ENJOYING DIVINE GUIDANCE
“I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will guide you with My eye. Do not be like the horse or like the mule, which have no understanding, which must be harnessed with bit and bridle, Else they will not come near you.” (Psalms 32:8-9 NKJV)
It is God’s delight to teach, guide, direct, and lead His children in the right way they should go in every situation. God is fully committed to giving guidance and direction to His children.
God has promised in His Word that “I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will guide you with My eye.” (Psa. 32:8 NKJV).
“Your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way, walk in it,” Whenever you turn to the right hand or whenever you turn to the left.” (Isa. 30:21 NKJV).
Before leaving this world, the Lord Jesus promised to send the Holy Spirit to dwell in and abide with those who believe in Him so that He may continually guide them into all truth.
Jesus promised them saying, “However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come.” (John 16:13 NKJV).
Why then are many believers today bewildered and confused, not knowing God’s will for their lives?
Why then are many children of God today running from one prophet to another seer, seeking for divine guidance and direction in life, thereby falling into the traps of spiritual conmen, manipulators and exploiters?
Ignorance!
Impatience!
Distractions!
Crowded mind!
Hardness of mind!
It is sad but true that many born-again believers today are still totally ignorant of the truth that they can personally hear, know, recognize, discern and understand God’s voice and will for their lives.
Many children of God today are depending absolutely on some prophets for divine guidance because they have erroneously thought, believed and concluded that the divine ability to hear, discern, know or understand God’s voice is a special gift, grace, or privilege exclusively reserved for some special or super Christians or anointed servants of God.
Every born-again believer as a sheep of God has an inherent divine potential, capacity or ability to hear, discern, know and understand God’s voice. It is one of your privileges, benefits or blessings in Christ.
The Lord Jesus plainly said, “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.” (John 10:27 NKJV).
“And when he brings out his own sheep, he goes before them; and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice.” (John 10:4 NKJV).
The Scripture clearly reveals that one of the benefits or blessings of the New Covenant is hearing, knowing, recognizing and understanding God’s voice personally without the aid of any servant of God.
Hebrews 8:
10 “For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My laws in their mind and write them on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.
11 “None of them shall teach his neighbor, and none his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them. (NKJV).
1 John 2:
20 But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you know all things.
21 I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and that no lie is of the truth. (NKJV).
1 John 5:
20 And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us an understanding, that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life. (NKJV).
Therefore, every born-again believer has the potential, capacity or ability to personally know, recognize, discern and understand God’s perfect will for his life. However, it takes practice, diligence, discipline and patience to develop and maximize this potential, capacity or ability.
Many believers today are not enjoying or receiving personal divine guidance simply because they don’t have the willingness or patience to listen to God’s voice.
It takes quality time and real patience to quietly and continuously wait upon God until you hear His voice and receive divine direction and instruction from Him. Sadly, many believers today are too busy to schedule or allocate time daily to practice listening to God.
You may not be able to hear, know or discern God’s still small voice in today’s busy and noisy world if you don’t consciously cultivate the habit of allotting or setting aside quality time daily in a quiet place to listen to God’s voice.
Although you are born-again with a God-given potential or capacity to hear, know or recognize God’s voice, yet you need to develop this potential or capacity in you by setting aside quality time daily to practice listening to God’s voice.
This is what Habakkuk had to do in his busy and noisy days to hear God’s voice and receive divine revelation. Habakkuk was determined to hear God’s voice, so he scheduled a time and place to listen to God.
He said, “I will climb up to my watchtower and stand at my guardpost. There I will wait to see what the LORD says and how he will answer my complaint.
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Then the LORD said to me, “Write my answer plainly on tablets, so that a runner can carry the correct message to others.” (Hab. 2:1-2 NLT).
If you also truly want God’s answers to some specific issues in your life, you need to schedule a place and time to listen patiently and quietly to God.
Many children of God today, like Martha, are not hearing God’s voice and enjoying personal divine guidance because they are distracted with many activities (Luke 10:38-42).
A noisy, restless, or crowded mind is a great hindrance to receiving and enjoying divine guidance. Seeking God for a divine guidance with a mind that is crowded with the cares of this life, fears, worries, anxieties, doubts, vain ambitions or lusts is simply asking God to sow His good seeds among the thorns (Matt. 13:22).
God won’t do that because He knows the seeds will be unfruitful!
Therefore, you need to wean, calm or quiet your soul or mind if you want to always hear God’s still small voice.
The Psalmist admonishes, “Be still, and know that I am God…” (Psa. 46:10 NKJV).
It is your personal responsibility to wean or quiet your noisy, restless or troubled soul!
David said, “Surely I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with his mother; Like a weaned child is my soul within me.” (Psalms 131:2 NKJV).
How did David calm or wean his restless soul?
By simply refocusing or resetting his soul on God and His promises!
Psalms 42:
5 Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him For the help of His countenance.
6 O my God, my soul is cast down within me; Therefore I will remember You from the land of the Jordan, And from the heights of Hermon, From the Hill Mizar. (NKJV).
A noisy, restless, anxious or troubled soul or mind is that which is not focused, stayed or fixed on God. When your mind is stayed or fixed on God, the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will flood your mind (Phil. 4:6-7).
The Scriptures assures, “You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You.” (Isa. 26:3 NKJV).
“To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.” (Rom. 8:6 RSV).
Therefore, if you want to always hear, recognize and discern God’s still small voice, your mind must be stayed, focused or fixed on God and His Word, and not on yourself, your challenges or circumstances.
In spite of his confusion Habakkuk resolved to set his mind on God and that was why he received a divine vision from God (Hab. 2:1-3).
You can hear God’s voice and enjoy divine guidance notwithstanding what you are going through if you choose to focus and fix your mind on God and His unfailing love for you.
Lastly, many born-again believers are bewildered and confused today, not enjoying daily divine guidance, because they don’t have a humble, open and willing mind to obey whatever God says or reveals to them.
If you want to hear God’s voice, you must be prepared to heed God’s voice!
The Lord Jesus said to the hardhearted Jews, “Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word.” (John 8:43 RSV).
“If any man is ready to do God’s pleasure he will have knowledge of the teaching and of where it comes from–from God or from myself.” (John 7:17 BBE).
With a rigid, stubborn or closed mind you cannot receive or enjoy a daily guidance or instruction from God.
When you have already made up your mind to do whatever pleases you on a matter or in a situation, it is dangerous to still be seeking for divine guidance in the situation. Why?
Because God may simply answer you according to what you have already made up your mind to do!
God warned the children of Israel through His Prophet Ezekiel against this attitude.
Ezekiel 14:
4 “Therefore speak to them, and say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD: “Everyone of the house of Israel who sets up his idols in his heart, and puts before him what causes him to stumble into iniquity, and then comes to the prophet, I the LORD will answer him who comes, according to the multitude of his idols,
5 “that I may seize the house of Israel by their heart, because they are all estranged from Me by their idols.”‘ (NKJV).
This is also the folly of Balaam! He nearly lost his life because of that.
When Balaam sought God’s face the second time to know whether it was God’s will for him to follow the emissaries of Balak sent to invite him to place a curse upon the children of Israel, God simply answered him to go, just according to the idol he had set up in his heart (that is, according to his heart’s desire).
However, to Balaam’s utmost surprise, the Angel of the LORD with his drawn sword in his hand stood against him on his way to strike him (Num. 22:31). If not for his wise donkey, Balaam would have got himself killed while thinking he was doing God’s will.
What a lesson for us today!
Sadly, like Balaam, most times when we pray and fast or go to God’s prophets seeking for divine guidance and direction, we are only seeking God to rubber stamp the idols we have already set up in our hearts (our selfish desires, choices, lusts, ambitions, goals, or dreams).
This is the reason why many believers today are still bewildered and confused even while seeking for divine guidance.
God is not the author of confusion; we only become confused when we are seeking for divine guidance with many idols set up in our hearts.
Beloved, God is much more willing and eager to teach, guide, direct and lead you in the right way you should go in the coming New Year than you are even willing and eager to know God’s will.
You will only find it hard to know God’s will or become confused in the process of seeking to know God’s will if you fail to cast down the idols you have set up in your heart before seeking for God’s guidance.
But with a humble, open and willing mind to receive, obey and follow God’s will, you will never be confused about God’s will for your life in any situation (John 7:17).
If you are humble to follow God, God will always guide, show and teach you the right way you should go in the coming New Year.
The Psalmist testifies, “The humble He guides in justice, and the humble He teaches His way.” (Psa. 25:9 NKJV).
Be humble to seek and follow God’s guidance. Divine guidance is one of your rights, privileges or blessings in Christ.
Begin to enjoy it in the coming New Year.
I wish you and your family a Happy and Prosperous New Year!
Prayer: My Dear Heavenly Father, I cast down and cast out of my heart today all the idols I have set up in my heart which are causing me to be confused as I seek for divine guidance and direction in life, in Jesus’ name. Amen.