Finding the Will of God and Building Your Faith in Him

It is the heart of every believer to know the voice of God. Some have given up on ever being able to hear and recognize His voice because of the many counterfeits out there. I have read many books on how to hear the voice of God. Some have been helpful, some confusing and some have been out right dangerous.

Because of my commitment to the Word of God as my final authority several years ago I was drawn to the biography of George Muller, a mighty man of faith and prayer. Muller read his Bible and believed God to provide for himself and the thousands of children God called him to care for during the 1800’s. Space will not allow me to give you more details of the man, but if you would like to be blessed by a life transformed through prayer and faith go get a copy of his biography by Basil Miller, it is a fast and easy read, but well worth your time.

Muller saw God move in powerful ways! He was a tremendous man of faith! Not like the caricature that has been created by 20th century so-called faith healers, where you are told to repeat certain biblical phrases to yourself because God wants you rich or healthy. No, Muller’s faith was for God to provide food for the orphans God had called him to care for. People marveled at what he was able to accomplish by simply taking God at his Word. Many people asked him how he discerned God’s will. On page 50 of Basil Miller’s biography of him Muller is quoted as giving the following principles:

1. Get your own will out of the way.“I seek at the beginning to get my heart into such a state that it has no will of its own in regard to a given matter. Nine-tenths of the trouble with people generally is just here. Nine-tenths of the difficulties are overcome when our hearts are ready to do the Lord’s will, whatever that may be. When one is truly in this state, it is usually but a little way to the knowledge of what His will is.”

2. Do not trust your feelings.“Having done this, I do not leave the result to feeling or simple impression. To do so, is to make ones self liable to great delusions.”

3. Seek the will of the Spirit of God in connection with the Word of God.“I seek the will of the Spirit of God through, or in connection with, the Word of God. The Spirit and the Word must be combined. If I look to the Spirit alone without the Word, I lay myself open to great delusions also. If the Holy Ghost guides us at all, He will do it according to the Scriptures and never contrary to them.”

4. Consider providential circumstances [a call for sanctified common sense].“Next, I take into account providential circumstances. These often plainly indicate God’s will in connection with His Word and Spirit.”

5. Pray for Guidance.“I ask God in prayer to reveal His will to me aright.”

6. Make a deliberate judgment, and then keep testing it with prayer.“Thus, through prayer to God, the study of the Word, and reflection, I come to a deliberate judgment according to the best of my ability and knowledge; and if my mind is thus at peace, and continues so after two or three more petitions, I proceed accordingly. In trivial matters, and in transactions involving the most important issues, I have found this method always effective. I never remember, in all my Christian course, a period now of sixty-nine years and four months, that I ever sincerely and patiently sought to know the will of God by the teaching of the Holy Ghost, through the instrumentality of the Word of God, but I have always been directed rightly. But if honesty of heart and uprightness before God were lacking, or if I did not patiently wait upon God for instructions or if I preferred the counsel of my fellow men to the declarations of the Word of the Living God, I made great mistakes.”

In all my years, I have come across no more sounder advice than these principles. Muller further laid down what he called four rules for Christians to strengthen their faith (page 59).

Mueller’s Principles to Increase Your Faith

1. Read the Bible and meditate upon it. God becomes known to us through prayer and meditation upon His Word.

2. Seek to maintain an upright heart and good conscience.

3. Do not shrink from opportunities where your faith may be tried and strengthened.

4. When the hour of the trial of your faith comes do not work a deliverance of your own. Let God work for you! If you want your faith strengthened you must give God time to work!

By the time he died (1805-1898) it is estimated that he had read through the Bible over 200 times! Too many 21st century Christians are proud to say that they have read it once! Muller believed Matthew 4:4, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. Brothers and sisters it’s time to ‘belly up’ to the buffet of God’s Word and dig in with both hands and then move forward in faith! A dying world is waiting for us to take our God seriously!

Sanctus: A few observations on the PEARUSA communique

The article below seems to indicate some good things in the works for PEARUSA.

Sanctus: A few observations on the PEARUSA communique

Patience

"Patience honors God and gives Him time to have His way with us. It is the highest expression of our faith in His goodness and faithfulness...It is the veidence of our full consent that God should deal with us in such a way and time as He thinks best. Tue patience is the losing of our self will in His perfect will." -Andrew Murray in Waiting on God

Preaching Endures

"Preaching endures and the gospel spreads because the Holy Spirit uses puny human efforts as the conduit for the force of His own Word. By the blessing of God's Spirit, the Word yet transforms (i.e. causes our hearts to love God and our wills to seek His will)."- Bryan Chapell in Christ Centered Preaching (pg. 29)

A Quote on Preaching

"When we preach the Word of God, we establish the Word of God over the mind and the soul, and thereby exalt the headship of Christ over His church. But to disregard Scripture is to disregard its Author, and doing that is nothing short of treachery."- John MacArthur

A warning for the Man of God

"We must always remember that popular acclaim is not the same as spiritual effectiveness."- Bryan Chapell

The Feast of the Holy Innocents

When Jesus came to earth He upped the stakes, so to speak. With His appearance there came a concomitant opposite reaction from the bowels of Hell. Like a preditor with a nose for weakness Satan always manages to target the weak. And who is weaker than a child? In a crazed effort to stop the hand of God Herod sent his soldiers to the area closest to where he thought they might find the young Jesus, and had them indescrimminantly slaughter innocent young boys. Such a deparate act only revealed what was at stake in the Incarnation. It is a vivid reminder that the stakes must be pretty high when Satan targets children. Salvation is costly.

The collect: Almighty God, You who have established praise out of the mouth of infants, and have made children by their deaths glorify You: Put to death all evil within us, and so strenthen us by Your grace, that by the purity of our lives and constancy of our faith, we may glorify Your holy Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.