed, not merely promises (that may be broken!), but assurances! Wasn't it Albert Schweitzer who once remarked that if Jesus Christ was the Gentleman he believed Him to be, then he ought to be able to take Him at His word!? Jesus is, of course, much more than a "Gentleman"!

The promise of guidance - implicit, and explicit throughout God's own Word. But we must not forget that these promises are made to those who are, indeed, His people. Does that include you? I hope so - and I hope that you will read the next part of this little series on "Guidance".

Until next time.

Guidance - Introduction!

It was just this week that my wife and I received an e-mail, from a very dear friend that, while not using the word, was all about the subject of guidance - "What should I do next?"; "Did I make a mistake in what I have just done?" Now I should make clear, at the outset, that our friend and her husband are disciples of Jesus, and that her concern is that they may have stepped outside God's will for their lives, and that they want to be back in it! However, I suspect that we all seek guidance in the different situations that we experience in our lives.

Many things make it difficult to believe in the guidance of Almighty God. When astronomers inform us that the nearest star (other than our own Sun!) is approximately 4.25 Light Years away; and when we realise that a Light Year is the distance that light travels in an earth-year (travelling at more than 186,000 miles per second!); and that that computes to more than 25,300,000,000,000 miles: and when we compare this with the 70 - 100 years of life that some humans attain: it seems impossible to assert that such creatures as ourselves can possibly be under the care of, and even have fellowship with, the Being Who created all of this (if you accept that it is all just the result of random events, then I would respectfully suggest that you need to expand your horizons!).

We may consider the words of the psalmist:

"When I look at Thy heavens, the work of Thy fingers,
    the moon and the stars which Thou hast established;
4 what is man that Thou art mindful of him,
    and the son of man that Thou dost care for him?" (Ps.8:3-4)

In the bewildering vastness of the known universe, and as we peer down the long vista of time, it does seem to be pitifully naïve to ask: "Does God care for me?"; "Is He interested in my doings?"; "Will He direct me in every detail of my life?"; "Does He long for the worship, and adoration, of my heart?" 

When such questions are asked, the answer seems to be, to many people, a resounding "No! God, if there is a God, isn't interested and, if that is the case, we can't expect any guidance."

However, there is another side to this! Neither the vastness of the universe, nor the apparent endlessness of time, have the final word. A baby, surely, is more than a mountain, even although it is nothing by comparison of size, for even a baby can love. A man is more than a star, for a man can think. And even although a tortoise may live for well over 100 years, a child is much, much more.

Astronomy, and other sciences, may conspire to prove the utter insignificance of mankind - but man is still the astronomer, and the scientist in other disciplines! More than that, we are made in the image of Almighty God - although not in any physical sense. Even more, it is only a human being who may be born again of the Holy Spirit, and become the very child of God!

So I believe that, certainly for the disciple of Jesus, God's guidance can be very real indeed. And even the unbeliever, who doesn't seek that guidance, may receive it! Cyrus, the Persian king of the 6th century B.C., was a worshipper of idols, but the Hebrew Scriptures assert that he was a chosen instrument of the living God. The prophet Isaiah speaks these words concerning the Persian king: " ‘He is my shepherd, and he shall fulfil all my purpose’; saying of Jerusalem. ‘She shall be built,’  and of the temple, ‘Your foundation shall be laid.’” (44: 28), and "Thus says YHWH to His anointed, to Cyrus, ... ... 'I will go before you and level the mountains, I will break in pieces the doors of bronze and cut asunder the bars of iron, I will give you the treasures of darkness and the hoards in secret places, that you may know that it is I, YHWH, the God of Israel, Who call you by your name. For the sake of My servant Jacob, and Israel My chosen, I call you by your name, I surname you, 'though you do not know Me.'" (45: 2-4, emphases added).

Unaware of it though he was, this great conqueror was being guided, and girded, by the Divine hand. Behind all of his conquests and empire building, the purposes of YHWH could be found.

However, it is in the context of disciples of Jesus that I propose to spend the next few posts looking at the subject of guidance. Not that the posts will be, in any way, exclusive, and I trust that those who would not claim to be His disciples will still read, and consider what they read!

Until next week!

The return of - not the Jedi, but "yours truly"!

Well, after a very lengthy absence - four months to be precise! - I have again gained access to my Google accounts - including this one. I confess to not even having been aware that this was a Google site and, when I lost access to my gmail account, thought that I could, at the very least, keep up with posts here. How wrong can one be?! I have actually been able to access since Dec.15th, but "inherited" more than 3,400 emails that awaited my attention and, of course, as quickly as I deleted those that were out of date, others were coming in!

So, here I am, on Ne'erday (New Year's Day for those unfamiliar with the Scottish expression!), with the first of what I trust will continue to be my weekly posts for 2022.

In Luke 5:4, we read these words of the Lord Jesus to Simon Peter: "Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch." A carpenter telling a fisherman where to catch fish! The background to the advice is that Peter, and his friends had been fishing all night, and caught nothing (v.5). Indeed, when Jesus had arrived at the spot on the shore of the lake of Gennesaret, they were washing their nets, and it was Peter's boat that Jesus had used as a "pulpit" to teach the crowd of people who were wanting to hear the Word of God. Peter, however, responded: "Master, we toiled all night and took nothing! But at your word I will let down the nets." The result was miraculous! "And when they had done this, they enclosed a great shoal of fish; and as their nets were breaking, they beckoned to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both the boats, " (vs.6-7).

Why did these fishermen have to go out to the deeper water? Because when you want what you don't have - in this case, fish! - you've got to risk going where you haven't yet been! Some may have heard of, or even read, the book by John Ortberg - "If you want to walk on water, you've got to get out of the boat". This also involves dear Simon Peter and, again, he has to be obedient, even if all of his previous experience tells him that what he is about to do is a waste of time!

This is, of course, for many businesses a time to take stock. In such businesses, the directors wish to find out how their business has fared – has it progressed; has it done better than it did last year; can they report an increase in profits to the shareholders?

I suggest that it is a good time for us, too, to take stock spiritually.  We should ask ourselves if there has been any improvement, any progress, in our spiritual lives; if we are walking any closer to the Lord now than we were a year ago? That, of course, has to do with our sanctification. And sanctification may be simply defined as “becoming more like Jesus – day by day”, something that happens only by the working of God the Holy Spirit within us.

If a business is failing, or if there has not been satisfactory progress, then new policies, or a new manager, will be required. If there has been no progress in your spiritual life, or in mine, then the same solution will apply.

For the true disciple of Jesus, the new policies will often centre around our attitude to, and out time spent in, prayer and Bible Study. It is even possible that there are some who would refer to themselves as “Christians” for whom the need is greater submission to the true ‘Manager’ – the Lord Jesus. For the unbeliever, I would claim that that is the only solution. 

A new year! What will it bring? That is something that I am unable to say - indeed, that no-one is able to say with absolute certainty! However, as I quoted at the end of our annual newsletter, sent out just before Christmas, “I don't know what the future may hold, but I know Who holds the future.” (Ralph Abernethy, Martin Luther King's chief aide and closest associate.). For those who are disciples of the Lord Jesus, the Christ, that is our great strength and encouragement. 

I wish each and all, a happy, healthy, and hope-filled year.