Guidance | Day 18
Scripture Reading:
1 John 2:1-29; Hebrews 3:12 - 4:11; John 16:13; Proverbs 3:5-6; Matthew 7:7-11
Please comment below with your conversation with God and/or insights from today’s Scriptures.
You can answer the following:
What are the Scriptures telling you about guidance?
Have you experienced the guidance of God? How was it? What or who did He use to guide you?
What is your prayer to God regarding guidance?
Don’t forget to join us nightly at 7pm on FB.com/waterschurchnyc and join the conversation about the Scriptures and topic at hand.
Follow The Leading | Lemuel Ayudtud
God is constantly speaking to us. If we’d learn to hear His voice, He will lead us according to His purpose and plan for our lives. And if we’d learn to listen and obey, our lives will blossom like the fruitful tree He’s destined us to be.
Sometimes it’s not easy to take directions because sometimes you think you know where you’re going. And though we may have an inkling of an idea, the path is often filled with enough turns and twist that if we’re not careful a 9 day trip can turn into a 40 year wandering.
Who really knows how our end would be? When we took our first breaths, we nor our parents could have divine the pathways we would take towards adulthood. All our parents knew was that providing a protective home environment and safety for exploration as well as education for growth and advancements were needed. Of course, we’re talking about homes that are the ideal. There are homes where there were no caring parents or guardians. No systems of checks, balances or guidance. There are homes whose children have to fend for themselves and even homes where the children and even the adults have to defend for themselves. But however our upbringing or upcoming was, we can agree that from the onset of life our pathway was unknown … at least for us.
There is One who knows our coming in and going out. Man, He knows the end from the beginning! No matter the course we may take, there is one thought and counsel that will stand, and that is God’s.
He knows our ending. He knows the pathways that our decisions would take. He knows how one decision would affect our lives. We don’t know. We make decisions most times with the best of intentions, but then there are times that our decisions are based on lust, fears and emotionality. And in those moments things we’ve built up to support us or help us enjoy life in the future can come quickly crashing down. What we wanted to enjoy for maybe 15 minutes—whether in lust or in haste of anger—can ruin 15 years of our life. Those moments we regret and wish we’ve never done, yet more people have fallen into those traps more than we care to admit.
So God speaks, He leads. Why? Because He desires the best for us. He desires, like a good father should, an outcome for us that is life giving and full of joy and peace. He desires prosperity for us. Health, wealth and riches are in the mind of God for us. Safety and security are within His plans. The key thing is learning how to hear His voice and meditate on His Word.
Here are some ways that we can learn to hear His voice:
Daily Bible reading - reading the Bible everyday will sharpen your heart to the mantra and the direction of His voice. It will keep your awareness of what is right and He desires for us to abstain from.
Meditate or consider deeply the word of God. Repeat them like a declaration or quietly with your mouth and in your mind. Think on it in the morning, rehash it at night. Talk to others about it. Write your thoughts on a journal so that you can go back to it. Go deeper into studying topics, thoughts, concepts within the Word of God.
Speak to God and then pausing to hear. One way talk is a monologue. What you want is a dialogue when you wait for God to speak to you. Find a quiet time and place to wait on God.
Differentiate the spiritual and natural voices. There are four voices in the world and all of them will sound like yours. There is your voice with your own hopes, desires, aspirations as well as lust, envy, anger and hurt (among others). There is the world’s voice with its fads, fashions, pulls, lures, and enticements. It’s self service and man-pleasing. There is the devil’s voice with his lies and deceits. Half truths that you will not be able to discern unless you know God’s Word—and when you do, he will try to twist them for your destruction. Then there’s God’s voice—consistent with His written word. No vision, dream, nor advice or prophecies of men that says it’s from God will ever contradict His Word. The voice honors God, helping you to understand His plans and Will for you.
Admitting that you’re not always right. Lowering the guard to your emotion and offense can help you receive direct correction and direction both from God Himself (through His word) and from others whom God may use to speak to you.
Submitting to God called pastors and leaders will help you navigate the personal perspectives that can cloud your heart from hearing God.
Conversations with fellow believers and hearers of God’s voice. As sword sharpens sword, iron sharpens iron (also read the whole chapter), conversations of a life giving community will help us with partitioning the different voices helping us to correct or tweak our understanding of the Word of the Lord.
Follow the leading of His voice. The more you practice hearing and doing, the more you will sharpen your heart to hear from Him.
Don’t put too much stock on signs and wonders—they are there for those times when our faith is weak. Spend your time and attention on God’s Word and follow them wholeheartedly.
Starting your journey in hearing God can be today. Submit to His will for your life and you will begin to see the fruits of your submission. Soon His voice will guide you while His presence keeps you. Your fears will abate, anger will be tamed, your thoughts will rise, your joy will flourish, your hopes will increase. Faith will spring like a fountain, vision will clear and expand and love will be your resolve.
God is always speaking. In the midst of darkness His Word is our light. Your life will change remarkably if not miraculously if you follow His leading.
Lord, help me to walk the pathway to hearing your voice. Let me not resist Your guidance and direction. Help me to surrender my defenses against correction. Help my pride to ease as You help me to hear direction. Help me accept that You know everything and I don’t. Help me to embrace the fact that what You have for me is greater than what I can imagine for myself. Lead me to trust in Your desires for me. Crush the fears that hold me down keeping me mediocre and resistant to Your voice. I pray this in Your Name, Jesus, amen.
