Hearing from God

Over the last week, I've been trying to explain to some of the girls in my lifegroup how God speaks to us through the Bible. It's hard to explain that God speaks to us in totally practical ways through His Word and that it's not a mystical process that we have to do all the right, magical things to enable.

I feel like I can't make sense of it even now.

But really, the best way to get it is to experience it. This weekend, I didn't actually sit down in the morning and have an intentional quiet time. On Saturday night, I was going over some handouts for a new faith and baptism class. I was looking up some verses that I could use to talk about accepting Christ when I saw verses in the handout about daily life as a new Christian and forgiveness. The verse in the handout said:

Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.
Hebrews 2:18

That made me think of a verse that I knew was in the letters somewhere about God providing a way out from temptation. So I looked around and found this verse, one I had taken to heart back in high school:

No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.
1 Corinthians 10:13

I have known this verse for a long time, but it's not until you feel like there is no way you are strong enough to overcome an ongoing struggle that you are truly comforted by this promise: God will not let you be tempted beyond your limits, because you are so valuable to Him. That means that whatever you're going through, you can get through it. Don't give up. And when it gets to be too much, He will rescue you. So have peace.

I am blessed with friends who encourage and challenge me, but I needed to hear that promise directly from God. The Bible is the only way to get that. And He used a completely unrelated study I was doing to point me to that promise.

Today, God led me to the next step. He had promised me that He would carry me through temptation, but then He reminded me that rather than living in frustration with my weakness, He wants me to live in awe of His awesome power! What a difference!

I wanted to encourage a friend, and a phrase just popped into my head: "made perfect in weakness." Thank goodness for Bible Gateway! I looked it up and found this verse:

But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me.
2 Corinthians 12:9

What an awesome God I serve, that He not only walks through the valleys with me, but His power and grace are so great that He doesn't need me to be perfect before He can love and use me.

And what an awesome gift we have in the Bible, that He can use it at any time and in any situation to speak truth and love into our lives.

That isn't what you learned about Christ.

Paul wrote Ephesians to believers who were living in a culture of unbelief and sin. As I read Ephesians 4:17-24 this morning, I felt like Paul was writing to me in my culture.
Verses 17-19 sum up the problem:
Live no longer as the Gentiles do, for they are hopelessly confused. Their minds are full of darkness; they wander far from the life God gives because they have closed their minds and hardened their hearts against Him. They have no sense of shame. They live for lustful pleasure and eagerly practice every kind of impurity.
Here's the turning point in verses 20-22.
But that isn't what you learned about Christ. Since you have heard about Jesus and have learned the truth that comes from Him, throw off your old sinful nature and your former way of life, which is corrupted by lust and deception.
Here's how we do that (verses 23-24).

Instead, let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes. Put on your new nature, created to be like God -- truly righteous and holy.

This is big for me not because I forget that I live in a culture that is full of darkness and hardened against God, but because I start to think the goal is to be a little bit better than the world rather than to be as radically different as possible.

As I struggle against temptation -- and wow, is Satan attacking me in this time of my life -- I tend to live in justifications.

Entertaining "what ifs" and sinful thoughts are not as bad as actually acting on my thoughts, right? I mean, t0ns of people do the things I'm thinking about, so I'm not hurting anyone.

Paul says, "that isn't what you learned about Christ. ... let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes." Notice he doesn't say renew your actions, the things on the outside that are exposed. Renew your thoughts and attitudes. Those desires, lusts, judgments and rages that you keep entrenched on the inside where no one can find you out or set you straight. Where Satan can continue to keep you in secret chains.

Jesus said in Mark 7:21-23,

It is what comes from inside that defiles you. For from within, out of a person's heart, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, wickedness, deceit, lustful desires, envy, slander, pride and foolishness. All these vile things come from within; they are what defile you.

The only way I can get rid of the darkness that tries to take hold inside of me is to be filled with and renewed by God's Spirit. That means a lot of prayer and honest surrender of the desires that I want to cling to.

Dear X by Disciple describes the constant battle with sins of the heart and has become something of an anthem for me.