The Jesus Society

http://www.thejesussociety.com/feed.xml

4.1K

Downloads

Episodes

A conversation about relationships, renewal & purpose in the Kingdom of God

Episodes

Monday Jul 13, 2020

Going to Church in the First Century

Monday Jul 13, 2020

Today, I want to try and give you a picture of what going to church in the first century was like — what it looked and felt like, and how it embodied everything we’ve been talking about. But we have to start with a word or two about the phrase “going to church” and a few of the other phrases we use to talk about gathering together with other Christians — like “attending church” or referring to our gatherings as “services.” I find those terms inadequate and unhelpful, BECAUSE those terms fail to capture the intent of Christian assemblies AND what I think the earliest Christians experienced when they met.

Ideas of attendance, ceremony, and even assembly just don’t capture the spirit or purpose of early Christian gatherings. Early Christian gatherings were humble gatherings that edified Christians. They were small in scale, domestic in setting, rhetorically unpolished, ritually unimpressive, and mostly restricted to Christians. Their aim was not to impress the masses but rather to equip the Christians as individuals and communities to live their faith attractively. To this end, their gatherings fed them with spiritual food from the Word and reminded them of their Lord and King in the Lord’s Supper. Those were things necessary to sustain them as they followed Jesus in a dangerous world.

Join me today as we discuss:

1. House churches and households in the first century

2. What a typical household looked like in early Christianity and how the household functioned in society

3. The importance of hospitality in the world of the early church

4. How church structures encourage or discourage community and intimacy

5. The five kinds of gatherings in the ministry of Jesus

6. The five church models we see in 21st Century America

7. Why I am a fan of house churches

8. Practical reasons why I think house churches will become more common in the United States

9. How discipleship and ideology transfer happens best

10.The best book I've ever found that describes what it felt like to be part of a first century church

11.My three non-negotiables for what church has to look like to embody everything we’ve been talking about in this podcast

_______________________

As always, we’d appreciate it if you’d tell others about the podcast. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe, rate and review us on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Please visit us on our Facebook group for the Jesus Society Podcast. Just search Jesus Society Podcast, and I’m sure you’ll find it. Feel free to suggest topics for episodes, ask questions, and share your own story of how the Father is loving you and transforming you.

Also, check out our website — thejesussociety.com.

Thanks for listening! And remember, you are greatly loved.

_______________________

Resources for Today’s Show:

Monday Jul 06, 2020

The Attraction of Christianity

Monday Jul 06, 2020

Today I want to delve into early church history a bit. I think studying church history is important. And here’s why: If you don’t understand where you’ve come from, you have no ability to critique where you are. So I want us to spend some time looking at what Christianity looked like and how it functioned within the broader society in the roughly 300 years after Jesus. AND how all that informs our faith and our lives with Jesus today.

Join me today as we discuss:

1. Christianity by the numbers - how much the early church grew and how fast.

2. How and why the early church grew.

3. What was the attraction in early Christianity.

4. Jesus, Origen, and being lights in the world.

5. The importance of virtue and friendship

6. What is supposed to happen when the church gathers vs. what we think is supposed to happen.

7. Why people became Christians in the first century

8. The importance of individual charity in the early church.

9. Is Christianity still attractive today?

10. Disaffiliated Christians today and what might be attractive to them. It's not what you think.

11. Attractive Christians vs. attractive church services. They're not the same thing.

12. The first time I went to church after giving my life to the Lord, and what it teaches us.

__________________

As always, we’d appreciate it if you’d tell others about the podcast. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe, rate and review us on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Also, check out our website — thejesussociety.com.

Thanks for listening!

And remember, you are greatly loved.

Monday Jun 29, 2020

Engaging God in Discernment & Decision Making

Monday Jun 29, 2020

Discernment and decision-making are things that always challenge us as we try to live our lives before God. Discerning his will, discerning our own roles in God's world, making decisions, keeping our own motivations in check -- all these things challenge us. Sometimes we do it well, and sometimes we don't. Today I want us to think a bit about engaging God more deeply in discernment & decision-making. It's a big subject, but I think you'll find some things here helpful.

Join me today as we discuss . . .

1. The two paradigms to discernment and decision-making (one is unhelpful very common, and the other is helpful but less common).

2. Why we get paralyzed in decision-making.

3. A healthy view of discernment that treats it more as a lifestyle than as an event.

4. The three ways God directs us according to St. Ignatius (1491-1556)

5. A fourth way God directs us according to me.

6. A deep dive into the practice of Examen (and yes, I spelled that right).

7. How to best involve others in the discernment process.

8. A helpful way to understand God's silence.

9. Keeping "no" answers in the proper perspective (learning to see beyond the "no").

At the end of the day, discernment is a practiced skill, less of an event than something lived out in relationship with a Father who loves you deeply. Don't forget that.

Resources for Today's Show:

Thanks for joining us today. I hope you’ll join us again next week.

As always, we’d appreciate it if you’d tell others about the podcast. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe, rate and review us on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Also, check out our website — thejesussociety.com.

Thanks for listening! And remember, you are greatly loved.

Monday Jun 22, 2020

Nurturing People in the Kingdom of God

Monday Jun 22, 2020

Part of the journey God has called us all on is to invite others into the journey and to help them learn to live lives of increasing surrender to and intimacy with God. We have some Bible words for those kinds of “inviting” activities: evangelism and discipleship. And there are more modern church-words that try to get at the same thing: conversion, proselytization, soul-winning, etc.

The problem is that most of those words have become a bit tainted for a lot of us. We’ve seen people engaged in those activities who are manipulative, aggressive, forceful, relentless. And we’ve seen those things done in ways that have been damaging and abusive and self-serving. And that has given us a bad taste in our mouths for those kinds of things.

I have no problem with the Bible words, provided we understand them correctly (which we don’t always). But I’d like to talk today about the need to help others along in a way that fits within the kingdom values we’ve been discussing for the last 17 episodes. And for me, the word that I use the most is the word nurture.

Join me today as we discuss . . .

1. The idea of spiritual nurture.

2. How our idea of what church is shapes our idea of what leadership looks like.

3. The four components of spiritual health.

4. The limits of theological education.

5. The importance of emotional intelligence and its four components.

6. The necessity of spiritual mothers and fathers.

7. What it means to be a shepherd.

___________________

As always, we’d appreciate it if you’d tell others about the podcast. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe, rate and review us on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Please visit us on our Facebook group for the Jesus Society Podcast. Just search Jesus Society Podcast, and I’m sure you’ll find it. Feel free to suggest topics for episodes, ask any questions you have, and share your own story of how the Father is leading you and transforming you.

Also, check out our website — thejesussociety.com.

Thanks for listening!

And remember, you are greatly loved.

Resources For Today’s Show:

Music and audio production by Nathan Longwell Music

Monday Jun 15, 2020

A People of Peace

Monday Jun 15, 2020

After talking last week about justice in the Kingdom of God, and continuing to think about all the rancor and hostility and aggression we’ve been seeing in our country, I thought it’d be useful to talk about another word that is important in the Kingdom of God, and that's peace.

Join me today as we discuss . . .

1. The biblical concept of peace.

2. The fact that peace is not a goal but a result.

3. What peace looks like.

4. The problem of peace in our world.

5. Some suggestions on how we as God's people can help create a culture of peace.

Jesus dreamed of a kingdom society, a society where God’s good will is done on earth as it is done in heaven. He dreamed of a society that in its soul was shaped by loving God and loving others, by justice for all and by peace that passes understanding. Peace flows from those who love sincerely and act justly. I believe if peace is going to get a chance today, it’s going to have to begin with those who claim to be followers of Jesus.

______________________

We’d appreciate it if you’d tell others about the podcast. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe, rate and review us on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Please visit us on our Facebook group for the Jesus Society Podcast. Just search Jesus Society Podcast, and I’m sure you’ll find it. Feel free to suggest topics for episodes and ask any questions you have. And please, tell us about your own walk with God - how you're learning to rest in his love and how he's changing you. And check out our website — thejesussociety.com.

Thanks for listening, and I hope you’ll be back. And remember, you are greatly loved.

Resources For Today’s Show:

Music and audio production by Nathan Longwell Music

Monday Jun 08, 2020

Justice in the Kingdom of God

Monday Jun 08, 2020

On today's episode, I wanted to because I want to talk about all the stuff going on in our country right now, particularly involving the death of George Floyd and its aftermath, all of it on the heels of the coronavirus, and the two-month lockdown and widespread unemployment that has caused. I think most of you will agree that things are an absolute mess right now, mostly concentrated in the big cities. So for those of us who are Christians, how do we come to terms with all of that, and how do we respond to it?

This is the most difficult episode I’ve had to prepare for thus far. I’ve rewritten my notes at least a half a dozen times and had several other people read them and provide feedback, which led to more editing. There are serious issues going on in our country right now, as you all know. And, this is the Jesus Society Podcast, not the current events podcast, or the political activism podcast. So I’m not going to talk about politics, and I’m not going to really talk about George Floyd’s death very much. I’m just not going to wade into that fray.

The last thing you all need is yet another voice telling you their perspective. The world will not be changed simply because I tell you all that I'm not a racist and that I don't support racism.

But the piece of all this that I want to talk about — because it fits with the theme of this podcast — is what the Kingdom of God has to say about this and things like this? In view of all that’s going on around George Floyd’s death, and the reaction to it nationwide, I decided this would be a good time to talk about justice.

Join me today as we discuss:

1. My own baggage surrounding the idea of justice.

2. The biblical concept of justice in God's world: Justice = Rightness

3. Why God gets so upset at injustice among his people.

4. The anatomy of injustice.

5. Where injustice comes from.

6. Injustice and public opinion.

7. A Jesus Society response to injustice (i.e., what, tangibly, can we do in the midst of our current situation).

Christianity has always been the great equalizer. There simply IS no prejudice in the Kingdom of God. Because is the Kingdom of God, and God is not prejudiced. He created every single one of us in his image, and adores us all. As Christians, we are against anyone who does violence to others, who abuses or hurts others. The Kingdom of God is founded on justice and righteousness and love, and carries an invitation to all to come and enjoy it.

_______________________

Thank you for joining us today. I hope you’ll join us again next week. We’d appreciate it if you’d tell others about the podcast. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe, rate and review us on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Thanks for listening, and I hope you’ll be back. And remember, you are greatly loved.

_______________________

Resources for Today's Show:

1. The prayer of St. Francis:

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:

where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon;

where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope;

where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy.

O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console,

to be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Amen.

2. https://babylonbee.com/news/nations-racists-repent-after-reading-statement-on-equality-from-hidden-valley-ranch

3. Check out the song, Brighten the Corner Where You Are

Music and audio production by Nathan Longwell Music

Monday Jun 01, 2020

Jesus-Style Relationships

Monday Jun 01, 2020

What is the church? Have you ever thought about that? Really thought about it?

Maybe you'd say it's the collection of saved people? And you'd be right.

Maybe you'd say it's the bride of Christ (Eph. 5:25-27)? Right again.

Or maybe you'd use Paul's language in 1 Tim. 3:15 and say the church is the pillar and support of the truth. Well who's gonna argue with Paul. Of course.

All those things are true, but I’d like to suggest there’s something even more basic. AND, I’m gonna suggest that if we don’t get this right, the church is never gonna be any of those other things we read about. And if you’ve been listening to this podcast from about Episode 2 on, you might know where I’m going here. But to flesh this out, let’s start on Day 1 of the church, which we read about Acts chapter 2.

Join me today as we discuss:

1. Being adopted by God

2. Acts 2 and the first Christians.

3. The relational ways the New Testament describes coming to Christ.

4. What relationships are supposed to look like in the family of God.

5. The idea of fellowship in the New Testament - it means more than potlucks.

6. Independence vs. Interdependence.

7. The characteristics of Jesus Society Relationships

8. The virtue of being non-manipulative

9. Living love without agenda

Resources For Today’s Show:

I’ve just created a Facebook group for the Jesus Society Podcast, and I’d invite you to visit us there. Just search Jesus Society Podcast, and I’m sure you’ll find it. It’s a private group, so you’ll have to ask to join, and there is a code of conduct you need to agree to. Feel free to ask questions or suggest topics for episodes of the podcast.

Boundaries Updated and Expanded Edition: When to Say Yes, How to Say No To Take Control of Your Life, by Henry Cloud and John Townsend (2017)

Music and audio production by Nathan Longwell Music

Monday May 25, 2020

Growing in Intimacy with God - Where Is God When I Hurt?

Monday May 25, 2020

We’ve been talking for the last few weeks about learning to live in intimacy with the Father and learning to live in the reality of his love. I think it's the most important part of our transformation. And our transformation is essential if we’re to be salt and light to the world around us, and bear the image of God to the world. But the thing that will derail all that quicker than anything, in my opinion and experience, is pain and suffering.

In Psalms 10:1, the Palmist asks a familiar question: “Why, O Lord, do you stand far off? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?” If you’ve lived very long in this world as an adult, you understand that question. Because it certainly feels, at times, that God does hide himself in times of trouble. The hard, cold reality of life with God is that he doesn’t often do what we think he should . . . or in the way we think he should . . . or when we think he should. He doesn’t often seem to prevent disaster, or heartache, or pain, or abuse, or death. People – even good people, even God’s people – suffer in this world at the hands of others, and sometimes they just seem to suffer at the hands of life itself. And the fact that God doesn’t often prevent the pain has caused every generation to question his power or his love or even his very existence. Including me.

“Why? Where are you, God? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?” These are hard questions, and we often ask them in the darkest moments of our lives, in the midst of crushing pain or desperate fear.

I don’t have any easy answers. But I have been wrestling with these questions for a long, long time. And my wrestling has not been an abstract academic exercise. It has been because I’ve spent a good deal of time in the midst of miseries of my own – the kinds of things that would prompt questions as the psalmist asks. So I understand the questions because I understand where they come from.

God’s answers have been slow in coming, and maybe don’t even qualify as answers as much as insights. And I suspect that the slowness has had more to do with my capacity to absorb new perspectives than with reluctance on the part of God. But he has taught me some things that have caused me to love him even more now than before.

Join me in today's episode as we discuss:

1. Life in a fallen world.

2. The choice to embrace God in the midst of pain.

3. The futility of trying to understand the hurt.

4. Paul's motivation to rejoice in affliction and how it can work for us.

5. The absolute necessity of NOT suffering in silence.

6. A couple of quotes and a song recommendation you absolutely don't want to miss!

Resources For Today’s Show:

He Loves Me: Learning to Live in the Father's Affection, by Wayne Jacobsen (2008).

PLEASE listen to the song Gratitude, by Nicole Nordeman

Thank you for joining us today. As always, we’d appreciate it if you’d tell others about the podcast. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe, rate and review us on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Please visit us at our website — thejesussociety.com — which we’ve also just launched, and which we’ll be updating as we go along. Also, please join us and be part of the conversation on our new Jesus Society Facebook group.

Thanks for listening, and I hope you’ll be back. And remember, you are unbelievably loved.

Music and audio production by Nathan Longwell Music

Monday May 18, 2020

Growing in Intimacy with God - Learning to Live Loved

Monday May 18, 2020

We live at the mercy of our ideas. And that is never more true than when it comes to our ideas about God. If we think of him one way, it will color all of our expectations of him, and taint all of our reactions to what we perceive him to be doing — or not doing — in our world.

The thing that has changed the trajectory of my life the most — moving me from trying to appease God by my efforts and by trying to have everything figured out and being “right,” to learning how I could live inside the affection the Father already has for me and to let that be enough — has been learning what it means to live loved.

God loves you. It’s what we believe and what we tell others. It really is the most important thing, and it’s why I end every podcast with the reminder that “you are greatly loved.” Paul will say it this way: “If God is for us, who can be against us?”

Unfortunately, many of us have never learned to live as if he really did love us. And so we live captive to fear, and shame, and frustration, hiding from God much as Adam and Eve did in the garden. And there’s a huge difference between the knowledge of God’s love and actually living in that love. There is a huge difference between the intellectual acknowledgment that God loves us and the lived reality of moving through your life as if you actually believed it to be true.

All that has changed for me in the last dozen years or so, and what my family and I have experienced since has been much, much closer to fulfilling every hope and desire we had for what life in Christ was meant to be and how we could live alongside others in that same joy. And no, life has not been easy since then. We’ve known some very dark and painful times, but we’ve never been alone in them. We’ve been able to find our way into the reality of his love and follow him — very imperfectly — through those things in a way that has transformed us in the process. It is a much, much better way to live our lives individually and together.

Join me today as we talk about:

How we get from here to there.
What Ephesians 3:14-21 has to teach us about both God's power and his love.
What difference all this makes . . . really.
How to begin to view our circumstances in light of the goodness of God, as opposed to the other way around.

You will never obey one whom you do not trust. And you will never trust one whom you aren’t convinced loves you absolutely. And the Father loves you absolutely! Trusting God is not about outcomes, folks. This life was never meant to be one of ease and convenience. “In this life you will have trouble,” Jesus said. Rather, life is about an engaged relationship with a Father who loves you deeply, and who will walk with you, nurture you, and care for you through whatever life dishes out. The Father wants to provide for you a “peace that passes understanding” in the midst of the pain, uncertainty, and discomfort of life, because he's in it with you.

THAT is the journey God has called us to be on with him.

Resources for Today's Show:

I’ve just created a Facebook group for the Jesus Society Podcast, and I’d invite you to visit us there. Just search “Jesus Society Podcast,” and I’m sure you’ll find it. It’s private group, so you’ll have to ask to join, and there is a code of conduct you need to agree to. This is not a debate group, because I just don’t have the appetite for doctrinal battles. Feel free to suggest topics for episodes and ask any questions you

He Loves Me: Learning to Live in the Father’s Affection, by Wayne Jacobsen (2008)

Music and audio production by Nathan Longwell Music

Monday May 11, 2020

Growing in Intimacy with God - Prayer as Dialogue

Monday May 11, 2020

Today we're going to talk about reimagining prayer as dialogue as opposed to monologue. Prayer is communion with God, which is relationship-building. Prayer is where intimacy with God is forged. And as such, prayer is meant to be a two way communication with God. And that’s really different from what I had always thought and from what I’d always been taught. And what I’m gonna describe here is what’s called contemplative prayer. And Christians have been practicing contemplative prayer for well over a thousand years. But you hardly ever hear about it in evangelical circles.

The truth is that our prayer lives tend to evolve over time, and go through a few predictable stages:

The first way we often approach God can be thought of as saying your prayers. In other words, talking at God.
The second stage in the evolution of prayer is talking to God. As we mature in our relationship with God, we become more comfortable finding our own words to speak to him rather than using the ready-made prayers of our childhood. And so we quit talking at God and we start talking to God, speaking to him from our hearts and telling him all about the things that are going on in our lives right now.
So that brings us to the next stage in the evolution of our prayer life, which is listening to God. Instead of a monologue, prayer becomes a dialogue. We’re still talking to God, but we’re also learning to listen.

Learning to listen in relationships is important. One of the first things marriage counselors often have to spend time on when a couple comes to see them is communication. And a big part of that is helping them develop some active listening skills. Because too often, couples just don’t listen to each other. When one starts speaking, the other immediately starts formulating their response (or rebuttal). But the mark of a mature person, at least when it comes to communication, is the ability to really listen. And that’s true also with my relationship with God.

And just like in any healthy relationship, learning to listen involves shutting down my own inner monologue and learning to be attentive to the other person. So to do that with God, we’ve got to learn to embrace quiet.

I don’t think it’s news to an of us here that we live in an insanely busy society. Or at least we did until the pandemic hit. And I use the word insanely on purpose. The frantic and overly scheduled way some of us have been living our lives is just not sane. There are countless studies and articles demonstrating that. Richard Foster, in his wonderful book A Celebration of Discipline, wrote, “In contemporary society, our Adversary majors in three things: noise, hurry, and crowds. If he can keep us engaged in “muchness” and “manyness,” he will rest satisfied . . . Hurry is not of the Devil; it is the Devil.” Foster wrote those words in 1978! That’s 42 years ago! And I think we’d all agree that things have only gotten worse. We’re too busy and hectic and distracted and overwhelmed. And we feel it, but most of us don’t have any idea how to live differently.

But decluttering our lives isn’t what we’re discussing today. Today, let’s start with learning to declutter our minds a bit when we spend time with the Father. Let’s start with learning to embrace the quiet there. In the quiet, we engage the deepest parts of our soul and invite God into the midst of it. And that is where intimacy happens. And it’s where transformation happens.

In the podcast, I describe what this usually looks like for me.

So, what does God sound like? What should I expect? So rather than being an inner, audible voice, I and a good many others have discovered that God’s voice in our heads and hearts sounds more like a flow of spontaneous thoughts. In fact, I think this is the normal way God speaks to us. The Lord will speak to us in other ways, if necessary, but I think he’d rather we learn to discern Him speaking in spontaneous thoughts through His Spirit from within our own hearts.

Now what do I mean by spontaneous? Well, the voice of God is Spirit-to-spirit communication, the Holy Spirit speaking directly to my spirit. We sense it most often as a spontaneous thought, idea, or word. Thoughts from my own mind, on the other hand, tend to be analytical and cognitive. I reason them out; one thought logically follows the next. The best way I can describe it is that occasionally when I’m in prayer or reading Scripture, I’ll have a spontaneous thought that I know didn’t come from me. It’s not the direction my mind was going; it’s nothing I’ve thought before, and often, because of my own biases or predispositions, it’s not really something I would think of on my own. It’s a bit of an unexpected surprise.

Characteristics of these spontaneous thoughts that help me recognize and have confidence that they come from God:

First, they’re like my own thoughts, except that they come from a deeper place. In other words, they’re qualitatively different from my normal thoughts. But because they come from within me, they’re similar to my own thoughts. Deeper, richer, but similar.
God’s voice is often soft and gentle and easily cut off by any exertion of self. If I interrupt the spontaneous, intuitive flow with my own analysis, God usually does not try to shout above the noise to regain my attention.
God’s voice often has a deeper, richer content, meaning it is better and somewhat different than my own thoughts. God’s voice is wiser, more merciful, more discerning, and much more aware of motives. Sometimes, like Jesus often did with his disciples, God will ignore the question you ask and address the real heart of the issue.
God’s voice often causes a special reaction within me. These spontaneous thoughts often produce a deeply emotional response. And see, my own thoughts don’t. I don’t know that I’ve ever moved myself to tears. But God has. There’s sometimes a sense of excitement, conviction, humility, awe, or peace that results from hearing God’s voice.
God tends to speak with love in a way that leads us to freedom.

So, when you think you’ve heard something from God, what do you do with it? People often get tripped up by the uncertainty of knowing how to sort out whether what I’m “hearing” is God or myself or even Satan? Those are good questions to ask. And just like learning any new language, this takes patience, discernment, and attentiveness. But let me give you some suggestions.

First of all, compare what you think you’re hearing with the Word. Paul says that “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” (2 Tim. 3:16-17). The greatest protection we have on our spiritual journey is the Word of God. Scripture is our plumb-line. God will never contradict Scripture. But if you don’t know Scripture, how will you know if you’re being led astray by the voice in your head? A good knowledge of the Scriptures can save us from a host of errors and heartaches. You’ve got to have a knowledge of the Word of God.
Secondly, check out what you’re hearing with others. Find a few trusted and spiritually mature brothers or sisters in Christ who know you well, who love God deeply, and who love you. Tell them what you think God is saying to you and ask them to pray about that and help you discern whether it’s God’s voice or not. Because listen, I am so self-absorbed that there is virtually nothing I can’t talk myself into and turn it into the will of God. And the only protection I have against that willfulness is the Word of God and the wisdom of the spiritual community around me.
Thirdly, does it line up with the character of God? Is this something God would say? We know God is holy. We know God is loving. We know God is righteous. We know he is redemptive in nature. Does what we think we’re hearing mesh with what we know about his character? Or does it seem slightly out of character? If so, there are two options: 1) Maybe you don’t understand God’s character as well as you think you do. Or 2) maybe you’re hearing your own heart and your own will. Again, most of us are highly skilled at taking our own self-serving thoughts and baptizing them with righteousness.
Number four — and this mostly pertains to those times when I sense God directing me to do something (which honestly isn’t often for me)— does what I’m hearing pertain top an area for which I am responsible? As a general rule, God tends to give revelation only for the areas in which He has given authority and responsibility. Stay away from ego trips that looks for revelation for areas in which you don’t have authority. Don’t look for a “word from the Lord” for someone else, unless God has placed you in a position of responsibility for that person (like your children, for instance). If you think you hear something for someone else, be extremely cautious about sharing that, especially without running it past your spiritual community first.
Number five — Will this produce good fruit and lead to freedom? God will never instruct you to do things that don’t bear good fruit, and he will never lead you into bondage. He will speak life and peace and love into your life. He will instruct you toward things that bear good fruit. “The fruit of the Spirit,” we’re told, “is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” (Gal. 5:22-23). God will lead you in those directions — always!
Number six — Will this lead me to humility, and does it inspire greater trust of God? I have found that God is constantly calling me to greater levels of trust and humility. He will always lead you toward greater dependence on him. God has vested us with a measure of self-determination and free will, but that is best enjoyed within the context of a dependence on God. If what you think you hear leads you away from that, it’s most certainly not of God.

Now, what about the devil? This is a little tricky, and I’m not going to say a lot about it except to say that I do not believe the devil lives inside our heads. If you’re a Christian, the Spirit of God lives inside you, and I do not believe the devil is allowed a place there. I believe that’s scriptural, but it’d take more time than we have to flesh that out. But I will give you one passage that suggests that: 1 John 4:4, which is kinda our theme verse in the Jesus Society. It says, “You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.”

Some Final Thoughts:

Don’t expect to hear his voice every time you pray. I have not found God to work that way. In my experience, God is not “chatty.” He doesn’t say a lot, but he can say more with a few words than anyone I’ve ever met. And those words will carry you for days, weeks, months, and years.
Most of you have already heard from God; you just may not have recognized it as God. And not everyone hears God the same. My wife tends to hear him in songs. He often brings songs to mind as she’s in prayer that speak to her deeply. But . . . she has the entirety of Christian hymnody memorized, so of course God would use that to speak to her. The point is, God speaks to us as individuals.
And another thing — there are some things that in my experience God is just not interested in talking about. If you go to God with questions about the future or “what’s going to happen,” (which is what most of our questions involve), God tends to go quiet. And I think I know why. In my experience, anytime you ask God to give you information that undermines trust, God tends to be silent.
Remember that God’s goal for you is your transformation. He wants to lead you to greater holiness and to untwist all of those little twisted places within you and to demolish all those hidden alliances you carry.

I’ve got some more book recommendations for you if you want to go further into all this stuff. I can vouch for every one of them. They’re all books I’ve read and they’ve all proven tremendously helpful to me in building intimacy with God. You'll find them below under Resources.

In the end, you can only learn to encounter God by encountering God. Again, the quote from Arthur Miller that I gave you last week is helpful: “How does [God] so communicate with you? How will you know? Because God has designed your frame and understands how you are put together, and how you function, what you notice and what you ignore, what you read, what you hear, and what gets your attention. Because the Spirit of God is resident within you and has a job to do as you do yours — leading, nudging, instructing, guiding, opening new doors, reminding, questioning, affirming, prodding, sometimes engineering circumstances — strange, extraordinary things happen. If you need a knock on the side of your head, or a sense of God’s love that will take your breath away — that will happen in God’s time and in a way only you will understand.” - Arthur F. Miller, Jr.

Thanks for listening, and I hope you’ll be back. And remember, you are greatly loved.

Resources for today’s show:

1. Armchair Mystic: How Contemplative Prayer Can Lead You Closer to God, by Mark E. Thibodeaux SJ (2001, updated 2019)

2. Hearing God: Developing a Conversational Relationship with God, by Dallas Willard (2012)

3. Walking with God: How to Hear His Voice, by John Eldredge (2016)

4. Soul Work: Confessions of a Part-Time Monk, by Randy Harris (2011)

5. Invitation to Solitude and Silence: Experiencing God’s Transforming Presence, by Ruth Haley Barton (2010)

6. Sacred Rhythms: Arranging Our Lives for Spiritual Transformation, by Ruth Haley Barton (2006)

7. The Way of the Heart: Connecting with God Through Prayer, Wisdom, and Silence, by Henri J. M. Nouwen

8. He Loves Me: Learning to Live in the Father’s Affection, by Wayne Jacobsen (2008)

9. The Gift of Being Yourself: The Sacred Call to Self-Discovery, by David G. Benner (expanded ed. 2015)

Music and Sound by Nathan Longwell Music