|
Knowing Gods Will
Because of all that God has done for us, we want to please God. We want to do what God wants us to do. We want to know God's will for our life! So how do we know?
Does God speak directly to us? Do we “hear” God's voice? Sure God speaks to us through God's word the Bible. And sure God speaks to us through our conscience. But does God tell us what to eat for lunch, or what stock to buy?
Does God “call” us to a certain career? For example, does God say, “You, Dave, you are to be a Doctor. And you Sam, you are to be a construction worker.”
I sometimes hear people who claim they “hear” from God or they were “called” by God.
I searched the scriptures to see where this idea of “hearing from God” and “being called by God”, comes from in the Bible. I didn't find in the New Testament where it says God regularly talks to Christians or calls Christians to certain vocations.
Sure God spoke to Moses in a burning bush and God audibly spoke to Moses. I agree there are supernatural encounters with God in the Bible and God can still work that way. But what about the rest of us on a daily basis. Does God open up a parking space for us when we go grocery shopping?
I didn't find any passages to directly support this type of divine intervention in the lives of us Christians on a regular basis.
I did find the text below from the book "My Utmost for His Highest" by Oswald Chambers; where he explains what many may refer to as “hearing” from God or being “called” by God. Basically he says that when we love God we will obey God and begin doing things God wants us to do.
Here is the text from “My Utmost for His Highest”.
Isaiah 6:8 "Whom shall I send and who go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me."
God did not address the call to Isaiah; Isaiah overheard God saying, "Who will go for us?"
The call of God is not for the special few, it is for everyone. Whether or not I hear God's call depends upon the state of my ears; and what I hear depends upon my disposition. "Many are called but few are chosen, "That is, few prove themselves the chosen ones. The chosen ones are those who have come into a relationship with God through Jesus Christ whereby their disposition has been altered and their ears unstopped, and they hear the still small voice questioning all the time, "Who will go for us?"
It is not a question of God singling out a man and saying, "Now you go." God did not lay a strong compulsion on Isaiah; Isaiah was in the presence of God and he overheard the call, and realized that there was nothing else for him but to say, in conscious freedom, "Here am I, send me."
Get out of your mind the idea of expecting God to come with compulsions and pleadings. …
The call of God is not a call to any particular service; my interpretation of it may be because contact with the nature of God has made me realize what I would like to do for him. The call of God is essentially expressive of his nature; service is the outcome of what is fitted to my nature. …
Service is the overflow of super abounding devotion; but profoundly speaking there is no call to that, it is my own little actual bit and is the echo of my identification with the nature of God. Service is the natural part of my life. God gets me into a relationship with himself whereby I understand his call, then I do things out of sheer love for him on my own account.
To serve God is the deliberate love-gift of a nature that has heard the call of God. Service is expressive of that which is fitted to my nature. God's call is expressive of his nature; consequently when I receive his nature and hear his call, the voice of the divine nature sounds in both and the two work together.
The son of God reveals himself in me, and I serve him in the ordinary ways of life out of devotion to him.
|
|