Zach’s Theological Musings

  Romans 12:2:

And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.

  The phrase “I feel God leading me to…” can occasionally get people into trouble — when the feeling in question goes against the clear revealed word of God in Scripture. For example, I have heard someone talk about feeling that God released them from a previous marriage, when in fact there were no Biblical grounds for a divorce in their case. The feeling was simply wrong.

  But such cases are the exception. Generally when I hear a Christian brother or sister say, “I feel God leading me to…”, it is followed by something that genuinely is God glorifying and God pleasing. And indeed whenever we desire to something pure, righteous, and honoring to God it certainly is the Holy Spirit in us who is creating those desires. Go for it, brother!

  But the phrase that really sends chills down my spine is this, “I don’t feel God is leading me to… .” Uh oh! That is where you very, very frequently get into BIG, BIG, trouble. You see, there is something called the quenching of the Spirit which we drastically, drastically underestimate.

 Do not quench the Spirit; do not despise prophetic utterances. But examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good; abstain from every form of evil. I Thess 5:19-22

  Even as a born-again follower of Jesus Christ, it is simply incredible how dull, deaf, and dead our hearts can be from sensitivity to what is right and good. Oh how very often we “don’t feel led” to do something, not because it is not God’s will, not because the Holy Spirit doesn’t care if we do it or not, but because we have completely gagged and silenced His influence by listening to the clamor of the world.

  Examine everything carefully. Whether it be prophetic utterances, “promptings” on your heart, or indeed, the lack of “promptings” on your heart. I would venture to say that it is in the silence of a quenched spirit and a quenched conscience that God’s will is most frequently violated. If God commanded it of you in the Bible, then He is leading you to do it, regardless of whether you feel led or not.

  When I first arrived at the website, I just wanted to look away. But in my mind I heard this passage from Proverbs 24:10ff:

If you faint in the day of adversity, Your strength is small.

It’s ugly and it’s horrible. I didn’t want to see it, and you won’t want to see it. But choosing to look away from evil in order to remain in complacent comfort is an act of great immaturity, and something for which we will have to give account.

If you say, “Surely we did not know this,”
Does not He who weighs the hearts consider it?
He who keeps your soul, does He not know it?
And will He not render to each man according to his deeds?

Go to the site.

  Was my last post too negative? Well, on the one hand I would say no. I don’t hesitate to say that the American church has left her first love. Sure we still have some love for God, and we still believe the gospel to a large extent. And so did the Ephesians. But the preeminence of love for Christ has waned in the American church just as surely as it did in Ephesus. If God threatened to remove the lampstand of His presence from the church in Ephesus, then we need to stop and take the implications for us very, very seriously.

  But as needed as a sharp-cutting diagnosis is, it is not enough. How can hearts be ignited, or reignited, with zeal for Jesus? One answer is found on the Emmaus road:

And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself. … They said to each other, “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?” - Luke 24:27, 32

The hearts of the disciples burned when they listened to Jesus interpreting to them the ultimate subject and focus of all the (Old Testament) Scriptures — “the things concerning Himself.”

  Therefore it is my hope and prayer that teachings like those at http://onelord.cn/Jesus/ will be a positive encouragement to help persuade my heart and yours that Jesus really is better. He is better than national security and financial security. Deep and genuine fellowship with Jesus is worth losing that multi-million dollar church building, that home in the suburbs, that summer vacation, and everything else.

  Lord Jesus, open our eyes to see more of you in the Scriptures. Cause our hearts to burn like the disciples on the road to Emmaus. Lead us to repentance, and take away any competing loves until we hate this life and everything in it compared to You.