Week 37 Sunday
Week 37 Sunday
Guidance Then and Now
Exodus 33:13-15; Psalm 25:5, 9; Isaiah 30:21; 40:11; Acts 8:31
We said that the whole tendency of guidance in Acts is to become less dependent on outer signs and more upon the gentle pressures of the Spirit within. A personality is being produced that will naturally and normally take the Christian attitude from within, just as a well-trained horse doesn’t need flogging, the slightest suggestion will do.
But in Acts, there are methods of guidance other than the direct voice of the Spirit:
—There was the exercise of Christian common sense: “It does not seem fitting” (6:2 Weymouth).
—They were led by the facts: “On hearing this” (11:18 Moffatt).
—They came to group conclusions by vote: “And in every Church, after prayer and fasting, they selected Elders by a show of hands” (14:23 Weymouth).
—In the exercise of thought: “the Spirit said to Peter, who was pondering over the vision” (10:19 Moffatt).
God will not guide us in one way only but in many ways. Perhaps the highest guidance is in the verse, “It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us”—we were thinking God’s thoughts and coming to the same conclusions. That is cooperative spiritual living.
Acts 16:6-7 (Weymouth) tells us, “having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to proclaim the Message in the province of Asia. . . . They were about to enter Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus would not permit this.” The “Holy Spirit” and “the Spirit of Jesus” were used interchangeably, for they felt that the universalized Jesus and the Holy Spirit were one, the accents of the mind of Jesus were heard in the voice of the Holy Spirit, acting as Jesus would act. This gives the key by which we can discern the Voice of the Spirit. Does that Voice appeal according to what we have seen in Christ? If so, accept it. If not, question it.
O Christ, we thank you that we can belong to the sheep that hear your voice and know it and follow it. Help us to be keen to catch your accents this day. Amen.
Week 37 Monday
The Scriptures and the Power of God
Isaiah 8:20; John 14:26; 2 Timothy 3:16-17
The key to discerning the voice of the Spirit is this: Does that voice speak according to the revelation in Jesus? If so, it is authentic; if not, we should question it. For instance, when Peter says, “The Spirit told me to go with them, making no distinction” (Acts 11:12), I feel that this is an authentic voice of the Spirit, for this is just what we see revealed in Christ, a mind that made no distinction between person and person. But if Peter, when he drew back and refused before Paul to eat with the Gentiles, had said, “The Spirit told me to make that distinction,” we should have said: “Peter, you are wrong. That was not the voice of the Spirit. It was the voice of prejudice and fears. Your wires are crossed.”
Jesus said this penetrating word, “You are wrong because you don’t know either the Scriptures or God’s power” (Matt. 22:29 CEB). The way to keep from being wrong is to know those two things: the Scriptures, the past revelations; and the power of God, the present continuous activity of God. Some know only the Scriptures; they do not link themselves with the creative activity of God here and now in themselves and the present age. They are wrong, for they echo only the past. Some know only the power of God now; they do not know in any real sense the Scriptures. They too are wrong, for we cannot correctly discern God at work now unless we continuously check it by the revelation we have seen in Christ.
But those people will not go astray who are in constant fellowship with the power of God now working, and who constantly test that working with the revelation through the historic Jesus. Revelation issuing in experience, and experience inspired and checked by revelation—these are the two things that keep life from erring. These are the two rails that keep us going safely ahead; but take off one rail or the other, and we land in the ditch.
O Christ, help us to know you in history and in ourselves, and help us to find no difference. Amen.
Week 37 Tuesday
A Further Check
Genesis 12:1; Proverbs 8:20; Isaiah 42:16; Acts 3:43-47
A further check in regard to guidance is to remind ourselves that the guidance may be narrowed, or even controlled, by the framework of society in which we find ourselves. The guidance often conforms to the established order.
One of the things that makes me feel that the guidance in the book of Acts was authentic is the fact that it did not conform to the established order. In a framework of Jewish exclusiveness, the disciples broke and founded a fellowship based on community beyond race and class. In a competitive order, they founded a society based on cooperation and economic sharing and equality. They broke the patterns of society in which they lived and formed new ones.
Now, much of our guidance doesn’t do that. It conforms to the pattern of society in which we live, and we get our guidance within the framework of it. The guidance of Christian pacifist Toyohiko Kagawa makes him strive to break the pattern of a competitive order. It therefore commends itself to me. But where people get guidance, for instance, that makes them take attitudes that lean toward fascism, which means in essence an attempt to hold the present order by force, I am compelled to suspect that guidance. Why aren’t more people now “guided,” not merely to modify this order but to change its very foundations from competition to cooperation? One would think that would be the normal Christian happening.
A lady, with fingers full of sparkling diamonds, told how she was guided to pay back two pennies worth of stuff. The reason she was sensitive at that point was that she belonged to a society that had been built around the sacredness of property, hence stealing was very wrong. But she apparently had no guidance about sharing the worth of useless diamonds with the poor and underfed around her. For she was of a class that tacitly approved these economic disparities. She got her guidance within the framework of a class. It, therefore, was only faintly Christian. It was not insincere; it was limited.
O Christ, open my eyes to my narrowing framework, and help me to catch the breadth of your mind. Amen.
Week 37 Wednesday
The Inner Voice Dependable
Isaiah 58:11; Luke 1:79; John 10:3-4
Sometimes our guidance will be like the voice to Philip, “Rise and go to . . . Gaza. This is a desert road” (Acts 8:26). God often sends us seemingly into a desert. But if we are guided into a desert, God works at the other end and makes us meet someone there who needs us.
As I look back across the years, I am impressed that whenever I have sincerely listened to and followed that Inner Voice, it has never let me down. It has always proved right. Whenever I have doubted it and followed the voice of my own desires, my choice has always proved wrong. Not that the Inner Voice is always against my desires; God’s will is not always unpleasant. But whether across or with my desires, the Inner Voice has always proven right. Sometimes I have misinterpreted it; but when it has been clear, it has always been consistent.
Sometimes, we have to go to the utmost limit before it is fulfilled. Take one instance out of many: I lost my only pair of glasses on a mountainside in India. I tried to find them that night but couldn’t. The Inner Voice was unmistakable: “It’s all right. Don’t worry, you will find them.” I arose at dawn to search before anyone else came out. No glasses. Thus the search went on until well into the day. I was helpless without my glasses. So I said, “Well, I must be mistaken about the voice.” So I started toward the city to order another pair. Noticing my shoestring untied, I put my foot on the railing of a fence to tie it, looked past my foot, and there, down in the gully ten feet below, were my glasses. Coincidence? Perhaps. But you cannot convince me of anything but that my Lord, seeing I needed the glasses, helped me to find them. If God’s care extends to the little, why not to the big? Both the sparrow and the star are in God’s care—and so am I, and so are you.
O Lord, I thank you that you have never let me down. Help me not to let you down. Amen.
Week 37 Thursday
More Thoughts on Guidance
Isaiah 50:10; John 8:12; Acts 10:9-15
“And Abraham set out early for the place where he had stood with the Lord” (Gen. 19:27 CEB). That is prayer, standing at attention before God to get our orders for the day. You may not get any suggestions then. If you don’t, that means you should carry on as you have been. You can trust God’s silence. If God doesn’t answer you at once, don’t be discouraged. Jesus did not answer the Gentile woman at once, but he did answer her finally, and more (see Matt. 15:21-28). He filled the Gentile world with his voice and power. He answered her—plus!
But in regard to some important decision, if you are uncertain—don’t. Wait until the guidance is clear. Don’t act on half light.
Have particular times to wait for guidance, but fill in the gaps with spare-moment praying. Peter got the vision that changed his whole life in spare-moment praying. “As they were on their journey, . . . Peter went up on the housetop to pray” (Acts 10:9). There he saw the essential unity of humanity and acted on it, and was forever changed. The difference in the spiritual lives of people is what they do with the spare moment. Some waste it, and themselves with it. Others gather it up and make it contribute.
Through a spare-moment prayer, I became a missionary. In college I had to give a talk on missions, became burdened that something be done about it, and as I had a few moments before the beginning of the meeting, I stepped into a room and prayed, “O God, give me a missionary from this meeting. I’ll not go in until I am assured that someone will go.”
The answer came, “Take one, according to your faith be it unto you.”
“I will,” I replied, and went into the room with an inner assurance.
From that moment I was gripped. I was the missionary! I had prayed myself into it. Pray, and then put yourself in the way of being guided to answer that prayer.
O Christ, help me to have my heart open every moment, for I must be ready at any minute to do your bidding. Amen.
Week 37 Friday
Your Commission Free from Stain
John 7:37-39; 14:17; Ephesians 3:16-19
Cultivate the listening attitude in prayer. And as you listen, you will get your commission. And when you get that commission, keep it free from stain. Paul, speaking to a young man, said, “In the presence of God who is the Life of all, and of Christ Jesus who testified to the good confession before Pontius Pilate, I charge you to keep your commission free from stain” (1 Tim. 6:13 Moffatt). Keep your commission free from stain in the light of two things: (1) in the presence of the adequate life of him who is the Life of all, and (2) in the presence of this Life poured out in sacrifice before Pilate. Free from the stain of what? Obviously, the stain of emptiness and of a lack of self-giving.
Here is this Life of God throbbing in every fiber of the universe. In the light of that fact, keep from the stain of emptiness. If God commissions you, guides you to take up a task, however small, or however large, God will provide resources. Commission and equipment go together. If God commissions you to speak to a person or to fight for social justice, God will equip you for that work. Draw heavily on that.
Don’t be like the bird I hear now, calling out in wild notes, “Pilao, Pilao” (“Give me to drink”), when it is right here in Sat Tal (Seven Lakes) and could have all it wants! Don’t cry to God for spiritual equipment. Take it. Emptiness is now sin, for fullness is now your privilege.
Keep saying to yourself, “I can do anything I ought to do through Christ who strengthens me.” You will be astonished at your ability to do things. Nothing now can make you afraid—nothing. God is your life, and God is your life-equipment.
O God, who is the life of my very life, help me to keep the channels open, that your Life may be not only here but operative. Amen.
Week 37 Saturday
The Stain of Partial Fulfillment
Hebrews 10:38; 12:1-4; 13:13
Yesterday we saw that we were to keep our commissions free from the stain of emptiness and the stain of a lack of self-giving. Jesus witnessed his confession before Pontius Pilate at the place where witnessing meant a cross. His commission had in it orders to go clear through, and clear through he would go. These were no halfway completions, no feints at doing it and then drawing back. He put his commission into the concrete.
Carrying out the will of God is not always a pleasant thing in a tangled world like ours. Often we shall have to wipe the blood from our lips as we close them upon the set teeth of our determinations. The commission often means a cross. Our friends will misunderstand us and fall away, and we shall be left to witness our confession alone. So be it. We shall ask for strong inner fiber to be able to endure and to see the thing through.
Wrote a prominent man to another during the French Revolution: “There is a terrific struggle going on here. Our heads are in danger. Come and offer yours.” The man did. If people can do that when a friend and a cause call, why cannot we do it when a Friend and a Cause call: that Friend, God, that Cause, the kingdom?
But we shall be tempted to compromise and call it a day, just short of putting it into operation. We become compromised Christians, refusers of the cross.
To try to put justice at the heart of human society will cause a cross, so we decide that our commission reads to change individuals and leave it at that. We refuse our witness before Pontius Pilate. Jesus did not. He witnessed to his kingship before his individual disciples; he also witnessed it before the Roman Empire in the person of the governor, and said he was king there too, in the corporate relationships of men. That cost him a cross. But he witnessed it.
O Christ, I thank you, I thank you, that nowhere did you draw back. Help me not to draw back. Amen.