There are many questions people ask that require a “that
depends” for an answer. It depends what people mean by their question before we
can answer yes, no, or maybe so.
For example, when someone asks, does God still speak to his
people today, that answer depends in which version of God speaking to his
people they are talking about. Extreme left (a direction, not political
preference) believes that God speaks in all kinds of ways, often in
contradiction of his revealed word. Extreme right believes that God has spoken
in the past to give us his book, and now he no longer speaks at all. In-between
the two extremes is the belief that God speaks through his word just as
personally now as he did when he first presented those words to his church.
So, does God speak all kinds of ways, even in contradiction
of his word? No.
Did God speak in the past until we have what is recorded in
his book, but he no longer speaks at all? No.
Does God continue to speak to his people through the book he
has given, and through the Holy Spirit who abides in his people? Yes.[1]
For me, my whole view of relating to God’s book changed in
1992 when I went from treating the Bible like a book I had to study to see what
I could learn, to God’s word through which he actively speaks to his people
every time we meet with him to hear what he has to say.
Instead of trying to explain this in more depth at the
moment, here is an example of what I mean when I say that God speaks to his
people through his word and prayer.[2]
Perhaps it will encourage those who did not know that spending time with God in
his word and prayer is much more personal than they knew, and calm any concerns
that I agree with those who treat their personal experiences as authoritative
over the written words of God. Between the extremes, God is still speaking.
God’s word says:
For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.”[3]
Here is the essence of how God spoke to me through this part
of his word (not that I heard him use these words, but it is how I apply his
word to my heart as God speaking to me):
Monte,
· when you bow your knees
before the Father,
· and you pray according
to the riches of his glory,
· and you ask that he
would grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner
man,
· and that, through his
Spirit in your inner man, Christ may dwell in your heart through faith,
· and that you would fully
experience what it means to be rooted and grounded in love,
· so that, by the
indwelling Spirit of Jesus Christ in your heart, you would have strength to
comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and
depth of the love of Jesus Christ,
· and that you would know
the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge,
· so that, in the reality of
the Spirit of Jesus Christ dwelling in your heart, you would experience the
church being filled with all the fullness of God,[4]
· you would discover that
God is able to do far more abundantly than all that you ask or think,
· your prayer that he
would work according to the riches of his glory will be answered according to
the power at work within us because the Spirit of Jesus Christ dwells and
abides in your inner man,
· and so God will be
glorified in you, and in the church, and in Christ Jesus. Amen!
For those who get squirmy with any
suggestion that God speaks through his word (all those excesses and
exaggerations out there), consider this as an expression of how the wise man
hears Jesus’ words and puts them into practice,[5] or how we are told to “hear
what the Spirit says to the churches”[6]or how “faith comes from
hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.”[7]
The point is that, “the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged
sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow,
and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”[8] What I get out of the word of God is not because I am alive and
active (it is morning after all), but because God’s word is living and active
in me.
This simply means that, by the time I have
finished meditating on God’s word (in the biblical way, I mean),[9] I should know what the living and active word of God was doing in
me. As Paul stated it, we are to “work
out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you,
both to will and to work for his good pleasure.”[10]
Because God has sent his Spirit into our
hearts to teach us all things, and remind us of things we have been taught,[11] and to testify to our spirits that we are the children of God,[12] and to cry out within us, “Abba!
Father!”[13] our time with God in his word ought to feel just as personal as if
he had just sat down and spoken those words for the first time this morning.
Yes, I reject all the claims that God speaks
outside of his word and contrary to his word. However, there is a way that God
speaks through his word, and by his Spirit, so that we are able to feel like
little children spending time listening to our Father telling us what is on his
heart for us. Each morning should feel like such a personal time with God that
we simply know that the living God has made himself known to us in a deeply
personal way.
Which just happens to be what God’s word
tells me to pray for as stated above. And so, I set out to bow my knees before
the Father, asking for the fullest possible experience of what his word reveals
to me as is possible this side of heaven. And, since he is able to do far more
than I could ask, or even think to ask, I will not limit my prayers to what I
imagine God could do with someone like me, but will raise my prayers as high as
I can possibly consider, knowing that his word already tells me what to expect
him to do for his glory, and for my complete joy.
At the end of our time with God in his word
we will either believe that we got something out of God’s book because we
studied it, or that God gave us something out of his word because he was
personally ministering it into our hearts. I simply believe that it is God’s
word that teaches us the personal nature of him teaching us by his Spirit, so
any fellowship with him should feel like he just spoke, and we are those who
hear and put into practice what we have heard.
“He
who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”
© 2015 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517,
Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8 ~ in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise noted,
Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English
Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good
News Publishers.)
[1]
I say this meaning that the word and the Spirit are always in agreement, so
neither will ever contradict each other.
[2]
I speak of God’s word and prayer together because they describe two sides of
one relationship. We cannot separate the two as though God would speak to us
through his word even though we are not approaching him in prayer (turning God’s
book into a horoscope or Ouija board), nor that he would speak to us through
prayer without any submission to the word of God. As we meet with God in both
the word and prayer, God speaks to us through his word, and by his Spirit,
usually so we know quite clearly how we ought to pray.
[3]
Ephesians 3:14-21
[4]
While I see how God’s word applies this to me personally, I believe the primary
fulfillment of Paul’s prayer is seen in what God does in his church. Paul spoke
of the church as a holy temple in which God lives by his Spirit (Ephesians
2:19-22). As we pray the way Paul exemplified, and as God does the things Paul
and the church have prayed about, the church as this holy temple will be “filled
with all the fullness of God,” just as we are designed to experience.
[5]
Matthew 7:24-27
[6]
Stated 7 times in Revelation 2-3 at the end of each of the
seven letters to the churches (Revelation 2:7, 2:11, 2:17, 2:29, 3:6, 3:13,
3:22)
[7]
Romans 10:17
[8]
Hebrews 4:12
[10]
Philippians 2:12-13
[11]
John 14:26
[12]
Romans 8:16
[13]
Romans 8:15
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