Discerning the voice of God brings benefits of disciples of Christ. This daily devotional looks at how it brings the different attributes of spiritual wisdom and fruits of righteousness.
Nuggets
- Discernment brings purity of heart and life.
- God is gentle with us as He reveals Himself to us.
- Discernment must lead us to submission to God’s Will.
- In a way, God’s mercy is unconditional, but in a way, there is a condition.
- The Plan of Salvation is offered to each of us.
- Discernment must lead to a lack of hypocrisy.
- When we discern the wisdom of God, it produces fruits of righteousness.
Devotions in the How to Discern the Voice of God series
In this series, we’ve looked at different ways we could discern God’s voice. We can look at His Word to determine His Will. Ultimately, His Will is for us to believe in His gospel.
But what is in it for us? Let’s take a look at what the fruits are.
Let’s Put It into Context #1
Discernment means we can evaluate the situation and recognize right from wrong. Applying that would mean that we gauge a situation and know how God would like us to act.
That is what discernment is, but we can’t just leave it at that. It isn’t just about doing what is right or wrong.
It isn’t an academic knowledge of reality and existence. It isn’t just a head knowledge of Who God is and what He has done.
Most importantly, we are called to know God. Knowledge is organizing truth in the mind.
But like we keep saying, our faith can’t just be head knowledge. It has to be heart knowledge.
It is knowing, believing, and submitting to God so that we can secure salvation. Salvation is deliverance from evil and the consequences of sins to replace them with eternal life and good.
God isn’t into a works-based salvation. He wants us to change our character to be more like His.
Let's Put It into Context #2
- We have to know obedience from sin.
- Disciples are told to pursue knowledge.
- We are not to follow the world’s attempts to figure out how God does what He does.
- By changing our character to be like God, we know what His truths are and can determine right from wrong.
- Knowledge leads us to understand God.
- Paul thought discernment was wrapped up in loving God more.
- The word of God is living because we are constantly learning more than we previously knew and learning more in-depth what we previously knew.
- God’s law required 100% obedience.
- The law prepared us for Jesus’ arrival.
- It was always God’s plan to send Jesus to be our Savior and Redeemer.
- With Jesus’ covenant, we only need accept the gift of salvation.
We are walking through Alexander’s sermon to see what we can mine from it. The purple headings are going to be his words.
Resource
Another thing very necessary to a correct division of the word of truth is that the promises and threatenings contained in the Scriptures be applied to the characters to which they properly belong.
“But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere” (Jas. 3: 17 NIV)
The product of our discernment of the voice of God is wisdom. Wisdom is an internal disposition that leads to knowledge, discernment, and good sense that is put into practice through salvation, increasing our goodness and virtue.
This isn’t any smart-aleck wisdom. It is wisdom from above. It is what we need to know God better. James broke it down into several characteristics.
Pure and Peaceable
Discernment brings purity of heart and life. For disciples, we would define pure as without the stain of sin.
But it is more than just sinlessness. It is our reflecting God’s holy and righteous character.
Ooo, baby. I hadn’t really thought of this before. Arnot wrote, “It shows how God may dwell with man, and yet not sacrifice His purity; how man may dwell with God, and yet not lose his peace.”
Resource
Hasn’t it flitted through our minds that we are so unworthy of God even knowing us? How can He live with us?
It is all about God revealing Himself and what He has done to us. He has sent His only Son to die on a cross to be the propitiation for us. Jesus substituted — became the propitiation — for us because He was the only perfect sacrifice that would be accepted.
It is all about God forgiving us so that we are changed to be spiritually pure like Him. In this way, He can live in us.
This is what the gospel is all about. It isn’t only about fire insurance and making sure we get to Heaven.
It is about changing to be like Him.
I have to process what Arnot said. He wrote, “When I accept mercy through the blood of Christ, my desire for peace of conscience, one of the strongest forces in my being, becomes a weight hung over a pulley exerting a constant pressure to lift me up into actual righteousness.”
Resource
Most of us don’t like the drama of life. We want a peaceful conscience. Our conscience is the part of our nature that points us to what is right and gives us pain or pleasure when we choose wrong.
When we ABCD, that conscience has a new standard by which to determine right and wrong. We now evaluate our decisions on being obedient to God.
The ABCDs of Salvation
If you have not become a believer in Christ, please read through the
Plan of Salvation and prayerfully consider what God is asking you to do.
A – admit our sins
B – believe His Son Jesus is our Redeemer
C – confess God as Sovereign Lord
D – demonstrate that commitment by making any changes needed in our lives to
live the way in which God has called us
The Disciple’s Job Description
It is when we choose to do what is right in God’s eyes that we become like Him. We are made righteous. Righteous means we are free from sin because we are following God’s moral laws.
Disciples are given peace so that we can focus on worshiping God. If we are focusing on the chaos of this world, we aren’t feeling the worship.
Considerate
God is gentle with us as He reveals Himself to us. He tenderly calls us to Him. “Come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Mt. 11: 28 CSB).
We are called to be reasonable with others. Deems felt that discernment helps us to listen to all sides so we can make an informed decision.
Resource
Disciples of Christ need to link the discernment with being sober. Sober is a character trait distinguished by self-control, genuineness, and sound moral judgment. The sound moral judgment is that for which discernment is aiming.
Did the listen to all sides throw you for a loop? Part of me is saying that I don’t want to listen to Satan.
The other part is reminding me that, when we are witnessing, we need to listen carefully to everything that person is saying. We have to determine what s/he believes, so we can share that which will help promote understanding and acceptance.
We have to do all of this through love. That encompasses the compassion and gentleness.
Submissive
Discernment must lead us to submission to God’s Will. We can’t pick and choose what laws and commandments we will follow — and those we won’t.
We have to make God Sovereign Lord of all of our being in every facet of our lives.
Full of mercy
In a way, God’s mercy is unconditional, but in a way, there is a condition. God’s mercy is the unexpected way God responds in love to our needs.
God bestows mercy on us regardless of our spiritual condition. He responds unexpectedly by loving us even though we were disobedient.
We get the best of God’s mercy when we have ABCDed. Arnot wrote, “… absolute fulness of mercy to the guilty binds the forgiven more firmly to obedience.”
It is that obedience that trips up some. They don’t want to submit to God, so they continue in their disobedience.
The fruit of discerning God’s voice is so that we can make the right choices to be obedient to Him.
For those who have ABCDed, God’s mercy removes our guilt and gives us peace. His grace removes the impurities — i.e., sin — and makes us pure.
Impartial
God doesn’t have favorites. “For God shows no partiality” (Rom. 2: 11 ESV).
The Plan of Salvation is offered to each of us. It is our decision whether we submit to Him or not.
Just as God loves everyone, we are called to love everyone the same, also. How that plays out is we are to love the sinner and the saint equally.
Sincere
Discernment must lead to a lack of hypocrisy. I know. It is part of human nature that our actions don’t follow our words.
Sometimes the hypocrisy can be unintentional. We just don’t think things through in the heat of the moment.
Unfortunately, the hypocrisy can be deceitful. When one pretends to be genuine and sincere but isn’t, they are trying to control and manipulate the situation.
There is one thing we have to watch as we are studying wisdom. Plummer noted that James is not giving us a sequence here. This isn’t an ordered list.
This is a list showing the attribute of wisdom that is most important. Plumptre explained that purity is the most important aspect of wisdom.
But finally, the word of God should be so handled that it may be adapted to Christians in different states and stages of the Divine life; for while some Christians are like ‘strong men,’ others are but ‘babes in Christ, who must be fed with milk, and not with strong meat.’
“And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who cultivate peace” (Jas. 3: 18 CSB)
“filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God” (Phil. 1: 11 CSB)
The discussion of mercy generally contained a discussion of good fruit. I wanted to pull that out. Yes, we were talking about the products of correctly discerning God’s voice.
It just seemed that the focus was a little different. Where before we were talking about the attributes, here it seems like we are talking about the rewards of discernment.
When we discern the wisdom of God, it produces fruits of righteousness. We talked before that the fruits of righteousness were eternal life, peace, access, and joy.
To read a related devotion, click the button below.
It is the fruit that is grown as we grow closer to God. We are talking righteousness here. Righteousness is the result of a solid relationship with God built by a sincere life of conscientious obedience to God’s laws and commandments.
That is the whole point of being able to discern God’s voice. We want to be able to use what He tells us to strengthen our relationship with Him, to help us imitate Him better.
We could say that the good fruit are good works. “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time for us to do” (Eph. 2: 10 ESV).
Discerning God’s voice shouldn’t only be used for our purposes. We should use it to tell others of His Plan of Salvation.
Making the Connections
We become new creations. But it is all contingent on us accepting the Plan of Salvation.
Glossary
Arnot put it this way. He wrote, “As God would not come in peace to the sinful, except on the foundations of holiness, honoured first, true Christians, much as they desire peace, do not expect — will not ask it on other terms.”
Resource
Making the Connections to Self-Discipline
Our goal should be to discern the voice of God so that we hear, conform to, and carry out the instructions that God gives us. That is what obedience is all about. We are obedient by seeking Him.
Searching for and Seeking God
Hearing His Word (Rom. 10: 17).
Reading His Word (Rev. 1: 3).
Praying to Him (Heb. 4: 16).
Studying His Word (Ac. 17: 11).
Meditating on His Word (Ps. 1: 1-2).
Memorizing His Word (Ps. 119: 11).
How Do We Apply This?
We need to do what is good regardless of where we are at on the Sanctification Road. Regardless of whether God has given us much or little, we need to make the choices that keep us in obedience to Him.
Glossary
Our goal should be gaining God’s wisdom. That will help us successfully navigate the Sanctification Road.
Father God. We want to be obedient to You. Help us to discern Your still, small voice. Help us to grow to be more like You. Amen.
What do you think?
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