In the first of this series of posts, I made a case for the ability of those who are called by Jesus name to hear the voice of God. In the second, we talked about the first of three practical ways of hearing the voice of the Lord, that was pray.
The second is read the Bible.
In the first post, I gave brief mention to a scripture that was written in 2 Peter 1:19 here it is in its entirety.
"We have the prophetic word more fully confirmed to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts, knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of scripture comes from someone's own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit."(ESV)
Peter has earlier been describing the reality of God's gift of everything that we need "for life and godliness" which is wonderful and again brings to life the fact of our complete acceptance and salvation from sin. He talks about the things that we need to add to the foundation of this acceptance and then mentions that they did not follow "cleverly devised myths" when they made known the gospel. Jesus, the gospel writers, Paul, and Peter all attest to the fact that scripture was fulfilled in Jesus. Prophecy was fulfilled in Jesus, and everything that was written was so by the power of the Holy Spirit as he visited men and gave them the words to say. The New Testament words were given in the same manner as the prophets of old which Peter says in the same letter as above when he mentions the apostle Paul's letters being difficult to understand then he says.
"there are some things in them (the letters) that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction as they do the other scriptures." (2 Peter 3:16 ESV)
Jesus is the foundation from which we do everything. His perfect life, sacrificial death, resurrection, and glorious position at the right hand of God frames what we believe about the world, people, love, the church, and many other things. The scriptures are what reveal to us the story of God's redemptive plan from before the world was made to when all knees bow and all tongues confess Jesus as King and Lord. Reading and letting the scriptures form our thinking from what it was before we were saved to the everyday renewing of our minds is necessary to stay on track when hearing the voice of God. The scriptures are sure and tested, they are more sure than subjective revelation.
What do I mean by subjective revelation? We could not know God unless he chose to reveal himself to us. He opens our minds to understand the good news of Jesus then we respond to what we have heard. Remember, we are not the seekers; God is. In our sinful state, we are not inclined toward God to seek him, love him, or even listen to him. If he does not reveal himself to us we are totally lost.
When we receive what Jesus did we are ushered into the big God story that is told in the Bible. It may happen in different ways, but the results are the same. Changed lives and thinking. It is the plumb line from which we judge everything we hear, because it tells the story of what we have been ushered into.
If while we are praying, we hear God say, "you need to forgive your friend". You know you need to because of the story of Jesus. If you hear him say, "you should keep that grudge against your friend, until he is really sorry for what he did to you." You know that this is not from God because of the story of Jesus. Subjective revelation is anything you feel with your senses or hear in your head that may or may not be God. If you are reading your Bible you will be able to discern what is from God and what is not. So read the Bible.
There is another way to discern the voice of God and that will be the subject of the next post.
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