Welcome back to the third installment of our series on recognizing God’s leading and His voice.
A lot of people are looking for guidance and good direction… who better to ask than someone who truly knows everything?
God has perfect knowledge and can see the end from the beginning… but we often have trouble hearing or recognizing his voice from the multitude of messages we receive every minute.
Some have argued that if God is so perfect, why can’t he make it so everyone hears him all the time?
Well, that’s a fair question. Would it surprise you to learn that the instructions for hearing Gods voice have been in the scripture all this time?
In the previous two parts of this series, we laid the crucial foundation of grace in the new covenant through Jesus Christ; if you haven’t yet seen those two segments, please watch those before watching this part, as we will be building onto what we learned previously, as we explore the application of hearing God’s voice.
Let’s get started!
We all have GPS apps on our smart devices these days. Our phones, watches, tablets, and cars all tell us exactly how to get from one place to another. Modern GPS not only guides you from point A to point B, but also helps you avoid delays, hazards, tolls, and even warns of speed traps. Without a GPS, many of us would be left wandering around aimlessly in unfamiliar territory.
GPS today is similar to the ancient idea of a shepherd, guiding their flock to a particular destination and guarding them from traps and harm. But what happens if you don’t hear or understand the directions?
A lot of people find God’s leading confusing or indecipherable… and that can be extraordinarily frustrating. However the scriptures and Jesus Himself give straightforward instructions for clearly identifying the directions of our divine shepherd. The trouble is that typical religious thinking and indoctrination has clouded the issue and muddied the spiritual waters, making things more complicated and mysterious than they truly are. So today we’ll be cutting through all of that to see the where God is directing, without religion getting in the way.
There are many forces in this world that put themselves in a place of leadership. Men desire to lead other men; simply turn on the television and you will see countless people all eager to give their opinion and advice on all kinds of things, setting themselves up in positions of leadership. We in moments of pride, desire to lead ourselves, and of course Satan has always desired leadership as well.
However, when we follow these leaders, or ourselves, where do we end up? The Bible says in 2nd Peter that those who follow other things and people are led into sin and darkness. However there is One Good Shepherd; One who does not lead astray, but leads into true rest and freedom from all bondage and oppression. This is what we will be studying today. Following the Good Shepherd into Righteousness.
All across the world, ministers are studying hard, stressing and struggling to lead the flock and come up with fresh food to feed the sheep, usually multiple times per week. This term “fresh food” can be a bit confusing, in that it is not that parts of the Gospel are stale – no, God's Word is always fresh, but that the Holy Spirit has a specific word for the people at that specific time, and there are many ministers today who find it difficult to know what that word is and how to deliver it to the people; or worse, they have utterly given-up.
So today, as part of our series on leadership, we are going to be studying how to have an effective ministry that is led by the Holy Spirit (which is the only way one can be truly effective). This applies not only to pastors, but also to every minister and indeed each one of us as well as we go about our day and encounter areas to minister and share Christ with others as well.
Have you ever worried about a future event? An expression often used is feeling as though we are “in the path of an oncoming train.” As humans, we tend to project into the future – and we usually envision the worst outcome However as believers in Jesus Christ, we should have a different hope and a different mindset.
The Bible tells us that even though things may seem bleak and we will have pressures of life come upon us, we have access to divine information and a divine source of help which very few have been drawing from, or even been aware of. This is what we will be studying today.