Fine Tuning to the Voice
A Sanctified “Wanter” – Part 2
Scripture Reading: Philippians 2:12-18
Key Verse: Philippians 2:13
for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose
From yesterday’s study we know that God’s voice can be heard in our desires if we stay close to God via daily prayer and Bible reading. That means that we can trust our wants to be the voice of God, based on those conditions. Our printed key verse says: “God who works in you to will and to act according to His good purpose.” The New Living Translation clarifies this verse even better: “For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases Him.”
Some Christ followers will say, “I never hear God’s voice” and believe that to be true. In fact, that is a lie from the evil one! First, God has spoken to all of us through the Bible—God’s very breath! (2 Timothy 3:16) Second, our scripture for yesterday and today is clear: God speaks to us through the desires of our hearts, the desires He puts in us!
It is true that God, at times, speaks to people asking them to do things they don’t want to do. Jonah, of the Old Testament, is a perfect example of that, but I believe it is more common for God to lead His people through the desires of their hearts. Psalm 37:4 tells us that God grants us the desires of our hearts. That is true, but Philippians 2:13 tells us that God puts those desires in our hearts! If you want to fine tune to His voice, look inside your heart. What are your deepest desires?
Father, as I stay in tune with you on a daily basis, I will trust the desires of my heart as your voice speaking to me. In Jesus’ name, amen.
What do you make of Jeremiah 17:9
The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?
Well, since God has the power to put desires in our hearts, He also has the power to change the ones we do have. We are to compare our hearts to the Word of God, and where we find what the Bible defines as sin, we are to ask God to forgive us, grant us the gift of repentance, and cleanse us for what we found in ourselves, then ask Him to change our desires to line up with His plan. If we don’t try to cling to our sin, or our love for our sin, and we welcome the changes that take place, which usually start with being able to see more clearly the detriment our sin causes and feeling shame/remorse and sorrow for it (this is called conviction of the Spirit), we will see our desires change. We should only use the conviction to drive us to become what pleases the Lord, not to dwell in and consider it proof we’re real Christians, then stop progressing. Genuine remorse is a necessary step, but it isn’t our ultimate goal, so we shouldn’t be satisfied and stop once we reach it.
Ezekiel 36: 25-27
25 Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your uncleanness and from all your idols. 26 Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you, and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 I will put my Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My ordinances and do them.
It’s covered a bit in the response to Chris’ question (good question by the way), but you really need to talk more about how we, in submission to Christ, pray for the continual renewing of our minds and hearts to become like the heart and mind of Jesus, before we, and as we continue to, look to the desires of our own hearts. As Christians sin’s power over us is gone, but we are still infected by sin, living in a world infected by sin and our hearts desires can not always be trusted. But God changes the desires of our hearts and then we can follow them, but only then. How do we know if the desires are from God? We put them to test against God’s word (and the wisdom of elders, as a lower level of authority) and if the desires are in line with the Word of God, then we can know they are from God and follow them.
This was such a blessing, thank you for sharing.
Thank you,I needed this and I am so enlightened . By the Spirit I will walk in His statutes and ordinance.
Great answer and reading. I just recently heard this; “ stop looking at the broken pieces in your life”. We dwell on what we’ve done wrong. We live in yesterday as if God cannot possibly bless us any further than he has already. God is the same yesterday, today and has promised to be just who He is tomorrow. He doesn’t change, we do.