DAY 333 - Does God Still Guide

I Samuel 10:1-7 (NIV) Then Samuel took a flask of olive oil and poured it on Saul’s head and kissed him, saying, “Has not the Lord anointed you ruler over his inheritance? ² When you leave me today, you will meet two men near Rachel’s tomb, at Zelzah on the border of Benjamin. They will say to you, ‘The donkeys you set out to look for have been found. And now your father has stopped thinking about them and is worried about you. He is asking, “What shall I do about my son?”’ ³ “Then you will go on from there until you reach the great tree of Tabor. Three men going up to worship God at Bethel will meet you there. One will be carrying three young goats, another three loaves of bread, and another a skin of wine. ⁴ They will greet you and offer you two loaves of bread, which you will accept from them. ⁵ “After that you will go to Gibeah of God, where there is a Philistine outpost. As you approach the town, you will meet a procession of prophets coming down from the high place with lyres, timbrels, pipes and harps being played before them, and they will be prophesying. ⁶ The Spirit of the Lord will come powerfully upon you, and you will prophesy with them; and you will be changed into a different person. ⁷ Once these signs are fulfilled, do whatever your hand finds to do, for God is with you.

Faced with so many decisions in life how many of us have come to recognize the limits of our wisdom and then found ourselves wondering if God will offer us any help. And, if God is willing to guide us how can we know what He is saying to us? How do we hear and recognize God’s guidance? I want to share with you three channels through which God guides us.

The first channel is through God’s word in the Scriptures. God can speak a specific word to us through a specific verse, but all of Scripture provides a general framework for guidance. It lays out certain principles that God’s guidance does not violate, such as to deal honestly and lovingly with other people. Guidance from Scripture comes from continually involving our life in it. The second channel of guidance through which we receive a more specific word is the inner working of the Holy Spirit in our life. That guidance is available to you and me through the inner nudgings, convictions, and feelings that come from the Holy Spirit. Paul reminds us that we need to test the Spirit to see if the feelings are of God, for it is easy to mistake our own feelings for God’s. The best way to test these feelings is to weigh them against Scripture. Is the thing we feel guided to do in keeping the message and the spirit of the Scriptures? The third channel of guidance is the confirming and correcting experience of outer circumstances, or signs as they are called in Scriptures. God has a way of saying well done good and faithful servant to us through the things that happen to us when we have faithfully followed His lead. We also need to be careful of seeing adversity as God’s way of saying no to us. The Scriptures call Satan “our Adversary,” not God. We need to be asking if something or someone is trying to keep us from following God’s guidance by making it difficult for us.

God’s guidance comes to us in a general way as we regularly immerse our lives in the Scriptures. His guidance comes in some very specific ways through the inner nudging of the Holy Spirit, and is confirmed or corrected by the results of our following God’s guidance.

From a sermon preached by Henry Dobbs Pope May 18, 1975

© Rhonda Hinkle Mitchell (Broyles)