Let me tell you a little story about my paternal grandparents. Their names were Blixt and Kristina. They emigrated from Sweden in the 1880s and built a homestead in the wilderness in the NE corner of Washington State where they raised their family. After a long day’s work, they liked to sit on the front porch of their log house and discuss how the day went and the struggles that lay ahead of them. They were deeply religious, and family lore has it that Blixt would sometimes would turn to Kristina and say, “Ma, God will take care of us”. And Kristina would reply, “Yes Pa, but we have to do our part”. Both were right, but I think Grandma had a bit more wisdom than Grandpa on how it worked. Next, we will discuss what is our part, how we do it, and what hinders us in the process.
First, let’s take a look at what hinders us from doing our part in making the sanctification journey. I believe that one of the primary reasons is the cost. To make the complete transformation from our born again state to a Christ-like, holy state, the cost is nothing less than giving up our will to God’s will. We must surrender our will to God’s will. It is our resistance to doing this that hinders the pace of our transformation. It’s summed up very well in the title of one of Frank Sinatra’s most popular songs, “I did it my way”. Why was it such a popular song; because it expressed so many peoples’ attitude – that they want to live their life their way. God doesn’t want us to do it our way. He wants us to do it His way. One place where our resistance is the strongest is in giving up our attachments to our human nature and things of this world. We are attached to this world and our ways of doing things with superglue, and these bonds don’t break, they dissolve slowly with time and then only if we ourselves really want them to dissolve. As I said earlier, the Holy Spirit doesn’t force, coerce, or twist our arms to live our life God’s way. But He will guide us in that direction. Listen to what God tells Ezekiel in 36:26 about what He will do for his people:
“I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.”
God doesn’t say the Spirit will cause us or order us to do His will. He says He will “move” us, in other words, motivate us. But we must ask Him. The Spirit is inconspicuous, subtle, and quiet within us. He helps when we allow Him to help. He works with us when we truly, in our heart, want Him to work with us. He watches us to see if we are serious.
Testimonies which were shared with me reflect this manner in which the Holy Spirit works with us. Let me give you a couple of examples:”
“He executed His work in a gentle and persuasive manner that left me feeling engaged in the process.”
“His dove-like personality does not allow Him to enforce His will. Rather He takes the circumstances that are created by my choices and weaves them together to mold and shape me into the person that He wants me to be”
Another big hindrance to the process of sanctification is our comfort zones. We all have comfort zones which we want to stay within. We build walls around our comfort zones. God calls on us to leave our comfort zones and we often hesitate or refuse. If we want to leave, we generally don’t shatter a wall or push it down, we chip away at it and that is a slow process. Some of these walls are phantom walls, i.e. we create them because we think we can’t do something that we actually can. There is a good illustration of a phantom wall on a Youtube video, a phantom wall that a cat created. This guy had a cat which liked to sit at a glass door leading out to his patio. If the cat wanted to go out, it would meow loudly and the owner would open the door and let it out. We have a cat named Moya that does this. One day the glass in the door broke leaving only the frame. The Youtube shows the cat sitting at the door now with no glass in it meowing to get out. The owner walks thru the door frame to show the cat there’s no glass there. The cat doesn’t get it. Only when the owner opened the door frame would the cat go out. To the cat, there was still a door there – but it was in reality a phantom wall.
Most of us have phantom walls as well. I know I do. They hinder and even prevent us from doing what God calls us to do. Let me give you an example from a lady who responded to my survey on Holy Spirit experiences. Here is exactly what she said.
“I was praying for someone’s aunt who had cancer. Suddenly, a vision of a stream of letters started appearing in my mind along with the sounds of a typewriter typing out each letter. (the letters even made a clicking sound) The message that the letters spelled out was “When you take the church job, the first class that you will organize will be called Exercise Your Prayer Power and it will consist of vigorous exercise, a meditation and prayer.” And then it clicked off. It was probably a short vision, but it seemed long. It left me with a feeling of amazement, and a lot of questions. First, what job was the message referring to? The only job opening was Coordinator of Christian Education. I knew that three highly qualified people were interested in that position. I knew the message was from God and I said to Him that this job wasn’t for me and I then put it out of my mind. Later, I got a call from the nominating committee telling me that they had interviewed the three candidates and would like me to come in and speak with them as well. I asked God to explain what is going on here. With no answer from Him, I went in to speak with the committee. They described the job, showing a list of responsibilities on a poster board, and asked if I could handle them in a part time position. I said no, and that I was not sure that I even wanted the job. Nevertheless, when the committee took a vote they selected me. I was shocked, so my next move was to go to the Pastor and tell him that I couldn’t take the position because I thought I lacked the background and skills. The Pastor said, with a big smile and a teasing demeanor, “Just shut up and take the job.!” So I went home and prayed and took the job. After about 2 weeks I realized that the position was a perfect fit and I thanked God for guiding me in spite of myself. The job was providing Christian Education classes for all ages, but loving people, listening to them and praying with them was the most I held the position for 12 yrs. and one of the classes that I taught was the exercise class which appeared in my vision. That class exists today, many, many years later.”
There are a number of things to learn about the Holy Spirit, how He works with us, and how we should work with Him from this experience. First, we see that one way He speaks to us is through visions. It may be rare, but it does happen. We’ll talk about this later. Second, He calls on us to do things that are important to our growth, our transformation, and important to God’s Kingdom. That was the case here. Third, this lady can discern the Holy Spirit when He speaks to her, a sign that she was well along the path of transformation. Fourth, when she turned Him down, He didn’t come back with anger or a command to do what she was told. It was up to her free will to decide. Instead, He guided her to the right decision thru the Committee and Pastor much as we would guide our child to do the right thing. Fifth, we see that the reason she turned down the calling was because of her phantom wall; she didn’t think she had the background or the skills for the job. Sixth, she did the right thing in talking to God and praying to Him and came to realize her wall was a phantom. She closed the gap between her and God. Seventh, we see that God has patience with us as He waited an extended period of time for her to come around. And eighth, I would venture to say that this experience and the experience of the job over the following 12 years brought her a long ways along her transformation path, bringing her closer to God. It made her more Christ-like. I think the whole experience teaches that we should trust God when we know he has called on us, but also that He is patient and won’t give up on us.
Another reason the transformation is slow is that we don’t hunger as much for God as we hunger for the things of this world. Our spiritual appetite doesn’t match our physical appetites. We don’t feed the white dog, which we heard about earlier and represents our spiritual life, as much as the black dog, our sinful nature or appetite for things of this world. When a person is starved of food, the stomach shrinks and appetite disappears. That is what can happen to our spiritual life if we don’t feed it daily.
Next I will turn to a couple of other factors which influence the pace of the transformation process. One is how wholeheartedly we embrace the process. In turn, this depends on how well we understand the process and how aware we are about what’s going on. In the beginning of our journey, God may keep what is going on hidden from us; it might freak us out if we knew. He lets us in on things as we are ready for them. Some people don’t want to know; they say, just let God take care of it. With regard to being aware, often things that happen in our lives that seem accidental, coincidental, meaningless, or insignificant are not. They can be the work of the Holy Spirit. How tuned are we to recognizing that and to recognizing the voice of the Holy Spirit when He speaks to us in one way or another? To become tuned to the Spirit, we must heighten our awareness and attention to what is going on daily in our lives and gain experience in recognizing the work of the Spirit. I have to admit I am one who is still grappling with this process and how it works in practice. But I have found it has helped in gaining understanding to have a couple of good friends I can talk with about spiritual experiences and questions. How the Spirit works with us differs somewhat for each person as the He tailors His work to each person’s inner make-up, needs, and capacities. I think it would be good for Christians to dialogue with each other on this and as a result better understand our own spiritual lives and how the Holy Spirit works with us. In fact, I think this is what the Spirit wants us to do. I don’t think He wants us to live an isolated spiritual life. He wants us to make spiritual connections with fellow Christians and share with each other because this will enrichen our spiritual lives. This was a common practice with Jews during the time of Jesus. It was common to have a spiritual buddy, or more, to get together with on a regular basis to discuss spiritual and theological questions and experiences. These spiritual buddies were called haverim. How many of us meet at coffee shops regularly to discuss what the Holy Spirit is doing in our lives? The Spirit is right there with us at the coffee shop, but we generally keep Him hidden.
Let’s next discuss one of the most important parts we have in the sanctification process and one of the most important dynamics of our partnership with the Holy Spirit. I’m talking about being filled with the Holy Spirit. I’m sure most of you at one time or another have wondered what that means and how it works in practice. We see the phrase, “filled with the Holy Spirit”, throughout the Bible. E.g., we saw how the Apostles were filled with the Holy Spirit at Pentecost which empowered them to launch the church and spread the Gospel. There are a lot of questions associated with this phrase and there are numerous answers with different interpretations Here are some examples of questions: what does it mean to be filled with the Holy Spirit? Is it the same or different from the indwelling of the Holy Spirit? Does it happen just once and we stay full or does it come and go over our lifetimes? How do we get filled with the Holy Spirit? Do we do it or does the Holy Spirit do it? How do we experience it? Is it required or an option?
First of all, being filled with the Holy Spirit and indwelling of the Holy Spirit are not the same, although they are associated. Indwelling of the Holy Spirit happens only once at the time of regeneration and it is permanent. It is a gift from God to all believers and is an act of the Holy Spirit alone, i.e. we do nothing. Filling by the indwelling Spirit on the other hand occurs innumerable times over our lifetime and it is a co-operative act between us and the Spirit. One meaning I don’t think the term has is a volumetric meaning, e.g. filling a glass with a certain volume of water. The Holy Spirit is omnipresent, so He is already in every cell in our body. He already fills our body so there would be no need for Scripture to say we are filled with the Holy Spirit in this sense; it’s already a given that we are filled in this sense.
To get a better understanding of the filling with the Holy Spirit, let’s look at one of the most revealing verses by Paul, Ephesians 5:18:
“Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit”
In English, it doesn’t seem to be very revealing. However, in Greek, a lot more meaning emerges. I haven’t interpreted it in Greek as I don’t know Greek, but I have read a lot of commentaries on the Greek meaning of this verse. First of all, it is in the imperative so it is a command. It is something God is telling us that we should do. So we have a role. Second, it is in the passive. If we are on the passive end, i.e. being filled, then someone else is on the active end, i.e. doing the filling, who of course is the Holy Spirit. So, this is a co-operative act between us and the Spirit. So, we are allowing the Holy Spirit, or consenting to be filled, and the Spirit is filling us. In Greek, the sentence also refers to a continuous process, not one that is completed. So, God is commanding us to continuously be filled with the Spirit. Now we have to decide what “filling” means. There are a number of ways to look at this. Paul gives us a good clue in the first sentence of the verse.
The two sentences are analogous, but each leads to a different outcome. If we take in or drink wine, it influences or controls us in a bad way. If we take in or drink of the Holy Spirit, we are allowing the Spirit to influence or control us, but with a good outcome. So, filling here means to allow the Spirit to influence or control our lives. A good way to look at it is not how much of the Spirit we have, but how much the Spirit has of us.
How much filling of a person by the Spirit that occurs depends in part on the spiritual capacity or maturity of the person. For those who have just received Christ as Savior, who are infants in Christ, their spiritual capacities are often very small. They may allow the Holy Spirit to influence our lives as best they know how. Knowing how takes a great deal of experience. There will be areas of their lives that they are unaware of that need to be surrendered to the Spirit’s control. So their filling by the Spirit will be small at this stage. As they grow in understanding and knowledge of Christ and the Spirit, their spiritual capacities grow, and their filling will enlarge. At Pentecost, the Apostles no doubt had a huge spiritual capacity for filling by the Holy Spirit. We know from Scripture that following that filling, their lives were controlled by the Spirit.
I will tell you about my personal experience with growth in spiritual capacity. I mentioned a few Sundays ago that when I became a Christian I believed I was a good person without any sin going on in my life to worry about. I even went to a friend whose knowledge of Scripture I respect and asked him how the verse in Romans where Paul says no one is good, not one, could possibly be true. Part of the work of the Holy Spirit is to convict us of sin, to make us aware of our sins and call on us to repent. That is what happened to me. I discovered, I’m sure because of the work of the Holy Spirit, sins that I was previously unaware of. E.g., envy, pride, love of money, trusting myself more than God, doing things my way. Having dealt with these over time with the help of the Spirit, I now have a closer relationship with Him. Having gone through all of this, I now almost daily have an awareness, a sense of, the presence of the Holy Spirit. When I was an infant in Christ, I only occasionally felt the presence of the Holy Spirit. This, I think, was a growth in spiritual capacity for me, which as I mentioned earlier, gives one a greater filling, i.e. a greater influence or control of our lives by the Spirit.
So, what is the ultimate goal of filling with the Holy Spirit? It is nothing less than total control of our lives by the Spirit. When I first read that, I thought that doesn’t sound very appealing; it doesn’t sound like a loving God. Why would He want to enslave us? That’s not something that an all-powerful God should need. After pondering this for some time, I began to see it differently. God wants us to be holy, because He is holy. He wants us to be perfect because He is perfect. I can’t think of anything I’d like more than to be like God. But we can’t get there on our own, with our own control. We can only get there under God’s control. We need abundant Divine aid. As St. John of the Cross said, “However greatly the soul itself labors, it cannot actively purify itself so as to be in the least degree prepared for the Divine union of perfection of love.” That God wants to purify our soul so that we can have that perfect union with Him is not enslavement, it is love for us. Now I don’t mind if He has total control of my life. Remember the verse from Ezekiel that I quoted earlier where God said He would put His Spirit in us to move, or motivate us. To my mind, this goal of God for us is in itself enough to motivate one to embrace the sanctification process wholeheartedly.
But, as I said earlier, it is not easy to know how to give God control of our lives. It is something we have to learn how to do and it’s not easy. Total control means He decides everything we do in our lives. But, we can’t just say a prayer one night at bedtime, tell God He can take total control of our lives, and the next morning when you wake up God tells you what to do with the hundreds of little decisions you have to make that day. If you ask Him with each decision you face, it’s highly unlikely you’ll get any answers and you won’t get much done that day if you wait for answers. So, what do you do, or better, how do you do it if you want God to have total control? To be truthful, I don’t know what is the right answer. I can tell you what I do, but I’m not sure it is the right thing to do. First, I don’t think God cares about controlling all the trivial decisions we make each day, such as what time to get up, what to eat for breakfast, what route to take to work. He gave us a brain to make those decisions on our own. But the more important decisions, whether they are spiritual or not, I think we should bring God in on our decision making and seek His will. We should listen for His will on these occasions. A prayer I use frequently for making decisions, big to small, is this: Lord, show me the way to go, and the way not to go, and give me the wisdom to discern the way that is Your will. I find that I hear Him some times in one way or another, but many times I don’t or am not sure. So, what I do is, in a prayer tell God what my decision is and that I will wait for a day or two to hear from Him before implementing the decision. I tell Him that if I don’t hear from Him, I’ll take His silence as a sign of His approval of my decision. This seems to work. But I still struggle sometimes with hearing or knowing what God wants me to do when it doesn’t involve a spiritual decision. For spiritual decisions, we can generally find an answer in Scripture and that is where we should look first.
Hearing God
We will now turn to a new topic, listening to and hearing God. This is a challenging topic, and it’s also a challenge to know how to hear God. I’m going to be referring to both God and the Holy Spirit now because we rarely know for certain which person we are hearing from, but I believe in most cases it is the Holy Spirit. Many Christians think that God seldom, if ever, speaks to them, but Dallas Willard, a theologian and Prof. of Philosophy at UCLA and an often quoted author believes that God speaks to all Christians often, even daily.
Willard recently wrote a book entitled, Hearing God, which I highly recommend. In his book, he says that God speaks to us in many different forms. Let’s begin out discussion on hearing God by making a list of the different ways we know of that God speaks to and has spoken to His people.
God’s Word (Bible)
Burning bush
Creation - nature
Visions
Dreams
Angels
Inner voice
Voices of others
Prompting
Events
Media, e.g. books, articles, lectures
Circumstances
Empowerment
Music
Let’s look at some of these in more detail and as we move thru them I’ll share excerpts from testimonies which show the many ways people hear God. We’ll start with the Word of God. This is far and away the primary way God speaks to us. It is critical to the sanctification process that we have been covering. Sanctification is done by the power of the Holy Spirit operating through the knowledge and understanding that the Word gives us. It is the Word and the Spirit and us working together that causes sanctification to occur in our lives. When I say the Holy Spirit and us working together, let me add that the Spirit does the vast majority of work. Our part is to consent and allow the Spirit to work with us, and act on what He wants us to do. Remember the passage from Psalms cited earlier where God tells us that He wants us to act from understanding of the way He wants us to go. This understanding and knowledge comes largely from God’s Word. If we want to know what God wants us to do, we should always first search in the Bible for an answer. Not only that, we should study the Bible on a regular and frequent basis through personal reading and participation in small Bible study groups. If we want to be good at hearing God, we must first be at home with the Word of God. If we want to have a renewed mind like Christ’s, we must know and heed the Word of God.
Paul describes the function of the Word in another way in Eph. 5:25-27 where he is speaking of the church. Paul wrote that Christ
“gave himself up for her, in order to make her holy by cleansing her with the washing of water by the word, so as to present the church to himself in splendor, without a spot or wrinkle or anything of the kind – yes, so that she may be holy and without blemish.”
While he was speaking about the church, we are the church, so he was speaking about us. Paul was using the imagery of water, or in modern terminology we could use detergent, permeating fabric and carrying away the dirt embedded in it, or in case of the Word, it permeates our minds and hearts and purifies them. Now, here again we see the sanctification goals of holiness and perfection. As the water, or detergent, cleanses the fabric to make it without spot, wrinkle, or blemish or anything of the kind, so the Word should purify us to perfection.
Let me turn now to another medium in which God speaks to us, His Creation, or nature. While God’s Word is known as special revelation, His Creation is known as general revelation. God reveals Himself through His Creation. We see this all around us, in the beauty and design of nature, a majestic mountain, a gorgeous sunset, a beautiful orchid. This is beautifully expressed in a few verses by Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
“Earth’s crammed with Heaven,
and every common bush afire with God:
But only he who sees takes off his shoes.
The rest sit around it and pluck blackberries.”
It’s interesting to see the contrast in the first three verses and the last. Believers
can see God in a blackberry bush. All non-believers see are some berries to pluck.
Modern science allows us to look even deeper into God’s Creation, from the mighty cosmos to the tiny living cell allowing us to see even more wonders of His Creation. I wish I had more time to speak about the details, but then we’d get off topic.
Let me turn briefly to visions and dreams. We see many instances in the Bible where God spoke to people in visions and dreams. But does God still speak to people through visions and dreams today? I personally don’t know, but I found a comment by a panel member on the simulcast “Unpacking Islam” interesting. He is a Christian who has been involved in discipling Muslims for many years and he said from a survey he did that 60% of Muslim to Christianity conversions involved a vision or dream as a key event. Steve Cochrane, a member of our church, has also said that he noticed this is a common experience with Muslim converts in his missionary work. Visions and dreams are part of the Muslim culture. If this is the best way to reach some Muslims, why would the Holy Spirit not use it?
Now let me turn to God’s speaking to us through voices of others. I’m sure most of us have experienced this multiple times. I’m not referring to God using the mouths of others to speak in robot style; I’m referring to God using an individual person to communicate a message to us. In such a case, the message is both that of God and of the person speaking. According to Dallas Willard, this is a very common way in which God speaks to us. In his book, Hearing God, Williard wrote:
“I believe I can say with assurance that God’s speaking in union with the human voice and human language is the primary objective way in which God addresses us. That is, of all the ways in which a message comes from outside the mind or personality of the person addressed, it most commonly comes through a human being.”
We see this throughout the Bible. E.g., God confronted David through the prophet Nathan. He encouraged Esther through her Uncle Mordecai. He blessed Joseph and Mary through an old man named Simeon. He gave advice to Moses through his father-in-law, Jethro. He addressed the Pharaoh of Egypt through Aaron. With us in today’s world, it might be a Pastor who said something in a sermon that seemed to be directed specifically to you; it might be a friend who recommends a book that turns out to answer some questions you have been struggling with; it might be a mentor who speaks truth into your life. The person speaking likely is not even aware that God is speaking through them, and often the person listening doesn’t realize it happened until later when he/she looks back and ponders.
Next I will turn to events and circumstances. One of the most common ways the Spirit works in us, shapes our lives, and shapes us is through circumstances and events. While He isn’t directly speaking to us in these instances, when we recognize what’s going on, a message comes through on where and how the Spirit is leading us. Most of the time He works silently and invisibly as he walks alongside us. If we could actually see Him, we would probably see Him busy as a bee doing hundreds of things for us that we normally miss. Generally, we see how He has been at work in our lives by looking back and recognizing points in our path where the Spirit has been at work. This is one of the most common themes I noticed in the many testimonies that were shared. In John 3:8, Jesus compares the Holy Spirit with the wind. This is an excellent metaphor. The wind is moving air. Air is in every cell of our body and gives us physical life. The Spirit is in every cell of our body and gives us spiritual life. Both air and the Spirit are invisible. But when air moves and makes wind, we see the effects of the wind. When the Spirit moves in circumstances and events, we see the effects of His work in our lives.
We will next share a number of testimonies and excerpts from testimonies on how the Spirit works and speaks in our lives. A couple of things that stand out in these testimonies is that they have something in common, yet they each have differences. What they have in common is that you can clearly see the Holy Spirit at work in each of them. The differences arise from how the Spirit is at work with each individual. People are like snowflakes; no two are identical. That is how God intentionally created us, each of us is a unique creation. As C.S. Lewis wrote, “God makes each soul unique. If He had no use for all these differences, I do not see why He should have created more souls than one. If all experienced God in the same way and returned Him an identical worship, the song of the Church triumphant would have no symphony, it would be like an orchestra in which all the instruments played the same note.“ So the Spirit works with each of us in a unique way, tailoring His work to our needs, capacities, inner makeup, personality traits, learning styles, spiritual pathways, even how we are shaped by culture and environment. E.g. we saw how the Spirit uses visions and dreams to speak to Muslims because that is part of their culture. God never grows two people the same way. We should ever keep that in mind as we make our spiritual journeys. So, we should not envy how the Spirit works in some other peoples’ lives, e.g. wonder why we don’t have the experience of visions. Instead, we should rejoice in how He works in our lives.
I’d like to start out with a couple of testimonies where the Holy Spirit worked and spoke through circumstances and events. The first testimony I’d like to share is my own, which involved a string of circumstances and events over a number of years. When they started, I was an agnostic and at the end I became a Christian. I decided to share this because the journey shows how the Holy Spirit chooses a spiritual pathway that uniquely fits the individual.
The first event was meeting a person named Graham Marshall at the University of Washington. The circumstances were that he was there as a visiting scientist from South Africa and I was there on a mission for Shell, the company I worked for as a scientist. We met because we both worked in the same area of analytical technology. The second event occurred when we met again a couple of years later in Johannesberg, South Africa. The circumstances were that I was there to speak at an international conference and he was one of the organizers of the conference. During the 10 days I stayed there we got to know each other well and to learn about each other’s work in the same field of analytical chemistry. The third event was that I retired from Shell a number of years later after 30 yrs. of service. The fourth event was that after three months of retirement I decided retirement wasn’t for me so I founded a sole-proprietary technology company called Global FIA. It was essentially a one man company. The company turned out to be a success and business grew to a point the circumstances told me that I needed help. My first thought turned to Graham, so I offered him a partnership in the company. To my surprise he accepted it. This was event number 5 which was a huge event for Graham since he had to leave a secure, well paid, Director level position in a large company to join a one- man start-up company and move his entire family and household from South Africa to WA state. Fortunately, it has worked out well; our company has grown to 8 employees and it is thriving. Now it turned out that both Graham and I liked to discuss both science and spiritual topics. He was and is a Christian who knows and understands his faith well and I, as I mentioned, was an agnostic. So the circumstances that played out were many deep discussions on science, God, and Christian beliefs. To make a long story short, these discussions put me on a path which eventually led me first to a belief in God and second to accept Jesus as my savior and Lord and to commit to follow Jesus. I like to say the Holy Spirit sent Graham to me to change the direction of my life toward God, and Graham likes to say that the Holy Spirit sent me to him to get him and his family out of South Africa to America where they have a much better and safe life. They are now all American citizens and they feel blessed to be able to live in America. So, actually there were two journeys that God was leading, Graham’s and mine. What did I learn from this experience? One, that when the Holy Spirit guides our lives, He can take us where we would never have dreamed of going. He can be full of surprises. Another is that I am amazed that God has such love and patience and puts such value on a mere person that He will go to such lengths to bring that person into a relationship with Him. I too, have been blessed.
In the second example, the events and circumstances dramatically shaped the person’s life. The events occurred during the person’s boyhood. Here is his testimony.
“From the time I began to speak, I had a stuttering, stammering tongue that was to dramatically affect my whole life. I could not say two words without stuttering and stammering! My father, who was very sympathetic, did everything in his power to assist me. This included severely reprimanding anyone who teased me, - putting a marble under my tongue,- getting me to speak slowly and anything else he could think of, but all to no avail. Of course, children being what they are, teased me mercilessly and this caused me to become very aggressive. I would fight anyone who teased me, no matter who they were or what their size was. This meant that I sometimes came off second best in these encounters. Our family usually went to Durban, which was a popular holiday resort for our Annual Vacation and when I was 12 years old, we as a family made our way there. Although at home, we attended the Germiston Baptist Church, because the Pastor of the Durban Full Gospel Church was a friend of my parents, we went to his church when we were in Durban. In that church, in bold letters on the front wall, facing the congregation, were the words,
“Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. - . Matthew 11:28
I could not take my eyes off that text. I must confess, I did not remember a word of the sermon, but those words were engraved on my heart and mind! I knew that my stuttering and stammering was robbing me of peace and rest of spirit. As was the practice in that Full Gospel Church, after a Salvation message had been preached, an appeal was made for anyone who wanted to give their life to the Lord Jesus Christ, to come forward for counseling. I went forward and the Pastor’s wife led me to the Savior. From then, my stuttering gradually left me.”
This is a beautiful story. When this person grew up, he became a Pastor and impacted the lives of countless people in his several decades of serving the Lord.
Let me add a few excerpts from my survey of other examples where people have looked back and recognized the Spirit at work in their lives.
”On occasions I have just sensed God’s hand in leading and guiding – the topic for a lesson, a word of encouragement, an idea, a solution to a problem, a decision or course of action. By this I mean I have taken one course of action for no other reason than that seemed like a good thing to do and afterwards I have looked back and seen how God has weaved it together with the actions of others to make something more beautiful than I could have orchestrated if it was left solely up to me. When this happens I feel a deep sense of engagement with the Holy Spirit which brings joy and satisfaction and even a thrill.”
I’m sure most of us can relate to this description of the Spirit at work. We look back and see how a number of events, circumstances, and actions of others have amazingly come together to make something good happen in our lives or lead us through some difficult times. It’s so improbable that we know that the Spirit had to be behind it. But it can also be a singular event. Let me give you an example, an event that happened to me last August when I was preparing for this class. I had read several books on the Holy Spirit, but still felt that I didn’t know enough. One downside of books is that you can’t ask the author any questions. As I was fussing over this for the next few days, an envelope arrived in the mail from a school called the Covenant Bible Seminary located in a neighboring town. I had never heard of this school before. I opened the envelope and inside was a flyer on several public classes they were offering beginning in Sept. One was a 60 hr. class on the Person and Work of the Holy Spirit. I thought to myself, what perfect timing. This sort of coincidence has happened so many times in my journey that I was convinced that the Spirit arranged to have that flyer put in the mail. I signed up and attended the class.
Let me read a couple of other excerpts of testimony on looking back.
“As it is with most times that God moves through the Holy Spirit, I didn’t really recognize it was Him until sometime later.”
“When I look back I see with awe how I was being led through some very difficult times.”
These are but a few examples of the looking back experience. It is a very common experience.
Now let’s turn to how God speaks to us thru our inner voice. I left this till last but not because it is least. It is, in my opinion, the most important way we communicate with God on a daily basis. It is also one of the most difficult ones to put into practice, or perhaps better described as tuning in to or developing a consciousness for. As I mentioned earlier, Dallas Willard in his book, Hearing God, believes that God speaks to us every day through or with our inner voice, but many do not know how to hear Him, how to discern His voice. So, I’d like to spend some time on the topic of how to hear God’s voice. Although I speak to God daily and now and then hear Him through my inner voice, I by no means speak as an expert on this. Most of what I write here I learned from Willard’s book, which I highly recommend. I will also draw on the testimonies I gathered.
First of all, let me say a few words in general about the manner in which the Holy Spirit speaks to us. If we take the Bible as a guide, the Spirit is the quietest person in the Holy Trinity. Throughout the Old Testament, we see God the Father speaking to His people, often in long discourses and sometimes with a strong voice. In Jeremiah e.g., we frequently hear Him tell Jeremiah, “Say to them: ‘this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says:” or some variation of that, followed by a long message. In Ezekiel, God often says, “Son of man, this is what the Sovereign Lord says,” again followed by a long message. And, of course, in Job, the Father gives long lectures to Job. In the New Testament, we see God the Son speaking throughout the Gospels. But the Holy Spirit doesn’t have much to say in the Bible. Throughout the entire Bible I could only find a few passages where the Spirit spoke directly to people, one in Ezekiel, one in Revelation, and a few in Acts.
Now with regard to how the Holy Spirit speaks directly to us individually, it is generally through our inner voice, and Willard as well as every other author of a book on the Holy Spirit says, he speaks in a still, small voice. This characterization of His voice also comes out of Scripture, 1 Kings 19:11-12, where God is speaking to Elijah.
“And behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake into pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake: and after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice.”
This is the KJV. The NIV translates His voice as a gentle whisper. In the NIV commentary on this passage, they write, “Elijah knew that the sound of the gentle whisper was God’s voice. He realized that God doesn’t reveal himself only in powerful, miraculous ways. To look for God only in something big may be to miss him because He is often found gently whispering in the quietness of the humbled heart”. So, Elijah is one person in the Bible that we know was tuned in to the voice of God.
Another Biblical person who was highly experienced in hearing God was Job. In Chap. 26:14, Job wrote about God:
“And these are but the outer fringe of His works;
How faint the whisper we hear of Him!
Who then can understand the thunder of His power?”
Does it make sense that the Spirit prefers to speak to us in a whisper? I think so. If He spoke to us in a loud voice in our heads, we would probably be rattled or terrified. We might think we are schizophrenic. We might think He is shouting at us or giving us orders. Instead, He prefers to be unobtrusive and subtle. He wants us to learn to pay attention and tune into Him if we want to hear Him.
Now, let’s take a look at the 1 Kings passage from another perspective to see if we can get more insight into the nature of the still, small voice. First, let me step back to a verse we looked at earlier in Romans 8:16. We saw that this verse tells us that the Spirit sometimes communicates to us directly Spirit to spirit. Not through our senses and intellect, but directly from the Holy Spirit to our spirit and it then becomes expressed through our inner voice. I called it a “knowing”, something we know without need for proof. E.g., we know that God exists without need of proof. One person who wrote on took it further and said, “you know that you know it”, and another took it even further to “you know that you know that you know it”. That may sound redundant, put ponder it and you’ll see it makes sense.
With this in view, let’s now look at the 1 Kings passage. We’ll first look at all the verses up until the still small voice is mentioned. Elijah writes about a great and strong wind which he would have seen, heard, and felt. He would have seen and heard the wind breaking loose the rocks and the rocks tumbling down the mountain. Then an earthquake, which he would have felt and heard. And then a fire which he would have seen and probably felt its heat and smelled its smoke. What does all this have in common? They all are information that Isaiah is taking in through his senses. God is right there before Isaiah, and He is saying in effect, in this instance, I am not communicating to you through your senses. I am communicating to you through your still, small voice. What is the still small voice? I think it is the direct Spirit to spirit communication expressed thru Isaiah’s inner voice. Certainly, our inner voice could be described as a small voice, a whisper in our minds, and coming from the Spirit it would be a gentle whisper. Isaiah was tuned into this voice and discerned it as God’s voice without any question.
Let me now read you some testimonies shared with me from which you’ll see other people experiencing the still, small voice of God.
“I have found that still small voice to be a regular part of my life. Still now, after many years of walking with Jesus in the power of the Spirit, it is a daily discerning quest to know when it is His voice and not my own.”
“It amazes me the insights I receive from God during those quiet times of just listening for that still small voice within.”
“I find that Still small voice speaking to me concerning the choices I make and the people I meet with. This relationship grows daily. In my own life, I have had that still small voice leading me and speaking to me. So much so that I make decisions based on that voice”
“I frequently find a natural sinful response to a situation welling up and I feel the Holy Spirit prompting me to do the right thing and sometimes I obey and sometimes I silence that still small voice and my sinful nature wins. It usually is quite clear who is talking. . When it is the Holy Spirit the outcome is honoring to God when it is me the outcome brings shame to God and my witness”
“I cried out to God, ‘Where were you?!’ I said, ‘my friends came out of the wood work, but where were you?’ This still small voice said, ‘I came to you through your friends.’ I learned a lot through that. I learned to look for God in new and different ways. And I am still looking for new ways today”
Now let me return to Dallas Willard’s book on how to hear God speak in His still small voice within our minds. No one can give a formula for listening to God through our inner voice. Each person has a unique personality and thought patterns and must learn how to do this by experience. It is much as Jesus said in John10:2-4, 14, 27-
“The shepherd of the sheep…calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. He goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me. My sheep hear my voice. I know them and they follow me.”
While no one can give a formula, Willard gives some guidelines and tips which may help one to learn to recognize God’s still small voice. If this is something you want to learn more about, I highly recommend that you read his book. There is too much material to cover here. The book helped me a great deal. Before going on, let me mention Williard’s bottom line. He says that we should have a regular and intelligible plan for living in a conversational relationship with God. We should pray and talk with God daily and listen for His voice continuously. As G. Cambell Morgan has written, “wherever there are hearts waiting for the Voice of God, that Voice is to be heard.”
Before I leave this topic, let’s hear from the testimonies I received on how some fellow Christians discern the voice of God:
“This is a vitally important question. We have to test all of our ‘musings’ against Scripture. God is not the author of confusion The Holy Spirit will never “guide” us in a direction that contravenes His own Word.”
“It's not that hard, frankly. I know that it is the Holy Spirit because of the affects it has on my heart. These are so profound and typically contrary to my own natural instinct or reasoning that I cannot deny the presence of the Holy Spirit in them. I would also add that these experiences tend to be around the truth of the scripture and never contrary to the revealed word of God. My own voice usually tries to justify my thoughts and behaviors.”
“Distinguishing the Holy Spirit or God's voice as I would say, vs. my own voice is always a challenge for me. I have never heard Him audibly, but I have sensed Him saying something.”
“How do I know whether it is the Holy Spirit’s voice or just my inner voice? In the past this was only known in hindsight. I now think I can recognize His voice as He speaks and it is usually counter to my inner voice, calling me to do God’s and to trust Him alone.”
“When He does speak to me through my inner voice, I know it was Him speaking when later what I was told is confirmed by reality.”
“How do I know an inner voice is the HS speaking and not my own? I test it. E.g., I look to see if it jives with Scripture. And, if necessary, I test it by engaging the body of Christ, other Christians. In most cases, it requires a leap of faith.”
“In my experience the difference between the Holy Spirit and my inner voice is that the Holy Spirit is relentless. I cannot get away from what he is saying to me.”
“Sometimes I just don’t listen. Sometimes I don’t seem to know how to listen, but God has always been faithful and I keep learning how to hear him.”
“Most of the time the Holy Spirit seems to speak in quiet ways. He nudges gently, uses friends or strangers, or just directs my thoughts when I am mentally at rest.”
“I desire for my “inner voice” and the “voice of the Holy Spirit” to become one and the same voice. This requires submission of my inner voice to His will.”
“I can distinguish between the HS speaking and my own inner voice because the Holy Spirit’s voice (while having the same ‘sound’ as my inner voice) is honest and needs no justification for what it is saying. It is true and good by nature. Furthermore, when I consider the things being said to me by the Holy Spirit, I feel considerably more peace about my situation than when I consider my own inner voice.”
There is another side to the coin of God’s still small voice. The other side is the noisy chatter that seems to involuntarily and constantly fill our conscious mind. It is difficult to hear God’s still small voice through all of this background noise. We need to learn to quiet our mind to hear God. Even Scripture tells us that. In Psalm 46:10, God says:
“Be still and know that I am God.”
For conversations with God, it is best to find the situation and time in your day which works best for you to pray and talk to the Lord and still your mind and listen for His voice. I have a friend who does this first thing after he gets up in the morning. For me, it’s when I jog. I jog for a hour a couple of times a week. I think the regular rhythm of my feet hitting the ground helps still my mind.
I’d next like to tell you about an experience I’d had, a personal story about a struggle I had trying to hear God and understand what He wanted me to do in a certain situation. In 2008 after hearing about Doug and Linda Hay’s mission experiences teaching science and other classes at the Oasis college in Pingliang, China, I pondered the idea of participating in the following year by giving some science lectures on how the universe came into existence and how it functions. I had already taught classes at HCC on the topic so I was already familiar with the material. I posed the idea to Doug and Linda and they concurred. As the months went by, for some reason I began to have doubts about making the trip. First, I questioned my motives. I wanted to make the trip in service of the Lord, since our modern scientific understanding of how the universe came into being and was fine-tuned from the first moment to support life clearly points to a Creator. This could catch the attention of non-believers and strengthen the faith of the few believers. But then I began to wonder if my motive was simply because I have a passion to teach and I was looking for a new audience. That motivation would not be good enough to make such a long and difficult trip. Then I wondered how much the students would understand when English was their second language that they were still learning. And finally the difficulties of the trip began to weigh on me. It was a long trip; a flight to Korea, a second flight to Xian, China, and then a 5 hr. car ride to Pingliang, which was located deep into northern China. I would be travelling in a strange country where a language I didn’t know was spoken. For a person my age, would I be in good enough shape when I arrived to give any lectures. I was also worried about getting diarrhea from the food and water. I could picture myself trying to lecture to a class with a case of diarrhea and having to run to the john every few minutes. I struggled with these doubts and prayed to God for guidance. Later things started coming together which made my doubts evaporate. First, my son, Collin, who had taught economics in a university in China for 2 years and spoke Chinese, told me he would like to make the trip with me and give a couple of lectures on the global economy. With him at my side, the trip in China would be much easier and we could spend time together as well which we don’t have much opportunity to do since he lived in Chicago. Second, I visited an organization called Passport Health in Tacoma which specializes in medical advice for overseas travel and got briefed on preparation for travel in the part of China I was going to. The main preparation was to take a supply of the antibiotic Cipro as well as some Imodium and electrolytes, all for diarrhea. Third, by chance, I came across someone on the internet who was an engineer living in Denmark who was a Christian and had already made a couple of trips to China for exactly the same type of mission I was planning. He had given lectures at Chinese universities on the scientific understanding of the creation of the universe. He not only had a lot of useful advice to give me, but also a set of slides with titles and text both in English and Chinese. What blew my mind was that his set of slides had almost the same material as the set of slides I had prepared. This set of slides turned out to be the most effective teaching tool I had for the class. I couldn’t help but think the Holy Spirit had put this guy in my path.
But, the struggle wasn’t over. Doug and Linda and I had agreed on a date in the spring of 2010 for our visit which would be ideal timing for their schedule. It would work also for Collin. However, sometime later Collin had to change the date due to a new project schedule he had to commit to at his work. This was not the best time for Doug and Linda for us to arrive, but they said they could accommodate the timing. Then, a few days before our scheduled departure, a medical problem came up which got resolved but my Dr. said if it came up again while I was traveling I would need expert medical attention and facilities, something Doug had told me earlier could not be depended on in Pingliang, especially with the language difficulties. I wondered what was going on here at the last minute. Was God telling me not to go? I had two inner voices in my mind. One said to play it safe and cancel the trip; the other said go. There was a difference in the nature of the two voices. The negative one kept arguing and giving me all the reasons that I should cancel. The other simply said, “Go”. It had a quality of authority. So I followed it and trusted that God would take care of me.
It turned out that I had followed the right voice. The entire trip went smoothly and was actually a joy. I experienced very little jet lag, was full of energy the entire time, and didn’t get even a trace of diarrhea or any other medical problems. The Chinese were very friendly and surprisingly pro-American. The students considered me an elder, so I got special attention and care. The lectures went well, especially Collin’s. He did far better than I did. I never knew he had such outstanding teaching talent. Chinese students are very shy and seldom ask questions or even answer one from the teacher in class. But Collin had developed techniques and patience to draw them out of their shyness and they slowly but surely became responsive to questions and discussion. He knew their culture and how to communicate with them. They clearly warmed up to him. He was a total hit with the students.
Then Doug told me something that had been a total surprise to him and Linda. The timing of our visit had been so perfect that he called it a “little miracle”. Just before we arrived, the Director of Oasis had fallen seriously ill. So Doug and Linda had to suddenly take on some of her responsibilities and duties. This took them away from their teaching classes. But with Collin and I there at just the right time, we filled in for them and school went on smoothly. Remember we had to change the timing of our visit due to a change in Collin’s work schedule. Was this a coincidence? I don’t think so.
Another experience happened that I hadn’t expected. On a Saturday, a group of the students took us on a tour to a local tourist park called Kong Tong Mountain. The Chinese were very proud of this park because three different Asian religions had neighboring temples on it and the three temples had long existed in harmony. On this mountain was a path called the stairway to heaven which passed by the temples on the way to the summit. It was a long, steep path with 1000 concrete steps that ascended into the mist. I hadn’t had much exercise during the visit so I said I’d like to go on a hike up the mountain. This was where being an elder didn’t work well. The students advised me that it was a strenuous climb but there was a rest area a short distance up where I could catch my breath and then come back down. I said no, I was going to the top. I wanted to see what Chinese heaven looked like. They must have respected that as they didn’t press me to change my mind, but also must have believed that I would need assistance because five of them offered to accompany me. So, up we went and eventually reached a rest area a few feet from the top. Heaven was little more than a shrine on the summit. The students were right, it was a strenuous climb, but I made it. At this point, one of the students asked, since the hard part was over and the rest of the walk was downhill, could they depart and explore some of the park on their own. I knew that the most difficult part for me was ahead because at my age my balance is not as good as it used to be, and going down steep, narrow, wet concrete steps with stretches without railings would be dicey to say the best. Nevertheless I said OK. To my surprise, one of the students stayed with me. He must have sensed my anxiety as he said he would stay with me on the way back and he knew of another longer and less traveled route that was not so steep. I felt relief. We had a nice visit on the way back with some surprises. First, I learned he is a Muslim. Pingliang is about 30% Muslim. But most surprising was that he had been reading the Bible and he wanted to discuss a comparison of the Bible with the Koran. So we had a nice discussion of this topic on the way down the mountain from heaven. When we got back to the van, I felt that I had made a good friend. Over a year later, I got an email from him and he filled me in on what had happened in his life since our walk together. He had graduated and landed a good job in a big city in eastern China. He mentioned he remembered what he called our religious conversation on Kong Tong Mountain. He said he would like to keep in touch so we have exchanged emails.
I have thanked God many times for this journey. I learned a lot about God from it. I got experience not only in discerning His voice when He speaks to me but in recognizing where He had spoken to me in the past by looking back at what events followed and how they unfolded. And I learned that what you think He is up or the reasons He wants you to do something may well not be what He really is up to or wants. What a joy I get when I reflect on the experience. It brought me closer to God.
Another manifestation of the Holy Spirit using our inner voice is what some call His dropping thoughts into our minds, or prompting us to do something or take a course of action. Let me give a couple of examples from my survey:
“I often pray that the Holy Spirit will keep eternity in my sights and He answers this prayer by dropping thoughts into my mind at opportune times.”
“When I am called on to make a decision, or offer advice, or choose a course of action, I will shoot a telegram prayer to God (the Holy Spirit) to guide and provide input. Sometimes, a new idea or thought will “pop into my mind”. Often this idea has no connection with what I was thinking and has to have come from “elsewhere”.
“I generally believe the HS speaks to me by influencing my thoughts. - there were lots of times when I would re-read what I had typed in and wonder where it came from.”
We have been discussing the sanctification process at length, so let me now make some concluding comments. One question that came to my mind is whether anyone ever completes the process and reaches a Christ-like state in a lifetime. No one can say for certain, but my sense from what I have read is that it is highly unlikely that anyone does. Billy Graham in his book, “The Holy Spirit”, commented that he wasn’t sure that he had. In her later years, Mother Teresa was not satisfied with her spiritual state. She said to a spiritual advisor, “I look and do not see,—Listen and do not hear—the tongue moves [in prayer] but does not speak ... I want you to pray for me—that I let Him (God) have [a] free hand."
One might ask then why make the journey? If we are saved by accepting Jesus and will go to heaven when we die, why struggle with the sanctification process? What are the benefits? I think the answer is that wherever we are in the sanctification process, we are living a better life than when we started – a life closer to what God designed us for and intended for us. Billy Graham said in his book that even if there were no heaven he would still prefer to live the life of a Christian. Another person who wrote about it was Brother Lawrence, an often quoted Carmelite monk who lived in the 17th century and is most commonly remembered for the closeness of his relationship with God. Here is a quote is from his book, “The Practice of the Presence of God”.
“There is not in the world a kind of life more sweet and delightful than that of a continual conversation with God. Those only can comprehend it who practice and experience it.”
N.T. Wright has a novel view, or perhaps insight, on this question. Paul tells us in Romans 8 and other places in his epistles that during our transformation we are becoming a new creation, i.e., a part of God’s future world, even as we continue to live within the present old creation, in what Paul calls ‘the present evil age’. Thus, we are at a place where heaven and earth meet. We are getting a foretaste of what the new world will be like. We are part of the new creation in advance. That is an exciting thought. Maybe this is what Paul is trying to tell us in his letters.
Finally, let me quote Pastor Michael when I asked him this question.
“The more we become like Jesus, the more we experience the fruit of the Holy Spirit. Life becomes better, richer, more fulfilling. We know God. Those are all good things and are worth pursuing and experiencing - think of how many people desperately seek peace..
With those thoughts, I will conclude this manuscript.
