Exercising a prophetic gift: Since all believers can be filled with the Holy Spirit (Acts 2: 4; 19: 6; Eph. 5: 18), we can (and should) all receive and exercise his gifts, including prophecy. But our first attempts at prophecy can be scary, so it’s helpful to ask yourself, “Will the thing I think I’m seeing, hearing, or sensing bring encouragement if I share it? Will it be edifying?” And most important of all, “Does it sound like Jesus?” A simple, memorable rule of thumb is therefore to apply the ABC filter:
• Affirming: Does this word fulfil the criteria of 1 Corinthians 14, by being strengthening, encouraging, comforting, edifying, and upbuilding?
• Biblical: Is this word consistent with the broad teaching and witness of Scripture (not just a specific verse taken out of context— see chapter 2)?
• Christlike: Is this word consistent with the character, mission, and message of Jesus?
Greig, Pete. How to Hear God (Kindle Locations 2220-2224). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.
I get it. There are some who abuse prophecy as we are seeing in some of the prominent charismatic churches, but I like Pete's biblical and balanced approach. It is a both end situation. We can be adhering to the Word of God and still hear His gentle whisper!
I could say more, but I have friends on both extreme ends of the spectrum. I am solidly in Pete's camp on this one.
Here is my notebook of things I highlighted from my second time (or maybe my first too) through this book. (It is hard to take notes when you are listening to it:
How to Pray by Pete Greig Notebook
How to Read This Book In Five Minutes
172 The Bible
says that you were created to enjoy a real, conversational relationship with
God. Hearing his voice is therefore the most natural thing in the world.
180 Jesus is
what God sounds like. He’s literally the “living Word of God.” Hearing his
voice is not so much a skill we must master, therefore, as a master we must
meet.
188 When it
comes to hearing God, the Bible is the language of his heart. Nothing he says
in any other way in any other context will ever override, undermine, or
contradict what he has said in the Scriptures.
1. Hearing God’s Word In Jesus
339 magnificence.”
Human beings are hardwired to worship. You have been meticulously made with an
extraordinary ability to walk and talk with God.
340 In fact,
the Bible says that your primary purpose— the reason for which you were born—
is to enjoy a real, conversational relationship with an infinitely loving
divinity, which is why you almost certainly hear him already, more than you
realize.
640 Thus
grace, for the most part, acts slowly. He works little by little.” 19
646 Hawaiian word haoles,
‘without breath,’ or those who failed to breathe life into their prayers. 20
649 I am
terrible at tarrying on the other side of asking to slowly breathe life into
the embers I have spread before the altar of the Lord.
675 “You study
the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life.
These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to
me to have life” [John 5: 39– 40]).
Part 1: God’s Word: Vox Externa
Hearing God’s Word In the Bible
981 “We present you with this book, the most valuable
thing that this world affords. Here is wisdom, this is the royal law, these are
the lively oracles of God.” 11
1006 If I understand what the Bible means but never
hear what it says to me personally, I have information without revelation. But
conversely, if I disregard its original context and ignore the bits I don’t
like or don’t understand, I will be in grave danger of abusing God’s Word by
confusing it with my own feelings, preferences, and prejudices.
1053 Some people view exegesis with suspicion,
worrying that it stops us taking the Bible at face value (which it does) and
that it therefore undermines the authority of Scripture (which it does not) and
detracts from our ability to engage with the Bible devotionally (which it can
actually enhance). In fact, reading the Bible with our heads, so that we
understand it intellectually, only strengthens our ability to receive the Bible
as God’s Word with our hearts. Let me give you an example.
1196 survey of forty thousand people aged between
eight and eighty discovered that reading the Bible has a profound effect on
both our mental health and our spiritual growth, but only if it is done at
least four times a week. Once or twice a week provides a negligible benefit,
and three times results in only a slight improvement. But among those who study
the Bible at least four times a week, there is a dramatic inflection point, a
sharp uplift in their mental and spiritual well-being. In fact, these regular
Bible readers are 30 percent less likely to feel lonely, 32 percent less prone
to anger issues, 60 percent less likely to report feelings of spiritual
stagnation, and 228 percent more likely to be active in sharing their faith. 35
3. Hearing God’s Word In Prayer: Lectio Divina
1256 Scripture is, in some sense, the music of God,
which we hear; in another sense, it is the instrument of God, which we play.
—Origen of Alexandria (185– 254)
1326 we learn how to approach the Bible as a window
frame as well as a picture frame, not just looking at it but also through it to
the world, and the Word, beyond.
1552 “Don’t swallow it in a big lump,” Bernard of
Clairvaux said of the Bible in the twelfth century. 11 Chew over each word.
Savor its flavor and sample its depths.
1565 But meditation is cyclical, not linear. It’s a
labyrinth in a world of ladders, more concerned with discoveries made than
distance traveled.
1568 Cistercian Order.
1578 Some bunny trails take you down dark holes, but
others lead out into the light.
1583 As it did for the couple on the road to Emmaus,
whose conversation about God was interrupted and redirected by a stranger, the
living Word will sometimes interrupt the written Word.
1586 Deep calls to deep in the roar of your
waterfalls. —Psalm 42: 7
1592 Don’t try to make sense of your reaction or
analyze why it’s speaking to you. Just acknowledge it and ask the Lord to show
you why it’s captured your attention.
1597 But an insight that exceeds the bounds of sound
biblical interpretation does not need to lead to heresy, provided it reflects
the word, character, and example of Jesus.
1654 How on earth are we to know the difference
between God’s thoughts and our thoughts, things imagined and things imaginary?
These are important questions because our imaginations are indeed both powerful
and impure, but the answer is not to switch them off (even if this were
possible), but rather to use them wisely and enthusiastically for God’s glory.
We don’t need to be afraid of doing so, provided we apply the usual tools of
discernment.
1662 life researching such things, concludes, “The
devotional masters of nearly all persuasions counsel us that we can descend
with the mind into the heart most easily through the imagination.” 15
Conversely, conservative Bible teacher A. W. Tozer warned starkly of the
dangers of ignoring our imaginations when it comes to the Bible, saying, “The
weakness of the Pharisee in days of old was his lack of imagination, or what
amounted to the same thing, his refusal to let it enter the field of religion.
He saw the text with its carefully guarded theological definition and he saw
nothing beyond.” 16
1742 In this chapter I have talked about the
essential role that Benedict of Nursia played in the development of lectio
divina, but not yet about a character almost equally influential in popularity:
Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuits. Arising in sixteenth-century
Europe, the Jesuits championed a practical spirituality that sought to find God
in all things. They became the great popularizers of such ancient practices for
spiritual formation as the examen, the Spiritual Exercises, and, of course,
lectio divina. Armed with these powerful tools, Jesuits went out and truly
changed the world. It was Jesuits, for instance, who located the source of the
Blue Nile, discovered quinine, invented the humble trapdoor, founded the
Brazilian city of São Paulo, championed Baroque architecture, wrote the first
dictionaries of North America’s native languages (enabling cross-cultural
communication), gave their names to thirty-five craters on the moon, and
provided education for leaders from Descartes and Voltaire to Bill Clinton and
Denzel Washington. 19 The Jesuits embody the intrinsic link between spiritual
formation (prayer, listening, meditating on the Scriptures, etc.) and social
transformation. “Saint Ignatius was a mystic,” wrote William James, the
American philosopher, “but his mysticism made him one of the most powerfully
practical human engines that ever lived.” 20
1788 embracing interruption, exercising intuition,
and engaging imagination— we are, in fact, training ourselves by these very
means to hear God’s word in all of God’s world. We start to make secular places
sacred, simply by the way we listen to them. And, of course, wherever in the
world God’s word is received by faith, his kingdom has already come. In the
words of the Jesuit paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, “The world has
little by little caught fire in my sight until, aflame all around me, it has become
almost luminous from within.” 23
1819 dreams and visions will pass away, prophetic
utterance speaks for a season, “the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the
word of the Lord endures forever” (1 Pet. 1: 24– 5).
1829 There’s an old joke about a Franciscan, a
Dominican, and a Jesuit who were praying, when the lights went out. The
Franciscan said, “Oh, this is a wonderful opportunity to live more simply.” The
Dominican launched into a sermon about the significance of darkness and light.
And the Jesuit went off to change the fuse.
1836 These tools include the Spiritual Exercises— a
four-week, in-depth journey of spiritual
1837 It is not only 4 weeks. Pete should correct this
or clarify that it is four phases or weeks.
1865 Anima Christi (A Prayer from the Start)
1932 No one should feel any pressure to use icons in
prayer. But if you are visual and find it helpful to focus on something
physical in a time of prayer, an icon can be helpful and is arguably more
meaningful than, say, staring at a candle or a sunset or lyrics on a screen.
1942 Recommends David G. Benner, Opening to God:
4. Hearing God’s Word In Prophecy
2035 In both Old and New Testaments, prophecy is
predominantly a means of declaring God’s will and powerfully communicating his
heart. 4
2042 There were no chapter divisions in Paul’s
original letter. He is urging us to “eagerly desire gifts of the Spirit,
especially prophecy” (1 Cor. 14: 1) precisely because we love other people and
therefore want them to be strengthened, encouraged, comforted, and edified by
God’s Word. And he is also telling us that spiritual gifts are useless—“ only a
resounding gong or a clanging cymbal” (1 Cor. 13: 1)— unless they are
administered with love.
2061 “Does God really speak today? If so, how does he
speak? And how do you know it’s him?” For three months, he says, no one
anywhere could answer him.
2068 “I began to discover,” he says, with his eyes
twinkling, “that in everything God has a voice.” I would go about my day
talking to him, asking, “What are you saying in this situation? Where are you
at work in this place? What was that encounter all about?”
2090 Kermit predicted all those years ago. In fact, I
was with him the day he heard the news that his song “Raise a Hallelujah” had
reached number 1 on the airplay charts. 5 And as for his award-winning anthem
“No Longer Slaves,” it contains some especially poignant lines: From my
mother’s womb You have chosen me Love has called my name I’ve been born again
Into Your family Your blood flows through my veins I’m no longer a slave to
fear I am a child of God6
2119 ‘Speak, LORD, for your servant is listening.’
2142 But also because our Creator understands that we
are seasonal beings, living in a seasonal world, and we don’t thrive and mature
in a mode of continual harvest. 8
2216 Exercising a prophetic gift: Since all believers
can be filled with the Holy Spirit (Acts 2: 4; 19: 6; Eph. 5: 18), we can (and
should) all receive and exercise his gifts, including prophecy. But our first
attempts at prophecy can be scary, so it’s helpful to ask yourself, “Will the
thing I think I’m seeing, hearing, or sensing bring encouragement if I share
it? Will it be edifying?” And most important of all, “Does it sound like
Jesus?” A simple, memorable rule of thumb is therefore to apply the ABC filter:
4. Hearing God’s Word In Prophecy
2220
·
Affirming: Does this word fulfil the criteria of
1 Corinthians 14, by being strengthening, encouraging, comforting, edifying,
and upbuilding?
·
Biblical: Is this word consistent with the broad
teaching and witness of Scripture (not just a specific verse taken out of
context— see chapter 2)?
· Christlike:
Is this word consistent with the character, mission, and message of Jesus?
Part 2: God’s Whisper: Vox Interna
5. Hearing God’s Whisper
2551 Success
in Circuit lies Too bright for our infirm Delight The Truth’s superb surprise
As Lightning to the Children eased With explanation kind The Truth must dazzle
gradually Or every man be blind— 1
Carolyn Arend's (head of Renovare Book Club) favorite paragraph ever:
2561 Billions of people wake up each day precariously balanced on a rock traveling at 66,627 miles per hour around the sun in a galaxy that is itself moving at 1,342,160 miles per hour in relation to extragalactical frames of reference. Quietly these people make themselves coffee, stare out at the dawn breaking, the dew glistening and, for the most part, barely give the maker of so much mystery a second thought. Their three-pound brains churn through eleven million bits of information per second, and their ten-ounce hearts pump five liters of blood through 100,000 miles of tubing, and yet the great Giver of Life demands neither allegiance, acknowledgment, nor thanks. “The Lord is not slack . . . but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish’ (2 Pet. 3: 9 NKJV).
Greig, Pete. How to Hear God (p. 148). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.
2588 of course, is that his presence is manifest in
the dullness after the drama. The Great Elemental Force shows himself gentle
and makes himself personal in “a still small voice” (1 Kings 19: 12 KJV) or, as
a more literal translation of the original Hebrew says, “the sound of gentle
silence.”
2602 Breathe through the heat of our desire thy
coolness and thy balm; Let sense be dumb, let flesh retire; Speak through the
earthquake, wind and fire, O still, small voice of calm. 4
2717 There is not in the world a kind of life more
sweet and delightful, than that of a continual conversation with God. —Brother
Lawrence
6. Hearing God’s Whisper In Dreams and the Unconscious
>
3062 Millennia before Freud and Jung and
psychoanalytic theory, the Bible regarded dreams as a window to the secret
motivations and hidden thoughts of the “innermost mind” (or the “unconscious,”
as Freud would later describe it).
3229 As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of
human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.
7. Hearing God’s Whisper In Community, Creation, and
Culture
3313 Pierre
Teilhard de Chardin, who combined being a Jesuit priest with being a scientist,
paleontologist, and philosopher, put it like this: “By means of all created
things, without exception, the divine assails us, penetrates us and moulds us.”
2
3497 Hearing God in the Culture There are no unsacred
places; there are only sacred places and desecrated places. —Wendell Berry
8. The Word, the Whisper, and the Way
3790 Gradually, my neural pathways get realigned by
ten
3877 Sometimes he speaks dramatically, but mostly
quietly with “words . . . full of the Spirit and life” (John 6: 63). The more
we say yes to the things he says, the more familiar and precious his voice
becomes, until, ultimately, at the end of the road, at the end of the day, at
the end of our lives, we look back with a mixture of wonder and joy and say:
Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked?
3882 And so we arise, put on our coats, and step out
into the night.
Recommendations for Further Reading On Hearing God
3897 Dallas
Willard, Hearing God: Developing a Conversational Relationship with God
(Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2012). (My favorite book on the subject)
3903 David G.
Benner, Opening to God: Lectio Divina and Life as Prayer (my favorite book on
Lectio Divina)
3927 Christine
Westhoff, ReFraming the Prophetic (online Bible-study), www.reframingtheprophetic.com.
(Now a book)
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