Prior Book | Prior Chapter | Prior Verse | Next Verse | Next Chapter | Next Book | Viewing NASB and Amplified 2015 | |
NASB | Psalm 119:105 ¶ Your word is a lamp to my feet And a light to my path. |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | Psalm 119:105 ¶ Your word is a lamp to my feet And a light to my path. [Prov 6:23] |
Bible Question (short): Where are you now? |
Question (full): Dear pbs: Greetings. It has been some five months since you made the post above and I am curious to know if your situation or position has changed. I have been impressed with your posts and the search you seem to be on. Like you, I came to this site to see “how others respond to Him and His Word”. I wonder what you have seen, and how it has influenced you to this point. Do I understand you correctly when you say that you have been challenged to “dig into God's Word to support what I believe to be True”? Is it that you have been led by your associations to believe certain things and then to the word of God to find support for it? Should it not be the other way around? You made reference to “the fellowship (you were) currently joined to”. Is that where you developed the beliefs that you were trying to support with scripture? You said, “Right now, I've been set aside”. Were you set aside physically, as in being sick? Or were you staying away from the fellowship for other reasons? Either way, I would like to know what your present situation is. You said, “I can say with confidence that God has gifted me by His Spirit to hear His voice”. I am sorry to say this but I have found that a person with confidence does not need to talk about it, but the confidence leads instead to action. Indeed, I think that those who hear from God need not focus on that fact but rather on what God said and whether they are doing what God said for them to do. You said that you heard the voice of God audibly. For myself I would wonder how to identify his voice and how to distinguish it from someone else’s voice. But you had full confidence that it was him? I am looking here and everywhere for someone who is obeying, or who seems wiling to obey, the simple commands that God has given in the Bible. And I believe that God is here doing the same thing: looking for someone who is obeying, or who seems wiling to obey, the simple commands that he has given in the Bible. These are the people he will reveal his will to, so that they can go and do it. God has shown, I think, that he is not interested in those who want to ask for no reason, or show off their knowledge, or debate about things they do not understand. He has given us his word so that we can do it. Why would God tell us the details of determinism when there is nothing we can do about it? Meanwhile, while we discuss things like that we demonstrate a failure to obey what we understand all too well, that we should love one another. We have freedom here, I think, to say anything we want. And freedom is of God. But should we use our freedom to say things that are not of God? And more importantly, are we free to do things that are not of God? We were called for freedom. But we are supposed to use our freedom, through love, to be servants to one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, in this: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." But if we bite and devour one another, we consume one another. That is what the Lord said to the Galatians and by extension, to us. May I suggest that we do not need an audible voice to hear that. Nor do we need an audible voice to hear anything from God. God has spoken, and it is only for us to obey him. If we will obey him, he said, he will be with us. I have asked you what you have found to this point. To be fair I will tell you what I have found. It is very easy to hear the voice of God. It is difficult to obey it. The chief reason it is difficult is that others who claim to be seeking his voice will oppose you. I am understanding that you have found that too. I get that from your statements referring to “feelings of ‘personal rejection‘". I also detect that you have withdrawn from church fellowship, that because you speak of a time “to ‘re-engage‘ in the local body. May I suggest, my sister, if you have not yet discovered that, that the time to re-engage with the local body is now. There is no future tense in Hebrews 10:24,25. “Let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good works, not forsaking our own assembling together”. This is not to say that you will not get “personal rejection” if you do that. But I will encourage you, and set an example to you. I will encourage the believers here, along with you, to practice obeying the word of God. Do not be surprised if this very post is ignored or attacked. But I am doing it. And I’d like to encourage you to do the same. Be there, and provoke them to love and to good works. We need not spend so much time trying to hear the voice of God. It is right there for you, in simple language, in your Bible. We should not spend so much time studying the word of God. We’ve got to obey it. It might be hard to find others doing that. And it might be dangerous for us to do it. But we can do it anyway. He who has called us gives us the grace. |