Starting a series: Shavuot (Pentecost) 2014

Hearing the voice of God...

A friend recently asked me: "How do you hear God? Is there an audible voice?" And I answered: "No, it is more like your conscience, an inner little voice." However, there is more to the way God speaks. He speaks through His Word, the Bible (the Scriptures). Before I became a believer, the Bible was just another book (fairly boring in many parts). However, when I became filled with the Spirit of God, suddenly everything changed! God spoke to me through the Bible... how did this happen? Mostly I saw parallels between my own life and whatever was described in a particular piece of the Bible. Then (through this "inner voice of the Holy Spirit") He would show me how He reacted or what He said in that particular instance and that the same therefore applies to me in my similar circumstance. This was more than simply applying those truths in the Bible that I was reading which is true for every-one and everywhere to myself. It was the fact that He showed me how those truths apply to me in my circumstances.


For example, yesterday I read from Hosea how Israel was going to be destroyed because of their sins. "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge; because you have rejected knowledge, I reject you from being a priest to me." I am going through a difficult time in my own life at the moment. What should I do?
"For I will be like a lion to Ephraim,
and like a young lion to the house of Judah.
I, even I, will tear and go away;
I will carry off, and no one shall rescue.
I will return again to my place,
until they acknowledge their guilt and seek my face,
and in their distress earnestly seek me."
Now, I knew there were some things wrong in my relationship with the Lord. I knew about specific sins and I asked forgiveness for them, but did stop doing them and neither did I really plan to stop doing them. But these verses made me realized how He feels about it. He will wound and then wait until I acknowledge my guilt and seek His face and in my distress earnestly seek Him. This was exactly what happened to me!
"“Come, let us return to the Lord;
for He has torn us, that He may heal us;
He has struck us down, and He will bind us up.
After two days He will revive us;
on the third day He will raise us up,
that we may live before Him.
Let us know; let us press on to know the Lord;
his going out is sure as the dawn;
He will come to us as the showers,
as the spring rains that water the earth.”"
And then, as I press on to know the Lord, I learn about His character and what He wants from me:
"For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice,
the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings."
And then, as He was healing me:
"When I heal Israel,
the iniquity of Ephraim is revealed,
and the evil deeds of Samaria;
..."
In the same way, He showed me what was wrong in my life as He was healing me. He showed me that when I asked forgiveness before I was like Israel:
"They do not cry to me from the heart,
but they wail upon their beds;
for grain and wine they gash themselves;
they rebel against me."
In the same way I was asking forgiveness, not from my heart, but simply so that things would go well.

Why this series?

So why am I writing this? Since the revival in the time of Andrew Murray, many South African churches have the custom to pray together for the 10 days before Pentecost (Shavuot). I am currently in a position where I am unable to attend any such meetings. As I was praying about this, asking the Lord what I should do, I thought about what I would do if I did have christian friends with me here? I would share about what Pentecost (Shavuot) truly meant and the promises for us today. And I would expect and depend on the Holy Spirit to show me from the Bible what to share. In that case, why not simply share with myself what I would have shared with them, still depending on the Holy Spirit to lead me? Well, even though I am currently isolated from christian friends, I still have contact via internet. If I am going to write it down, why not also share what I learn on the Internet?

What this is not

This is not a series of sermons or daily devotionals for you to read. The problem with a sermon is that most of the time it is the preacher that is being judged on how well he preached (and often judging himself on the same principle). If it was a good sermon, then my reaction is: "Wow, he did a good job!" Or: "Wow, he really have a talent to open the Bible so people can understand it!" Sometimes, the sermon will actually motivate me to do something different in my life, but this does not happen often.

The same is true to a certain extend for "daily devotionals". I am reading what somebody else have heard from the Spirit in the Bible. I am not putting down preachers or writers of devotionals (I love Oswald Chambers). But what needs to happen is for us to press on to know the Lord. To get to know Him "face to face" so to speak, since this is what He desires from us. To love Him (and others) as He loves us (and them). So this is not simply me telling you what a certain Scripture means.


I admit that I am convinced by most of what Frank Viola wrote in "Pagan Christianity" about our church services not encouraging us to grow. Alan Hirsch says much of the same things in "The Forgotten Ways". I think that we have lost too much of the original Jewish setting of the New Testament. The church has become a group of gentiles replacing Israel instead of being grafted into Israel (). While God has used our "traditional" sermon-based methods in the past, the fastest-growing church currently is the church in China. It mostly consists of "house churches", without any of the typical things we have become used to in our church services, but incidentally also more closely resembling what the New Testament churches looked like than a typical western church of today.

What I hope this will be

What this is, is rather me sharing what I have learned from the Spirit on a certain topic from the Scriptures with the idea that you would actually read those same Scriptures and hear the voice of God speaking to you in your circumstances through those same (or related) Scriptures. When I was a young believer, this is exactly how we grew. Each one shared from his/her own experiences what they have been learning from God in the past week. Use whatever I share as a springboard to add what you have learned from the Lord. Let it be for the mutual encouragement, to built one another up. Seek the Lord about the issues I mention and then share whatever He gives you to share. I pray that whatever He gives me will also be benefit others and that I in turn, will be encouraged by the work of God in your life.

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Next: Make discipelsMake disciples