Discovering the Voice of God by Priscilla Shirer
Here is what I learned in my Bible study this morning. This is what was in my book plus what I wrote in the margins so some is directly from the book and some is from me.
"When the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all the truth. For He will not speak on His own, but He will speak whatever He hears. He will also declare to you what is to come. John 16:13
When we go through life, we need a guide we can trust. This is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit asks us to listen to Him, to follow Him, and to trust Him. John 16:13 explains that When the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all truth. "To guide" means to lead while one is on the way. The Holy Spirit does not start us out on a road and give us the directions to start with, He goes with us so that when it's time to turn right or left He tells us at that point. The Holy Spirit offers you freely given truth. We don't get it only when we do something to receive it. Desiring and doing His will is not my responsibility to discover; it's His responsibility to reveal. If we knew it all now, we would either rush foreword and do it our way or we would recoil from it.
The Holy Spirit guides you into an inner depth of truth. It is important that we realize that the convictions we receive are for us alone and not for us to impose on others. "As one who is in the Lord Jesus, I am fully convinced that no food is unclean in itself. But if anyone regards something as unclean, then for him it is unclean." Romans 14:14 The reasons for our convictions run much deeper than the things God calls us to abstain from or to be drawn to. Doing something we shouldn't or not doing something we should (Ex. don't: R movies, drinking / do; exercises, send encouraging notes to friends, visit elderly) are strongholds that prevent us from hearing the word of God. "For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ."
2 Corinthians 3-5 We combat strongholds by destroying them with divine weapons. We stop believing Satan's lies and learn that we are good enough, strong enough, intelligent enough. The word of God is our arsenal of divine weapons to combat Satan when he is trying to bind us to the strongholds in our life. This is a mixture of what she had in the book and my notes in the margins. Sort of a combined effort between me and Priscilla Shirer.
That said, I had a stronghold that I was a failure. I also was doubting that God answered prayers for the salvation of our family members. Through the word and through the Holy Spirit I was able to knock down that wall that held me captive in my thought life. Another area that I realized how the Holy Spirit is trusting myself. When I prayed for God to tell me whether to continue on towards CASA or to give up that future I struggled because I wanted a spiritually audible yes or no. What the Holy Spirit was telling me through this experience is that God had already equipped me with the knowledge and wisdom to make that choice. He had already through is guidance over the course of my relationship with Him equipped me with the answer. Another point is that God is not a palm reader where we go and get an answer and leave. He desires a relationship with us. That was a point someone made in the class.
So that all was really awesome. I am excited to see where God's Holy Spirit is going to take me through this study. I know that I am going to become more familiar with the Holy Spirit and I think that is way cool.
"When the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all the truth. For He will not speak on His own, but He will speak whatever He hears. He will also declare to you what is to come. John 16:13
When we go through life, we need a guide we can trust. This is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit asks us to listen to Him, to follow Him, and to trust Him. John 16:13 explains that When the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all truth. "To guide" means to lead while one is on the way. The Holy Spirit does not start us out on a road and give us the directions to start with, He goes with us so that when it's time to turn right or left He tells us at that point. The Holy Spirit offers you freely given truth. We don't get it only when we do something to receive it. Desiring and doing His will is not my responsibility to discover; it's His responsibility to reveal. If we knew it all now, we would either rush foreword and do it our way or we would recoil from it.
The Holy Spirit guides you into an inner depth of truth. It is important that we realize that the convictions we receive are for us alone and not for us to impose on others. "As one who is in the Lord Jesus, I am fully convinced that no food is unclean in itself. But if anyone regards something as unclean, then for him it is unclean." Romans 14:14 The reasons for our convictions run much deeper than the things God calls us to abstain from or to be drawn to. Doing something we shouldn't or not doing something we should (Ex. don't: R movies, drinking / do; exercises, send encouraging notes to friends, visit elderly) are strongholds that prevent us from hearing the word of God. "For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ."
2 Corinthians 3-5 We combat strongholds by destroying them with divine weapons. We stop believing Satan's lies and learn that we are good enough, strong enough, intelligent enough. The word of God is our arsenal of divine weapons to combat Satan when he is trying to bind us to the strongholds in our life. This is a mixture of what she had in the book and my notes in the margins. Sort of a combined effort between me and Priscilla Shirer.
That said, I had a stronghold that I was a failure. I also was doubting that God answered prayers for the salvation of our family members. Through the word and through the Holy Spirit I was able to knock down that wall that held me captive in my thought life. Another area that I realized how the Holy Spirit is trusting myself. When I prayed for God to tell me whether to continue on towards CASA or to give up that future I struggled because I wanted a spiritually audible yes or no. What the Holy Spirit was telling me through this experience is that God had already equipped me with the knowledge and wisdom to make that choice. He had already through is guidance over the course of my relationship with Him equipped me with the answer. Another point is that God is not a palm reader where we go and get an answer and leave. He desires a relationship with us. That was a point someone made in the class.
So that all was really awesome. I am excited to see where God's Holy Spirit is going to take me through this study. I know that I am going to become more familiar with the Holy Spirit and I think that is way cool.
Comments
How are you? Making it these last few days until Dan comes home?