A Life More Than Guidance

Scripture: John 15.9-17; Isaiah 1.2-3; Song 2.8, 5.2


Some years ago at church camp my friend Jim and I were leading a large group of elementary campers up to some A-frame shelters called the Adirondacks. The Adirondacks were situated up the mountain, removed from the rest of the camp. It was a long hike through the woods. It was an especially long hike carrying sleeping bags and other gear with thirty or so campers. The trail is fairly well-marked, but it criss-crosses with other trails, so that if you make a wrong turn you end up taking the really long way.

We had been hiking a long time when we hit a logging road and we knew we had missed the right turn in the trail. Jim and I discussed what we should do. The kids were getting tired. I told him that I thought the logging road would eventually take us to the shelters, that at this point it would be better go forward than go back. So we tried to sound confident as we announced, "Okay, kids we're going to stay on this road, it shouldn't be too much farther!" As we continued walking, I heard a little girl behind us whisper to her friend, "I don't think they know where they're going."

Hearing God speak in our lives can be more clear than stumbling around in the woods. Hearing from God is not a freakish occurence either. It can be normal if there is relationship and life by the Spirit of God. Remember the image of the Vine.

"I am the vine, you are branches. When you're joined with me and I with you, the relation intimate and organic, the harvest is sure to be abundant. Separated, you can't produce a thing." John 15.5 The Message.

When we are separated ourselves from God, even if only by our indifference, that separation results in a tone deafness to the voice of the Spirit. When we stop hearing the Spirit then we stop understanding what God desires of us. The Prophet Isaiah says that's exactly what happened to God's people during his time.

"The ox knows his master, the donkey his owner's manger, but Israel does not know, my people do not understand."

There is the story in the book of Numbers of Balaam and his donkey. Balaam is riding the animal when suddenly the donkey stops and will not go any further. Balaam urges the donkey to go on but the animal is stubborn. Finally, in a rage, Balaam begins to beat the animal when the donkey turns and in a completely intelligible voice asks, "Why are you beating me?"





Balaam answers, "Because you are making a fool of me." Notice that apparently, Balaam doesn't have a problem with the donkey talking to him, he just has a problem with its stubborness. The donkey, of course, has refused to go any further because the donkey sees what Balaam does not, an angel of the Lord standing in the road with drawn sword in hand, blocking the way. There is double irony here. The "dumb animal" can see and understand the spiritual world much more clearly than Balaam can. Balaam can understand the donkey but doesn't have an understanding of what God wants of him.

The angel tells Balaam, "I have come out as an adversary against you because your way is perverse before me." Even a prophet will go far astray if they separate themselves from close communion with the Lord.

Having this intimate relationship with Jesus does not mean that we won't have any doubt or questions about what God wants, or what God is saying, but we know we have a reliable basis for confidence. We know that God can be trusted to speak clearly to us. Does that mean we can never be mistaken? No. But if we look to reliable confirmation of what we are hearing, we will more often than not walk in God's will.

Dallas Willard talks about the reliability of the "three lights." The three lights are points of reference for us that we can consult in determining what God wants us to do. They are passages from the Bible, circumstances, and impressions of the Spirit. We have already spoken extensively about the centrality of reading and understanding the Scriptures and we have discussed the Still Small Voice. Remember that our spirit, when touched by the Holy Spirit, becomes the "candle of the Lord." These three lights of Scripture, circumstance, and the inner voice or impression will often confirm each other and show us the way to go. In consulting these lights it is obvious that we must use our own judgment as best we can. If we are seeking God then the Spirit of the Lord is at work in us, transforming us "by the renewing of our mind." The Lord helps us to come to wisdom. Does this mean we will never make mistakes in judgment? Of course we will. God does not intend to make us infallible in our judgment and in our conversational walk with him. You could still be wrong about many of the beliefs that you base your life on. But you are usually correct. You could be wrong about the oil in your car, about the amount in your checking account, or about the date that milk was purchased. But that doesn't mean our judgment is unreliable because we sometimes make mistakes.

We seek understanding so we will live life rightly and live life abundantly. But more than that, we seek understanding because we seek to know the author of the story, the maker of the grand design. We open the door because we suspect there is someone important waiting on the other side.

"He brought me to the banqueting table, and his intention toward me was love. . .the voice of my beloved! Look, he comes. . ." Song of Songs 2.4, 8

"I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you." John 15.15

There is this movie, maybe you have heard of it, called March of the Penguins. It is real footage of their yearly trek out of the ocean onto the grinding ice where they will for months to mate and hatch and raise their young. . .It is both comical and inspiring as you watch them march in single file out into this white forbidding world of ice. They walk resolutely, like some tuxedoed army obeying the silent command of their superior to meet them at the predetermined rendezvous. How do they know where to go in this land of ice with seemingly no reliable landscape, markers or signs by which to steer themselves on the journey? No one knows for sure how they do it. But they do it, risking their lives, with seemngly so much. . .well, faith and confidence. They are confident in the still small voice within them to guide the way.

We can learn a lot from dumb animals.

To live life abundantly we must trust that God is there and he is not silent. We must take the further step of seeking to understand his Word and recognize the quality of his voice to us. Let me quote Willard one more time. "It is an unavoidable fact, that what we do or do not understand, in any area of our lives, determines what we can or cannot believe and therefore governs our practice and action with an iron hand. You cannot believe a blur or a blank." The blanks in our understanding of God can only be filled in by our effort. It will not be done on our behalf. Life with God is a relationship. And relationship is not a one way street. Jesus tells of that he reveals all we need to know to be his friends. The rest is up to us.

Washed by the Word

Scripture: John 15.1-8; Acts 8.26-40; Romans 10

There’s this guy, a very influential official high in government, sitting in his chariot reading his Bible. We’re told the man is a eunuch. It’s sort of a strange scene, but it gets stranger when a guy comes running up beside the eunuch’s chariot and says, “Hey, I noticed what you’re reading - do you understand it?” The eunuch says no, why don’t you explain it to me if you can?”

That image, a guy, Philip, running up alongside a moving vehicle to ask someone if they understand God’s word, that’s the quintessential image of a teacher of God’s word. That’s what we’re supposed to do - get alongside someone who is interested in the Word of God and help them understand it better.

Are you willing to walk alongside someone? Are you willing to run for God? You are when the Word comes alive. You are if you believe the Word of God is Jesus Christ, the living Word among us.

“And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” John 12.32

“But how are people to call upon him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without a preacher? . . .’How beautiful are the feet of those who preach good news!’. . .So faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes by the preaching of Christ.” Romans 10.14-17

The Bible by itself is just a book, a dead letter if you will. The Bible speaking, whether it be read or listened to or preached, is accompanied by the very Spirit of Jesus and it becomes the Word of God alive, able to move mountains, calm hurricanes, and turn hearts of stone to fire.

Again, “How can we hear God speak to us?” Dallas Willard says, “We will truly be at ease hearing God only if we are at home with the word of God, with his speaking through creation and redemption. Hearing God is not a freakish event.”

Hearing God must become a regular and normal event for us. That happens when we regularly open ourselves up to the living Word of God.

The Word of God does two fundamental things for us:





1) The Word of God brings us from Death to Life.

Ephesians 2.1 says that we “were once dead in our sins, which was the natural form and course of this world.” (my paraphrase) What were we dead to? We were dead to Life and dead to God.

Everything that is alive has a power to act and respond in specific kinds of relations. A head of lettuce is alive, and yet it is not alive in the same way and relation as is, say, a German Shepherd. The lettuce can’t chase a ball. But in turn, though the German Shepherd is alive it cannot type out this sermon. Not even a roomful of monkeys can do that! It all depends on the kind of life that is in a thing. The lettuce is dead to the things that a German Shepherd is alive to. The Shepherd is dead to things that we are alive to.

All human beings were once alive to God. We became dead to God through sin. All human beings, of course, can still be biologically alive, but they cease to be responsive to and interactive with God’s rule in the Universe. Humanity became like a dog in front of a laptop, a head of lettuce next to a ball. We were cut off by our sin from this kind of spiritual life. The Word of God can save us and bring us back from that spiritual death.


By his word, God makes us his companions in life, his friends. It is the friends of God, and they alone, who are really at home in the universe as it actually is.

2) The Word of God washes us clean from our sins

The extent of the dirt is amazing. The past several weeks my sons’ teams have been playing baseball, the fields have been very dry. The layer of fine dust is inches deep, so that every step on the field means kicking up dirt into the air and onto yourself. We come home from games just covered in dirt and dust after every game and practice. The water in our weekly bath gets pretty brown let me tell you! It’s impossible to stay clean in that environment. Sin is not only specific wrongdoing, but it is that dusty environment we live in when we are apart from God. It is in the very air we breathe. Only the Word of God has the power to wash the dirt away. By water and the Spirit, the living Word, Jesus Christ, gives us forgiveness, cleansing and new life.

Baptism is a one time event, but this washing by the Word must happen continually, not because we remain in our sinful, pre-salvation state, but because the effects of the dust of sin is so pervasive. It’s like trying to get rid of sand in your stuff after you’ve been to the beach. The Word must seek out every area and aspect of our minds, hearts, and lives so that the truth and love of the Spirit may change us completely into the kind of person who walks with God.





A recent report from a mental health clinic told how the removal of coffee from waiting rooms transformed the patient’s behavior. Before, when there was coffee available, there was constant bickering and even violence between patients and staff. After the coffee and caffeine stimulation was removed, the unpleasantness noticeably decreased. Like caffeine, the poisonous thoughts, beliefs, fears, lusts, and attitudes inhabiting our minds compel us to destructive behavior that we ourselves do not understand and whose source we don’t recognize.

“Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” Romans 12.2

In other words, wash your mind with the Word and so live a baptized life for the world to see, life as it is meant to be lived. The Word of God removes old routines of thoughts, beliefs, feelings, attitudes, imagination, and action – and in their place He puts something else: his thoughts, his beliefs, his ways of seeing and interpreting things.

“You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you,” Jesus said. His very word and presence prunes us, cutting off the withered and unfruitful parts of our lives, making everything about us come alive in relation to the True Vine.



Here are a few suggestions for Reading the Written Word of God properly:


A) As we read the Scriptures we must remember that our humanity by itself will not prevent us from knowing and interacting with this God. The stories in the Bible are of people like you and me. (James 5.17) The experiences recorded there are basically of the same type as ours would have been if we had been there. Their stories are recorded for us so we might lead the kind of life demonstrated in the Bible: a life of personal, intelligent interaction with God.

B) Read with a submissive attitude.


C) Pray the Scriptures

D) Start with the most familar parts to you - Psalm 23, I Corinthians 13, John 3. Meditate upon these parts, let them work in you and through you.

E) Don’t try to read too much at once. It is better in one year to have ten good verses transferred into the substance of our lives than to have every word of the Bible flash before our eyes. "The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life." We read to open ourselves to the Spirit.

F) Come to your passage as to a place where you will have a holy meeting with God.


There was a busy man who decided to landscape his grounds. He hired a woman with a doctorate in horticulture and emphasized to her the need to create a maintenance-free garden with automatic sprinklers and other labor-saving devices since he was too busy to spend much time on upkeep.

Finally she stopped and said, "There's one thing you need to deal with before we go any further. If there's no gardener, there's no garden!"

"This is to my Father's glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples."

Hearing God - The Still Small Voice

Scripture: John 10.11-18, 26-27; Psalm 23; 1 Kings 19.11-12

Do you know that there are invisible things flying through the air in here? There is an internet signal in here, there are radio signals, of all kinds flying around. When you are at home there are television and microwave signals passing through your body all the time. Much of the time we are not consciously aware of these signals unless we have the appropriate receiver that will tune in to these “waves.”

The voice and spirit of God are sort of like that. Again, when we consider the question, “Is God speaking to me?” We must first answer that question with a question:

“Are we in tune?” Maybe God is speaking all the time but we have not used right antennae or been tuned into the right frequency to hear what God has to say.

I know an older pastor whom I respect very much. Dick Burns is a retired United Methodist pastor and evangelist. The admittedly limited time I have been around Dick, he has impressed me as one of the most “in tune” persons I have ever known. There is just this quality about him - he is overflowing with the presence of God. I want to talk more about how all of God’s people can be in tune with the voice and spirit of God.


“And behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces th rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a still small voice.” 1 Kings 19.11-12

This Old Testament story has taught believers for ages. Not all the Bible stories can be readily transferred to our own experience as fodder for application - but this story can and should be. Elijah’s experience is our experience. No doubt we look for God in the storms of life, when sickness strikes, when we lose someone close to us, when the jobs go elsewhere. . . But the voice of God doesn’t speak through those events so much as the voice of God continues to speak quietly to those who are able to quietly listen, in everyday conversation.

“Man’s spirit is the candle of the Lord, searching his deepest self.” Proverbs 20.27

The still small voice can also be called the inner voice. It is the Spirit of God speaking to us. The human spirit becomes “the candle of the Lord” Our spirits become receivers of God’s word that is rarely shouted, but rather spoken casually, conversationally, friend to friend. This is God’s preferred method of communicating with us.




There are other ways that we find God speaking in the Bible, angelic visitors, audible voice, dreams. And these are all valid ways to still hear God’s voice speaking to us. There is no reason, biblical or otherwise to suggest that these other ways have been superseded or nullified for the believer today. But the superiority of the still small, inner voice remains clear. In the Old Testament, there was a progression through the prophets that went from the priority of dreams, e.g. Joseph and Ezekiel, to someone like Jeremiah who spoke with the authority of this inner voice as opposed to “mere dreamers.”

The still small voice was, as well, how Jesus listened to the Father. How many times do you see Jesus look for angels or the audible voice, or go off into visions and dreams? In the case of the first two, very rarely, in the case of the latter two, never. How did Jesus hear from God?

Jesus prayed. He got his guidance through prayer as you and I do. There was no psychotic episodes or raptures. He got his guidance while in control of his faculties, not out of control. When God does give a dream, it may be because he cannot get a hold of our normal processes to guide them. “For God is found most clearly and beneficially in the normal rather than the abnormal. And Jesus is the Normal, for He is the Norm.” E. Stanley Jones

Sometimes we demand the spectacular in order to be spiritual or validate God’s activity. The demand for spectacular signs is often a sign of childishness. It is akin to the demand for the new or the clever and the cutting edge. You know the overused cliche, “Think outside the box!”

The story is told of a blonde girl. . . let me stop right here and make this disclaimer - this story enforces blatant stereotypes linking appearance to lack of intelligence, a correlation that has no basis in reality, and is a stereotype that I personally reject - so please disregard this story and tune back in when it is over. This blonde calls her boyfriend and says, “Please come over here and help me! I have a killer jigsaw puzzle, and I can’t figure out how to get started.”

Her boyfriend asks, “What is it supposed to be when it’s finished?”

The blonde says, “According to the picture on the box, it’s a tiger.”

Her boyfriend goes over to her house to help her with the puzzle. She shows him where she has the puzzle spread out all over the table. He looks at the pieces for a moment, looks at the box, and turns to her and says, “Fist of all, no matter what we do, we’re not going to be able to assemble these pieces into anything resembling a tiger.”

He takes her hand and says, “Second, I want you to relax. Let’s have a nice cup of tea, and then. . .let’s put all these Frosted Flakes back in the box.”



My point, and I do have one, is to say that sometimes we can try to be too earnest or too clever when in fact, we should just “think inside the box.” For our purposes here, thinking inside the box is asking, “How does God usually speak to people?” What does Jesus say about hearing his voice and knowing and doing his will?

“I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me. . .My sheep know my voice.”

God usually and regularly speaks to those who walk with him in a mature, personal relationship using this inner voice, proclaiming and showing the reality of the Kingdom of God as they go.
Again, this means we must learn to pray as Jesus prayed. Jesus, God in human form, talked to the Father in prayer as he would have talked to the Father in heaven. This implies two things - prayer is conversational and ongoing; and prayer is special set-aside times that we make with God on a daily basis.

I’ve found in talking with people about prayer is that we talk a more about the ongoing conversation because we don’t like the idea of those more extended “quiet times”. We probably don’t take those times very often and feel guilty about that. We tend to extol the virtue of the conversational kind of prayer that we can pray in our car or at the gym or even at work. And this kind of prayer is of great benefit. People who grow into mature relationship with God undoubtedly learn to practice this conversational prayer. But this kind cannot be the only kind.

Let me illustrate it this way: Suppose you meet this person, you know, of the opposite gender, and you strike up a conversation about, I don’t know, watching American Idol or something. You talk about other things, shallow stuff, and there seems to be some attraction and compatibility, enough to go out on a date. Keep in mind you know next to nothing about this person, unless of course, you are a guy and she says she watches ESPN everyday, then you know you’re in love. But for the rest of us, let’s say you go out on the date and it goes okay but the conversation stays superficial. You keep in touch by phone once or twice a week, but nothing ever develops because at no point do you really connect, because at no point has there been “the conversation.” Do you what I mean? I’m talking about the “heart to heart”, the conversation in which you both open up to each other and relationship happens. It’s the conversation that opens the door to ongoing conversation.

Our relationship with God is very similar. In fact the Scriptures tell us that God courts or dates us, his people. To become a child of God is to become a part of the Bride of Christ. The marriage metaphor is not accidental. I’ve found that marriages can’t survive on bare morsels of information like where do you we have to be tonight, or how the kids are feeling, or what was on American Idol last night. Marriages need the meatier food of heart to heart conversation on a regular basis. So does our relationship with the Bridegroom.


We must grow into both kinds of prayer, the on-the-fly conversation at any moment kind, and the daily set-aside quiet time, morning, noon, or night time that we can find to spend with God. But it’s the latter kind in which we are more likely to feed ourselves on the Scriptures, listen to the promptings of the Holy Spirit, and develop the ability to hear the still small voice of God speak.

It’s the time we get to know God in person.

“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul.”

I wish I could give you some profound (or at least clever) spiritual direction. I don’t mean to sound so simple. But it is this simple. To hear from God you must take time to read the scriptures, pray and listen for God’s voice. Find a time in your day to do this. Ten, fifteen minutes of heart-to-heart conversation is what it takes to light the candle of your spirit with the Spirit of his presence. It’s a small price to pay to be tuned in to that still small voice, the voice of the One who knows you best and loves you most.

Speak to the Mountain

Scripture: Luke 24.36b-48; Acts 3.12-19


I am coaching Michael’s baseball team. We are the Angels. Things are going well. We don’t have a lot of players, so I have the concern that some nights we won’t have enough angels in the outfield. . . Sorry, I couldn’t resist. One of the things I enjoy is giving an instruction and having ten kids obey. “Everybody, circle up!” And the small herd stampedes to me.


One time Jesus encountered a Roman Centurion who had a servant who was very ill. The centurion sent word to Jesus, asking if he would come and heal the man. But when Jesus was still a ways from his home, the centurion again sent word and said, "Don't trouble yourself, Master, if you just give the command I know my servant will be healed."

Jesus was amazed at such trust and faith in his word and power. Jesus said, "I've not found faith like this even in Israel."

Great faith, like great power, is recognized by the ease of its working. This Roman soldier had complete trust in Jesus. The centurion was used to speak words of command that would be immediately obeyed. So he was completely willing to believe that another person of authority could accomplish great things. The centurion believed in that kind of universe.

Is it that simple? Skeptics may doubt that things can be like that. But what is wrong with this belief in the power of an authoritative word? What is wrong with a universe that responds to thoughts and intentions? Surely we live in just such a universe.

Physicists have described a universe that is ordered not so much by physical matter as by strings of information - codes, thoughts, words, if you will.

"And God said, 'Let there be light.' and there was light." Genesis 1

The spoken word creates and shapes reality.

Now. Our main theme for consideration is, "How can hear from God?" We must ask ourselves, if God speaks, will we do what he requires? Are we ready to do business with God? If you can honestly say, "God has never spoken to me," you might ask yourself, "Why should he speak to me?" What am I doing in my life that would make speaking to me a reasonable thing for him to do? Are we in business together, or am I trying to use a little of God to advance my own projects?

What would we do if we heard the word of God? Would we have faith like the centurion, or would we require proofs and assurances before we believed?


We may live like we have doubts about God's word, but we should realize, God doesn't.

"He sends out his command to the earth; his word runs swiftly. He gives snow like wool; he scatters frost like ashes." Psalm 147.15-16

"For as the snow and rain come down from heaven, and do not return there until they have watered the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and succeed in the thing for which I sent it." Isaiah 55.10-11

God creates and shapes the universe with words. The rocks and trees, the moon and the stars obey his words. In the created order we are almost alone in our disobedience.

The story is told of a young father in a supermarket pushing a shopping cart with his little son, who is strapped in the front. The little boy is fussing, irritable, and crying. The other shoppers give the pair a wide berth because the child is trying to reach out and grab items off the shelf to throw them. The father, though, seems very calm. As he continues down the aisles, he murmurs gently: "Easy now, Donald. Keep calm, Donald. Steady, boy. It's all right, Donald." A mother who is passing by is greatly impressed by this young father's attitude. She says, "You certainly know how to talk to an upset child." And then the woman turns to the little boy and says, "What seems to be the trouble, Donald?"

"Oh no," the father says to her. "He's Henry, I'm Donald."

It's been noted that Amish children never scream or yell, even on the playground. A writer doing research asked the Amish schoolmaster why this was so. The schoolmaster replied, "Well, have you ever heard and Amish adult yell?"

In this respect, God is Amish. The Lord of the Universe is not used to yelling to be heard and obeyed. His word runs swiftly and accomplishes his purpose with ease.
What's more, God loves to speak his word. Jesus came talking. That's how he brought the Kingdom here on earth. Not with might, not with armies or political coup, or even religious jihad; Jesus change the world with words. He also taught his disciples that they too can speak reality-changing words in his name and power.

"Truly I tell you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to the mountain, 'Move from here to there, and it will move; nothing will be impossible for you."

Jesus put this to the test with a couple of experiments. First, he sent out the twelve disciples with power to heal diseases and have authority over evil. When that was successful, he sent out seventy others. Keep in mind, these seventy were not his closest associates, not his best-trained troops, but just seventy others. They came back at the end of their mission positively ecstatic with what God had done through them. "Even the demons obey us!" they told Jesus. Luke says (10.21) that Jesus "rejoiced in the Holy Spirit." The Greek word here suggests the kind of joy in which people literally jump up and down for. In other words, Jesus is positively gleeful, he is excited in a way that no other scripture records. Jesus is excited because God's power and word not only flows through him, but through all who believe and work in his name. Jesus then says a prayer of thanks: "I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will." (Luke 10.21)

We should be clear that all the good we accomplish we do so by the power of God and the truth of God. There is no other option. No one has their own private reservoir of goodness. It just doesn't exist. When Peter and the apostles are doing great works of healing, all the people are amazed at this power and stare at them like they're aliens or gods themselves. Peter says, "Why are you surprised?" We told you about the power of God demonstrated in the death and resurrection of Jesus. The power that raised him lives in us. "Why do you stare at us like it’s our doing or our goodness?" If you repent and believe, Peter goes on to say, "times of refreshing may come to you from the Lord."

Jesus has shown us his hands and his feet. He has shown us the best signs of his power and presence. He wants to open up our minds and hearts to the hearing and obeying of his word.

Jesus is absolutely beaming when his followers, the children called by his name, not only believe his word, but begin to act on the word with authority and power to do his will.
What would we do if we heard God speak to us? Our willingness to obey is critical to our ability to hear from God and to grow into a conversational relationship with him. My friends, we must recover or discover a love for God's word. Next week, we're going to talk more about what the reading of God's Word does for us. Until then, be listening for His voice of command.

Hearing God – The Limits of Signs

Scripture: John 20.19-31; 1 Corinthians 1.20-25


But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.” John 20.31


Jesus showed them his hands and his side, at Thomas’ request. It was a bold request. But it was also a request, in other forms, that we make all the time. If only we could see God or evidence of his work, more plainly, then we would believe. If only we could hear his voice more clearly, then we would listen. We are going to spend the next several weeks thinking about How We Can Hear God in our lives. For this series, I am indebted to Dallas Willard’s book, Hearing God, Developing a Conversational Relationship with God. I recommend your own reading of the book.

You might have already noticed, but the central idea in our thinking will be that we can hear God and in fact, have an ongoing conversation and relationship with God. In fact, this way is the way of mature discipleship. Following Jesus is about more than following the rules. As Dallas Willard points out, “An obsession merely with doing all God commands may be the very thing that rules out being the kind of person that he calls us to be.”

The Bible is clear that God wants to have relationship with us. It also follows, and it is clear, that God wants to speak with us, person to person. Is that so outrageous and unthinkable?

“Why is it,” comedian Lily Tomlin asks, “that when we speak to God we are said to be praying but when God speaks to us we are said to be schizophrenic?”

If, as people of faith, even a little faith, we can’t believe that God would speak in response to our prayers, then we might as well give up now. As the hymn, comfortably and confidently asserts, “He walks with me and he talks with me and he tells me I am his own.”

Jesus says, “I have called you friends.” (John 15.15) and

“Look, I am with you every minute, even to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28.20)


Before we talk about one way God speaks to us, perhaps we should say a few words on how God does not speak with us.

Bible Roulette - Have you ever wanted to know God’s will and opened your Bible to a random page and put your finger on a verse? Or used the numbers of your birthday?

I have a decision to make that is of some importance to me and would like to know God’s mind on it, so I thought I’d try this method. My birthday is April 19th. So I turned to the fourth book of the Bible (Numbers), the 19th chapter, and the first verse of that chapter tells me, wait for it. . . to go get a red heifer. Now, unless I’m missing something, that’s not terribly helpful in regards to my decision. I don’t think that’s what God has to say to me.

Hearing from God is not like playing the lottery. This way of reading the Bible, call it Bible Roulette, and imploring God to speak is not only desperate and superstitious, but it’s also just play mistaken and ineffectual, not to mention unfaithful.


Humble Arrogance - This is another hindrance to hearing from God. We look at those Bible characters and we say, they’re not human, or people aren’t like that today.

In the movie Gandhi, there is a scene set in South Africa where the young Indian Gandhi and a white clergyman are walking together down a street, which was illegal at the time. They are accosted by some thuggish looking young white men who seem about to assault them when the mother of the ringleader calls out from a nearby window to go on about his business.

As they walk on the clergyman exclaims over their good luck. Gandhi says, “I thought you were a man of God.”

The clergyman replies, “I am, but I don’t believe he plans his day around me!”

The scene gets a chuckle, but what God has taught us about himself in the Bible and in the person of Jesus contradicts the clergyman.

His greatness is precisely what allows him to “plan his day” around me or anyone and everyone else as he chooses.

Message-a Minute-View - This view says that God is telling you what to do every moment, or would if you would ask him. Notice, this is not the same as saying God is with you every moment and enjoys that prerogative. God can speak at any time to us, but there is nothing in the Bible or in Jesus that suggests this frantic and tyrannical control of us. God calls to grow in understanding of his desires and purposes and then freely act in harmony with them.

Related to this mistaken view is the Whatever Comes Must Be God’s Will View. Again, there is little in the Bible to suggest this is true. Virtually all the prophets down to Jesus interact with, argue with, plead with God to do some things and not do others, and amazingly, God listens to them! It’s also obvious that many things happen that God does not want to happen

“The Lord is. . .not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance.” (2 Peter 3.9)
God’s world is a place where we all have a role to play, in the salvation of others and the coming Kingdom. With respect to many events in our future, God’s will is that we should determine what will happen. What a child does when not told what to do is the final indicator of what who that child is.

Not that we have mentioned a few of the mistaken ways of trying to hear from God, let’s look at the first real way God speaks to us – through miracles and signs. Again, let’s keep in mind that God can speak to us and God desires a relationship with us.

Like the Jim Carrey character in Bruce Almighty, sometimes the signs are so numerous that our blindness in seeing them for what they are is almost laughable if it weren’t so sad. Sometimes, God uses a megaphone. Miracles and signs are some of those times.

The end of chapter 20 in John tells us that many signs were done by Jesus and recorded by the apostles so that we might believe.

God performs miracles today as well. Willard tells the story of Peter Marshall, the Scotsman who would become one of the most well-known ministers of the 20th Century. One foggy night in Britain, Marshall was taking a shortcut across the moors in an area where there was a deep, deserted limestone quarry. It was pitch dark as Marshall plodded forward blindedly, when he heard an urgent voice call out, “Peter!”

Marshall stopped. “Yes, who is it? What do you want?” But there was no response.

Thinking he was mistaken he took a few more steps. The voice came again even more urgently, “Peter!” At this he stopped again and, trying to peer into the darkness, fell on his knees. Putting down his hand to brace himself, he found nothing there. As he felt around in a semicircle he discovered that he was right on the brink of the abandoned quarry, where one step more would certainly have killed him.

God still speaks. And yet, there is a limit to what signs and wonders can do for us. In Mark’s Gospel Jesus heals a man of a withered hand and he asks the people whether it was good for him to heal on the Sabbath. What answer does Jesus get? Silence.

They don’t know what to say or do. And yet, immediately afterwards some of them thought it right to make plans to kill Jesus. That what Jesus got for his miracles there.

In his hometown Jesus refuses to do any because of their unbelief. Jesus won’t perform stunts for us. He desires faith and growth in us instead. As E. Stanley Jones wrote,

I believe in miracle, but not too much miracle, for too much miracle would weaken us, make us dependent on miracle instead of our obedience to natural law. Just enough miracle to let us know He is there. . .

If we don’t have faith, we can’t see the signs that require faith to be seen.

“Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.” (1 Corinthians 1.20-25)

To us doubting Thomases, God has said, the best sign you will get are marks in my hands and my side and my feet. Will you hear and believe these?

New Favorites (Easter 2006)

Scripture: Acts 10.34-43; John 20.1-18


Has anyone ever told you something that you believed to be true, only later to find out that it wasn’t true?

When I was kid I used to collect horse figurines. It started with the horse that came with my cowboy guy that you could move his arms and legs. He looked a lot like Woody from Toy Story before there was a Woody and a Toy Story. Anyway, “Woody’s” horse was the first in my collection of horses which later expanded to about six or so. I liked them for what they were. But I liked them a lot more after my sister told me that they were worth money. My sister, Kristin, one day told me that my horse collection would someday be worth like a million dollars. . . And I believed her. Hey, I was nine years old.

I asked my mom about it later and she said no, my horses were not worth a million dollars, more like nine dollars. She told me Kristin was just playing a joke on me.

I confronted Kristin that evening. I told her there was a word for people like her and that word was “Liar,” and there was a special level in Hell reserved for people who said a boy’s horse collection was worth a lot of money when it really wasn’t and got that boy’s hopes up to be independently wealthy at a young age and God knows that boy didn’t have any money then and I encouraged my sister to pray, pray now for Almighty God’s forgiveness for this most grievous sin of lying. You can tell, even then, I was laying the foundations to become a fine pastor.

There was a lot of hullabaloo a few months ago over author James Frey and his book A Million Little Pieces. It was supposed be a true story that Frey had written of his own experiences. Turns out, he exaggerated a little. . . okay, a lot. Oprah and the whole book club nation were offended. Frey went on the Oprah Winfrey show and “confessed” to Oprah, who then grudgingly pronounced absolution. Don’t mess with Oprah!

Don Miller wrote a tongue in cheek essay in response to this “crisis of truth” and what exactly is fiction and nonfiction and how do they relate to truth.

I remember how much I loved J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit, for example but was enraged when I finally saw a picture of the author, smoking a pipe, wearing a hat and jacket, no floppy ears, no webbed and hairy feet, a complete con. ‘Lying so and so’, I said to myself, and threw the book across the children’s section of a bookstore. Hobbit my butt.

It isn’t just Tolkien either. Luke Skywalker, who wrote the book Star Wars, doesn’t exist. And Calvin and Hobbes? Bullcrap.

Miller’s eventual point is that truth comes to us in different ways, fiction and nonfiction, poetically as well as historically, mythically as well as scientifically. The latest breaking news on the scientific debunking of all this religious nonsense about Jesus and Christianity comes in the form of the Gospel of Judas. Add it to the Gospel of Thomas and all the other pseudo-authentic texts of how early Christianity “really was”, add it to a compelling fictional potboiler, and you can be a mega-successful author like Dan Brown.

The “real” truth about the Resurrection of Jesus Christ is that at first, everyone except the first eyewitnesses had trouble believing it. But the factual truth of the missing body, the supernatural signs, the prophetic signs, and especially the subsequent appearances of the risen Jesus to his followers mark the resurrection as the key moment of history.

Once Peter believed that Jesus was resurrected he knew the world had changed. He sensed that this truth had implications beyond Judea and Palestine. This went beyond “religious” truth. And this was not just truth for the Jews. This was true for all people.

“I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism but accepts men from every nation who fear him and do what is right.”

Peter is telling his non-Jewish audience that this Jesus is not just a Jewish Messiah, he is God’s way of saving all peoples, all who “fear Him and want to do what is right.”

For a Jew like Peter, this was quite a shocker to the system. All his life he was taught to believe that only the Jews were God’s people, his chosen people. Only the Jews would receive God’s salvation. And then Peter met Jesus and Jesus taught him and the others to take his Gospel to the Jews, yes, but also to the Samaritans, the Egyptians, the Romans, to the unknown peoples which no map recorded.

For many Jews, this shock to the religious system is too much. Jesus is a “Johnny-come-lately,” and Christianity is a upstart religion trying to supercede the faith of Abraham and Moses. It’s hard to believe God has a new favorite people. They say his name only as “you know who.” I can’t blame them. Because Jesus is a very different way to understand truth, religious or otherwise.

God has come to humanity in relationship, that is, in person. God is giving every opportunity to every one, regardless of what your color is, what your continent is, what your country’s flag looks like, how much money you make, how religious or irreligious you and your family have been - Hear the News - it’s Spring Time and God has come a courtin’! The message of Easter is also the message of Christmas. God showed up in person this time, so that we could not be mistaken what He is saying.

What does this have to do with you? Well, perhaps your system of truth needs a little shock too. Maybe you live by an internal code of morality, a system of rules that whether you can verbalize them all or not, you know are there. You do your best to live by your rules. You are true to yourself and that ought to count for something.

Maybe you judge your life by the deeds you do. You keep a list of good deeds and bad and as long as the good outweighs the bad, in the end, you will be okay.

Maybe you have been a very religious person and you’ve learned more than most people you know about the Bible and God and Jesus. For you, knowledge is salvation.

Or maybe you have not been very religious at all. You remember a time, as a kid, when your family did go to church, and since then there hasn’t been a compelling reason. It’s hard to get started. But you know you have good intentions and that ought to count for something.


When we listen to Jesus, the shock is, none of these “systems” are what he had in mind. According to Jesus, Truth is not an internal moral code. Truth is not a sum of good deeds. Truth is not religious knowledge, even Bible knowledge. Truth is not a mysterious, vague desire. Truth, really, is none of these things.

What is truth? Jesus once answered the question this way:

“I am.”

Truth is a person. Truth is Jesus. That’s all we have to depend on. God comes in person to show us and give us life, today, tomorrow, and for eternity.

“I tell you the truth, (I am not lying) in my Father’s house there are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.” (John 14.2-3)

Jesus is staking the truth on his reputation, on his very person. He wants you to know you are his new favorite. He died and was raised for you. He did it all for you. Right now, Truth Personified is waiting to shake your hand, give you a hug, and lead you on. What say you to Truth today?

The Lovely Bones (Easter Sunrise, 2006)

Scripture: Mark 16.1-8


Alice Sebold’s beautiful novel The Lovely Bones begins with the main character, fourteen year-old Susie Salmon, telling us that she has been murdered by a man in her neighborhood. The man abuses her, kills her, and scatters her bones so that her body will never be found. After this startling beginning, the story focuses on what happens to Susie’s family and community in the immediate aftermath and then, what happens to the family when life begins to move on. The whole story is told from Susie’s point of view from heaven, or should I say, her heaven. More on that in a minute.

One would think that after so shocking a beginning, the story would lose focus and interest, but not The Lovely Bones. We are caught up in Susie’s passions: that her family and community would discover who her killer was; and that she might never be forgotten and/or, never be lonely; that her bones might be found. Her wrestling with these things somehow shapes the quality of her family’s life after her leaving, and it shapes her afterlife in her heaven. Susie is saddened as she watches her parents’ marriage disintegrate, her family members wander separate paths, and her community move on without her. Her bones remain hidden and scattered. For a long time, there is no resolution. Certainly, the way Susie’s life ends is a disappointment. She watches her younger sister grow up to an age that she herself never experienced, and she wonders what might have been. Time moves on without her. And heaven doesn’t explain. God never so much as makes a cameo appearance.

Life is at one time or another, disappointing for everyone. Maybe we don’t get the grades that are expected in school. Maybe we’re not a star on the team. Maybe she says no to a date. People we count on suddenly leave.

Jennifer, the boys, and I had a family portrait taken this past year. It’s in black and white, and if I do say so, we look pretty good. I was looking at the picture the other day, because I like it, and it occurred to me that I am at the age my father was when I have the most vivid memories of him as a kid. He was around forty when I was playing Little League ball and when we went trout fishing together in the Spring in the late seventies. I look at me in that family portrait and I can see my dad. I used to tell my boys stories about my dad and my grandpa, about fishing and picking berries and Little League games.

“They’ve been dead a long time,” Seth once said.

“Sometimes it seems that way,” I say. “I miss those guys. We’ll see them again.”

I say this because I have hope. I have hope as only a believer can hope. I have Easter morning hope. Easter is the day when we go first to a cemetery. We go very early – the cool damp of dawn is giving way to the warmth of a rising sun. Birds are singing. If you listen closely, you can hear the sound of laughter. The women have brought spices to anoint the body for burial. Their only concern is whether they will be able to get into the tomb. They are relieved to see the stone is rolled away, and they enter. Instead of a place dark and cold, they find the inside to be curiously light and warm, like there is a glow emanating from . . .somewhere – maybe the table in the center itself. And then they see him. There is a man, a young man, sitting there beside the stone table. And the young man is smiling.

I love that part, not just a man sitting in the middle of a tomb, but a young man, sitting on the right side. One name for Jesus is “Ancient of Days.” The title doesn’t mean that Jesus is old like we think old – past his prime, decrepit, falling apart, on the way out. It means rather, that he has simply always been around. “Before Abraham was,” Jesus once told some folks, “I am.” Jesus is eternal. Timeless. Forever Young. Maybe, in Jesus, God wants us to know that Time is not as big of a deal as we think it is.

A young man once asked God how long a million years was to Him. God replied, “A million years to me is just like a single second in your time.”

Then the young man asked God what a million dollars was to Him. God replied, “A million dollars to me is just like a single penny to you.”

Then the young man got his courage up and asked, “God, could I have one of your pennies?”

God smiled and replied, “Certainly, just a second.”


It’s ironic that it took a twentieth-century scientist, Albert Einstein, and his theory of relativity to get modern people to consider the notion that time is not as fixed and linear as we assumed it to be. There is a story about Einstein taking a train to Princeton. The train conductor came down the aisle asking for tickets. When he got to Einstein, the famous physicist couldn’t find his ticket anywhere. The conductor said, “Dr. Einstein, I know who you are. We all know who you are. I’m sure you bought a ticket. Don’t worry about it.” Einstein nodded gratefully. The conductor continued down the aisle taking tickets, and as he was ready to go to the next car he saw the great Einstein down on his hands and knees looking under his seat for his ticket. The conductor rushed over and said, “Dr. Einstein, don’t worry, I know who you are. You don’t need a ticket.”

Einstein replied, “Young man, I too know who I am. What I don’t know is where I am going.”

I know who I am. And with the hope that I have through Jesus Christ, I know where it is I am going. I know that because of Jesus and his resurrection, I too will be resurrected to life in Paradise. The young man is smiling at me and at you because he knows that these bones, these lovely bones, are meant for more. Jesus has this phrase, “I will show you things that have been hidden since the world’s first morning.” Heaven will be the first morning of our new lives. Reunion, delight, peace will be ours. Heaven will not be some long and lonely reminiscing. Heaven will be people. We will see our loved ones waiting there for us. We will see that Time and Sin and Death are not greater than the One who made us to be together. And of course, Heaven is that One Person. We will see Him. We’ll see that Young Man, Ancient of Days, Alpha and Omega, First and Last, King of kings. And then finally, we will know that we have arrived home.

If you don’t know who you are; and if you don’t know where you are going, there is hope for you today. Jesus has gone on ahead to prepare the way for you. But you must follow. It’s better not to wait. Somewhere, there is, even now, a young man smiling at you.