My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.
— John 10:27
Holy men of soberer and quieter times than ours knew well the power of silence. David said, I was dumb with silence, I held my peace, even from good; and my sorrow was stirred. My heart was hot within me; while I was musing the fire burned: then spake I with my tongue. There is a tip here for God's modern prophets. The heart seldom gets hot while the mouth is open. A closed mouth before God and a silent heart are indispensable for the reception of certain kinds of truth. No man is qualified to speak who has not first listened. It might well be a wonderful revelation to some Christians if they were to get completely quiet for a short time, long enough, let us say, to get acquainted with their own souls, and to listen in the silence for the deep voice of the Eternal God. The experience, if repeated often enough, would do more to cure our ulcers than all the pills that ever rolled across a desk.
thought
The Good Shepherd speaks and His sheep listen to His voice. Some of us sheep are too busy "baaing" to listen to the Great Shepherd.
prayer
Father, may I be a friend to stillness. May I be a listener to You before daring to speak for You. In Jesus' name.
After the earthquake came a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave.
— 1 Kings 19:12-13
There are truths that can never be learned except in the noise and confusion of the market place or in the tough brutality of combat. The tumult and the shouting teach their own rough lessons. No man is quite a man who has not been to the school of work and war, who has not heard the cry at birth and the sigh at life's parting. But there is another school where the soul must go to learn its best eternal lessons. It is the school of silence. Be still and know, said the psalmist, and there is a profound philosophy there, of universal application. Prayer among evangelical Christians is always in danger of degenerating into a glorified gold rush.
Almost every book on prayer deals with the get element mainly. How to get things we want from God occupies most of the space. Now, we gladly admit that we may ask for and receive specific gifts and benefits in answer to prayer, but we must never forget that the highest kind of prayer is never the making of requests. Prayer at its holiest moment is the entering into God to a place of such blessed union as makes miracles seem tame and remarkable answers to prayer appear something very far short of wonderful by comparison.
thought
We have so much to learn about heart stillness. To be calm and quiet smacks of inactivity, doing nothing. But cultivating heart stillness may be our most valuable activity because then we can hear God's gentle whisper.
prayer
Lord, help me to be quiet enough to hear Your gentle whisper. I look for You in the spectacular ? the earthquakes and explosive fires. But You speak in the quiet, the calm. May I hear Your gentle whisper.
Teach me to do your will, for you are my God; may your good Spirit lead me on level ground.
— Psalm 143:10
In the kingdom of God what we will is accepted as what we are. If any man will, said our Lord, let him. God does not desire to destroy our wills, but to sanctify them. In that terrible, wonderful moment of surrender it may be that we feel that our will has been forever broken, but such is not the case. In His conquest of the soul God does not destroy any of its normal powers. He purges the will and brings it into union with His own, but He never breaks it. In the diaries of some of God's greatest saints will be found vows and solemn pledges made in moments of great grace when the presence of God was so real and so wonderful that the reverent worshiper felt he dared to say anything, to make any promise, with the full assurance that God would enable him to carry out his holy intention.
The self-confident and irresponsible boast of a Peter is one thing and is not to be confused with the hushed and trustful vow of a David or a Daniel. Neither should Peter's embarrassing debacle dissuade us from making vows of our own. The heart gives character to our pledges, and God knows the difference between an impulsive promise and a reverent declaration of intention. Let us, then, set our sails in the will of God. If we do this we will certainly find ourselves moving in the right direction, no matter which way the wind blows.
thought
He will teach us to do His will if we are so committed. Sometimes He teaches us through painful experiences, even failures. Our need is for increased sensitivity to the Spirit's leading with determination to follow by His enablement.
prayer
Lord, I set my sails in Your will. Lead me. Teach me. Strengthen me. I feel so weak!
Daniel made up his mind to eat and drink only what God had approved for his people to eat . . . (Contemporary English Version).
— Daniel 1:8
That religion lies in the will is an axiom of theology. Not how we feel but what we will determines our spiritual direction. An old poem states it for us: "One ship drives east and another drives west with the selfsame winds that blow; tis the set of the sails and not the gales which tells us the way to go" (Ella Wheeler Wilcox}. Though we do not hear much of it in this age of spineless religion, there is nevertheless much in the Bible about the place of moral determination in the service of the Lord. Jacob vowed a vow, and it was the beginning of a very wonderful life with God.
The following years brought a great many vicissitudes, and Jacob did not always acquit himself like a true man of God, but his early determination kept him on course, and he came through victorious at last. Daniel purposed in his heart, and God honored his purpose. Jesus set His face like a flint and walked straight toward the cross. Paul determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified,? and in that determined spirit ignored the learned philosophers, preached a gospel that was accounted foolishness and earned himself a reputation for ignorance, though he was easily the greatest brain of his generation. These are only a few of the many men and women of the Bible who have left us a record of spiritual greatness born out of a will firmly set to do the will of God. They did not try to float to heaven on a perfumed cloud, but cheerfully accepted the fact that with purpose of heart they must cleave unto the Lord.
thought
Determination alone cannot bring about life transformation. However, appropriation of the Spirit's empowerment cannot be experienced without determination on our part to so live.
prayer
I choose Thee, blessed will of God! In Thee alone my heart can rest. That, too, is my choice, O Lord. By Your power strengthen my determination to persist in that choice!
Be still, and know that I am God . . .
— Psalm 46:10
In coming to God we should place ourselves in His presence with the confidence that He is the aggressor, not we. He has been waiting to manifest Himself to us till such time as our noise and activity have subsided enough for Him to make Himself heard and felt by us. Then we should focus our soul?s powers of attention upon the Triune Godhead. Whether One Person or Another claims our present interest is not important.
We can trust the Spirit to bring before our minds the Person that we at the moment need most to behold. One thing more. Do not try to imagine God, or you will have an imaginary God; and certainly do not, as some have done, ?set a chair for Him.? God is Spirit. He dwells in your heart, not your house. Brood on the Scriptures and let faith show you God as He is revealed there. Nothing else can equal this glorious sight.
thought
Slow down! Be still! How good to be still. The quieter in heart we become the more we know that He is God and He is there.
prayer
Teach me to be still, Lord. To be still and know that You are God.
May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer.
— Psalm 19:14
The worldly man can never rest. He must have ?somewhere to go?? and ?something to do.? This is a result of the fall, a symptom of a deep-lying disease, yet a blind religious leadership caters to this terrible restlessness instead of trying to cure it by the Word and the Spirit. If the many activities engaged in by the average church led to the salvation of sinners or the perfecting of believers they would justify themselves easily and triumphantly; but they do not.
My observations have led me to the belief that many, perhaps most, of the activities engaged in by the average church do not contribute in any way the accomplishing of the true work of Christ on earth. I hope I am wrong, but I am afraid I am right. Our religious activities should be ordered in such a way as to leave plenty of time for the cultivation of the fruits of solitude and silence. It should be remembered, however, that it is possible to waste such quiet periods as we may be able to snatch for ourselves out of the clamorous day. Our meditation must be directed toward God; otherwise we may spend our time of retiral in quiet converse with ourselves. This may quiet our nerves but will not further our spiritual life in any way.
thought
Our doing has value only as it expresses our being. Doing is easier than being. Being as God wants us comes from meditating upon Him our God, our Rock. He changes us.
prayer
Forgive me, O God, from driving myself and other people. May I take time and encourage others to take time for meditation pleasing to You.
Wait for the LORD; be strong and take heart and wait for the LORD.
— Psalm 27:14
I am convinced that the dearth of great saints in these times even among those who truly believe in Christ is due at least in part to our unwillingness to give sufficient time to the cultivation of the knowledge of God. We of the nervous West are victims of the philosophy of activism tragically misunderstood. Getting and spending, going and returning, organizing and promoting, buying and selling, working and playing ? this alone constitutes living.
f we are not making plans or working to carry out plans already made we feel that we are failures, that we are sterile, unfruitful eunuchs, parasites on the body of society. The gospel of work, as someone has called it, has crowded out the gospel of Christ in many Christian churches. In an effort to get the work of the Lord done we often lose contact with the Lord of the work and quite literally wear our people out as well. I have heard more than one pastor boast that his church was a ?live? one, pointing to the printed calendar as a proof ? something on every night and several meetings during the day.
Of course this proves nothing except that the pastor and the church are being guided by a bad spiritual philosophy. A great many of these time-consuming activities are useless and others plain ridiculous. ?But,? say the eager beavers who run the religious squirrel cages, ?they provide fellowship and they hold our people together.? To this I reply that what they provide is not fellowship at all, and if that is the best thing the church has to offer to hold the people together it is not a Christian church in the New Testament meaning of that word. The center of attraction in a true church is the Lord Jesus Christ. As for fellowship, let the Holy Spirit define it for us: ?And they continued stedfastly in the apostles? doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers? (Acts 2:42).
thought
There is Master Planning and there is the Master's planning. May we not confuse the two. To know His plan requires waiting before Him. Then we can be strong and take heart.
prayer
Lord, I sometimes substitute activity for waiting. May I patiently wait on You to know Your plan.
May my meditation be pleasing to him, as I rejoice in the LORD.
— Psalm 104:34
Among Christians of all ages and of varying shades of doctrinal emphasis there has been fairly full agreement on one thing: They all believed that it was important that the Christian with serious spiritual aspirations should learn to meditate long and often on God. Let a Christian insist upon rising above the poor average of current religious experience and he will soon come up against the need to know God Himself as the ultimate goal of all Christian doctrine. Let him seek to explore the sacred wonders of the Triune Godhead and he will discover that sustained and intelligently directed meditation on the Person of God is imperative.
To know God well he must think on Him unceasingly. Nothing that man has discovered about himself or God has revealed any shortcut to pure spirituality. It is still free, but tremendously costly. Of course this presupposes at least a fair amount of sound theological knowledge. To seek God apart from His own self-disclosure in the inspired Scriptures is not only futile but dangerous. There must be also a knowledge of and complete trust in Jesus Christ as Lord and Redeemer. Christ is not one of many ways to approach God, nor is He the best of several ways; He is the only way. ?I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me? (John 14:6). To believe otherwise is to be something less than a Christian.
thought
Gerhard Tersteegen spoke of prayer as "looking at God, who is ever present, and letting Him look at us." When did you last set aside time just to look at God and let Him look at you?
prayer
Lord, with Your Word open before me, I just want to spend time in looking at You and letting You look at me.
If you love me, you will obey what I command.
— John 14:15
ove for Christ is a love of willing as well as a love of feeling, and it is psychologically impossible to love Him adequately unless we will to obey His words. In seeking to learn whether we truly love our Lord we must be careful to apply His own test. False tests can only lead to false conclusions as false signs on the highway lead to wrong destinations. The Lord made it plain enough, but with our genius for getting mixed up we have lost sight of the markers.
I think if we would turn for a while from finespun theological speculations about grace and faith and humbly read the New Testament with a mind to obey what we see there, we would easily find ourselves and know for certain the answer to the question that troubled our fathers and should trouble us: Do we love the Lord or no?
thought
Love obeys what Christ commands. Less than love does not. Is our love emotional bubbles or uncompromising obedience? Our living will express our love.
prayer
How often my life contradicts my words. Forgive me, Lord. Teach me to love with Your love.