George Müller - Jeremy221

Brother,

Praise God for clarifications!! Every thing that you have stated, there is no way I would even dare to dis-suade you from your course in Christ! It sounds straight-on!

Waiting on the will of God for every single thing in our life was not meant to be a blanket statement for every Christian (nor was your statement about not waiting)!

Jeremy221, you know the voice of your Shepherd, praise God for it but those that need to wait also know the voice of their Shepherd (or they are learning), but each person has to learn to hear and listen to His voice and then obey!

Thank you for your explanations and your clarifications, Jeremy221! What a walk with Christ you have!!

God bless you!!!

That is excellent Lysa. I am a Mueller fan. Here is my favorite quote. I have it written on the title page of my bible and resort to it often. I have shared it often too:

"If no immediate choice has to to be made, one should wait. The Lord orders our stops as well as our steps. When the time comes that a decision must be made, one can proceed in the direction that seems best. As you conscientiously seek His guidance, He will not let you make a wrong choice." George Mueller

What a wise man!

Thanks Lysa. Great stuff!!

I really just started reading him! I went to [url=http://books.google.com]Google Books[/url] and found all kinds of out-of-print books by Godly men!

They are the original book copied and turned into an epub or pdf file. So if anyone has a Kindle or e-reader, you can download all kinds of free Godly books.

And I was really surprised that the majority of these books came from the Ivy League "divinty" schools. Just saying.

God bless you guys!!!

I like that quote. Years ago, my pastor of old instructed us that if we feel a need to rush into anything, it's usually the enemy.

There were and I think there still is a lot of wise men out there, they just don't make themselves known. Thanks for the quote!

God bless you!

So, based on the Scripture, if you do not know the voice of the Shepherd, are you one of His sheep?

Jeremy221 wrote:
So, based on the Scripture, if you do not know the voice of the Shepherd, are you one of His sheep?

Aside from the, "Your house is burning down, get out NOW," God moments; (I'm not being smart alec, I'd like to know) how many times has the Lord told you to do something quickly? In my 50 years, have one time distinctly heard the voice of my shepherd tell me to do something quickly.

I will go out on the limb here and say that God telling His sheep to move quickly is not the norm.

I apologize if this is not where you wanted this question to go but with the limited information given, this is where it took me!!

(edited 2nd, 3rd & 4th ¶'s)

God bless you Jeremy!!

I have to second what Lysa said. I have been walking with the Lord for almost 34 years and sometimes, in fact most of the time, you have to wait on Him for direction. It keeps us dependant on Him. I too have only heard His speak audibly once and knew immediately what I was to do, other than that wait.

Thanks for your replies. Personally, I have had many times where the Lird has instructed me to do something quickly. There have been times when I disobeyed and I missed an opportunity to glorify God in the way He desired. Off the top of my head I can think of two times where immediate obedience resulted in visible fruit. For instance, recently after work the Lord sent me to a particular fast food restaurant where I met a friend from church at whose small group the Lord wanted me to share. On a Sunday, immediately after the service finished, He directed me to the same restaurant to sit and study Hebrews. Shortly there after a retired pastor came over and struck up a conversation with me. Or some more easily definable moments. Before I moved to the North West, I was involved in a college church full of zeal and good works but absent of the Spirit. They would have lockins which the Lord had me visit a few times. Each time he would send me to different people during the prayer times to pray with and as normal would instruct me in what to pray for them. I was just following regularly in the way the Lord leads me. I found out just prior to moving that this simple obedience had given me a reputation among the younger college students.

I also have had many times that the Lord has not only shown me what to share but when to share it during the communion service at church.

I say all this only to make the point that what you have experienced thus far is only a glimpse of the life available. Saturday night the Lord lead me to the passage in 2 Kings 1 where Elijah is sent to intercept the messagers of Ahaziah as they went to consult Baal-Zebub of the city of Ekron to give a message to the king that he would die from his injury. This morning the Lord brought me to James 2 which talks about the interaction of faith and deeds in verse 26 it reads, "As the body without the Spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead." (James 2:26 NIV). In this passage it gives three examples of how faith expressed in deeds is lived out. The first is by caring for the needy or obeying the written Word of God. The second tells of Abraham offering Isaac on thr alter which demonstrates an immediate obedience to a specific God given command. The final example is of Rahab protecting the spies which is an example of someone promoting the revealed Will of God through other people.

One final note, you mentioned that often you have to wait on God to know His will. That is good and accurate but the extraplelation of the meaning of that statement is that you are not continually waiting on God for what He would have you do. In our day to day life we bear resposibilities but if we are not always waiting on the Lord, we will not get that call to do the specific Will because we are not listening.

I hope this clarifies the purpose of my previous question.

Peace

Edit: I realized after writing my response that I failed to answer your question about the enemy being unable to rush the Lord's sheep into anything. This too has to do with constantly waiting on the Lord which will give you discernment and the power to stand.

Ok, I can see that I didn't know exactly what you were talking about; it was a failure to communicate. I agree with everything you said about the Lord leading you to witness and preach, etc.

I was thinking of the purchasing-a-new-car moments that come in our life!! LOL The impact of your life and your health moments! I am 50 but I've been walking with the Lord since I was 19 and in that time I've auditable heard His voice a few times but ONLY once when it dealt with the state of my health and my life. And I listened and obeyed because it scared me so bad I had too!

I say all this only to make the point that what you have experienced thus far is only a glimpse of the life available.

So true, we see through a glass darkly! I believe you have judged me erroneously and seemingly wrapped up my entire Christian life in a response that was not even based on an acurate question! (huge grin) But that's ok, I have done this many, many times myself and I'm probably not even finished yet!!

Keep following the Spirit brother!!
God bless you Jeremy!

Lysa,

I apologize, I certainly do not communicate well all the time. By saying that you have only seen a glimpse, I was agreeing with your own statement about hearing the Lord's voice audibly only a few times over your 30+ years of following the Lord. By no means did I mean that you have not learned to obey the leading of the Spirit but that you have just tasted drop of this aspect of His leading by audible voice.

Though my examples in the previous post focused on areas we would consider to be ministry, I have seen several times where the Lord lead me to do something or buy something for which I saw no specific application to the "Lord's work." Take for example some earphones. A few years ago the Lord told me that I would be getting some very good earphones to use with my computer/MP3 player. It was a few years later, after I had started listening to sermons on SI that He reminded me of this and told to go buy them. I looked around and did some research but baulked at the price. When I was first told to get them, I had plenty of extra funds available but when He told me to buy them, my budget was much, much tighter. It must have been a good six months after I had been instructed that I finally bought them. Wow! What a blessing they have been and not only that, the Lord has proven himself faithful to meet my needs.

Another example is with my current car. Again, the Lord told me that I was going to get a new car (or another used car) and instructed me on what year, make and model to get. Then He told me to set aside the money. So I did and it sat there for three years waiting. In the last few months before He moved me to the West Coast, He told me it was time to buy the car so I started looking and then within a week of moving, He told me which specific one to get and I went to buy it at night up in Chicago. The timing was perfect and I finished my pizza driving "career," packed everything I had into my new car and drove west.

I realize that these are not instantaneous leadings regarding buying things. We are instructed not to worry about tomorrow, about what we shall eat, what we shall drink or what we shall wear because our Father in Heaven knows what we need. When I came to the Lord, I placed these things in His hands because I was given the faith to do so. Over the years in my walk, He has required the time frame to become shorter and shorter, from years, to months, to weeks to moments. I am sure there are areas of your life where you have learned to follow in like manner where the Lord has not worked on me in yet and it comes through in the grace and wisdom of your words. The Lord has been faithful to prove and purify the covetousness from me. His work continues which is why I am getting so much blessed training in this area.

I hope this clarified what I meant in my posts.

Blessings,
Jeremy221