Please enjoy this excerpt from Manage Your Mission – Living wisely and abundantly for today and eternity. This book will help craft your life mission, establish its priorities, and succeed in each area: Faith – Family – Fitness – Field – Friends – Fun – Finances.
During a small group discussion on a prison ministry visit, one of the inmates recounted how he had heard from God that he would get out early. He quickly said it wasn’t an audible message, but he still felt sure. Then he noted how he hadn’t gotten out early and how that had made him rethink things. To his credit, he realized that the message might have been from Satan or his wishful thinking. But a less mature Christian might have blamed God for not fulfilling his “promise.”
I could offer dozens of examples where people don’t think carefully about how hearing from God works and how significant consequences result. I have found this to be a sadly rampant area of bad theology within the body of believers. I joke that I have the Spiritual Gift of Rationalization (one of the lesser-known gifts). Still, the truth is that we are all rationalization machines and can easily twist things to justify doing what we want.
You can’t manage your mission well if you are sitting around waiting on an itinerary from God that may never arrive. You need to make decisions biblically. Decision making and God’s will is one of my all-time favorite lessons to teach. This is crucial because we make big and small decisions daily and constantly live with the consequences of past choices. In addition, countless Christians misunderstand how this works, leading to needless frustration and errors. In my experience, it is the most common obstacle to wise, practical, and God-honoring living. And it is rampant in the church. Many big names write books and do conferences on how to hear from God, but they do nothing but mislead people.
Does God speak to you about specific decisions, such as whether you should pay off your mortgage, whom you should marry, what job you should take, etc.? Or has he set out another way to live? And if he does speak, do you need any training to hear him?
For example, if you want to know whether paying off your mortgage is the right thing to do, you have a couple of options:
1. Ask God for a supernatural sign for the answer, whether it is a yes or a no (a la Gideon in chapter 6 of the Book of Judges, when he asked God to make the fleece wet and the ground dry, and then asked him to make the fleece dry and the ground wet). And when I say supernatural, I mean something unmistakable for a common occurrence, such as levitating one object for a “yes” answer and another for a “no” answer. I predict he won’t decide for you that way, but it is always his option. If God wants to tell you something directly, he isn’t subtle. There are zero examples of him trying to tell someone something in the Bible and not getting through. But what if you don’t get a supernatural sign for the yes or the no? Then perhaps that isn’t how he means for you to decide.
2. Use the wisdom model of decision making. You don’t have access to God’s sovereign knowledge (Will I lose my job? Will interest rates go up or down?). However, you have unrestricted access to his moral will via the Bible. Example: Is it immoral to pay off your mortgage early? No, unless that means you won’t have enough money to feed your family. After moral considerations, look to the wisdom angle. Ask God for wisdom, as he promises to deliver. But as with Solomon, whom God granted great wisdom because of Solomon’s desire to lead his people well, God doesn’t promise to decide everything for you. Read Proverbs (and more). Seek the counsel of others. Consider the pros and cons of the situation. That’s how to make wise decisions. Finally, provided the options are moral and wise, consider your personal preferences. We have tremendous freedom in Christ to do many things with our time and money. Will paying off your mortgage make you happy? If so, then do it.
This model helps you make wise and biblical decisions and avoid the traps of the “God told me to ____” routine. People who run around saying that God told them this and that convey a faux super-spirituality that can leave less mature believers wondering if they have a relationship with God (i.e., “God doesn’t tell me every little thing to do, so maybe I don’t know him.”). That is not loving your neighbor.
The “God told me ___” routine can also be outright blasphemy, as when people claim that God is moving in a new direction counter to what he revealed in the Bible, and their only support for this is that God supposedly told them so.
Or it could be just self-serving, spiritual-sounding words when what people are saying is, “I don’t always hear from God, but when I do, he sounds like me.”
Saturating yourself in the Bible is a key success factor in making good decisions. On the other hand, if we focus on worldly wisdom and what our heart tells us, things can go badly.
Jeremiah 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?
And that’s just one of many verses with that theme. But if we repent and do everything we can to see things from God’s perspective, we will make better decisions.
Romans 12:2 Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
This model will help you make good decisions in all areas of life — dating, marriage, college, careers, purchases, giving, ministry, and more — so keep it in mind as you craft your mission. You can also use it to help friends, children, and others make good decisions. I sometimes use it at work as a “faith flag.” For example, if people ask for career advice, I share this model with them (i.e., “At the risk of getting all religious on you, here’s the method I use to make decisions.”). It has led to some great discussions.
People sometimes over-spiritualize things and say God is calling them to do something. Yes, he is sovereign, and you may see how he has worked in your life in the past. But the Bible uses “called” in an ordinary way, in that believers were called to be Christians. There are no verses about being called to be a pastor or anything else. The Bible says that if you desire that office and meet the qualifications, go for it. Spiritual gifts are assigned to believers for ministry use as pastors or laypeople.
That matters because it can be used as an excuse (“I don’t feel called”) or as sloppy church talk to justify whatever you want. After all, if you disagree with someone’s “call” or what God “told them,” you allegedly disagree with God. Also, it can be a barrier to people if they think they must wait for a calling message from God before acting. They have the right intentions but received the wrong program. I could say that God called me to prison ministry, but it sounded a lot more like my friend Steve. He needed help for a weekend program he was leading and asked me to join the team. I enjoyed hearing him share his experiences with it, but I had never been interested. But because he was a friend, I decided to help him and try it, and it turned out that I found it very effective and rewarding. Fifteen years later, I still love doing it. Was God sovereign and providential in that? Of course, but I didn’t overthink it. I could easily see God’s movement after the fact, but I didn’t need to hear his “voice” before deciding to participate.
Despite what many misinformed people claim, you don’t need training to hear from God. If he isn’t speaking, there is nothing to hear. If he is speaking, you won’t be able to miss it. No one in the Bible failed to hear when God spoke to them. Yet some famous teachers insist that you must be trained — by their books and seminars, of course — to hear from God. One dared to claim that the Bible is like hand-me-down clothing since it was revealed first to others. How blasphemous! The Apostle Peter said that Scripture was even better than his personal experience on the Mount of Transfiguration (2 Peter 1:16-21).
So when crafting your mission and how you plan to accomplish it, don’t worry about looking for little hints from God on what to do. Feel free to ask for a supernatural sign from God, but be sure to ask for a sign for the yes or the no answer. Again, don’t be surprised if you don’t get it. Besides direct and clear personal revelation from God, you don’t have access to his sovereign will when making decisions. Just do moral things, pray for wisdom, seek advice from others, consider your personal preferences, and then go. You have a lot of freedom in Christ, so enjoy that.
In short, if it isn’t moral, don’t do it. If it is moral but not wise, don’t do it. If it is moral and wise, use your personal preferences and enjoy your freedom. Of course, if God speaks audibly to you in an unmistakable, supernatural way, or if you ask for and receive specific supernatural signs for an answer, you should obey him. But don’t sit around waiting for that.
And when you think you want to hear directly from God, remember how the Israelites reacted when they had the opportunity:
Exodus 20:18–19 Now when all the people saw the thunder and the flashes of lightning and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking, the people were afraid and trembled, and they stood far off and said to Moses, “You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, lest we die.”
Pro-tip: If someone says, “God told me that you should marry me/give me money/etc.” then reply, “As soon as he tells me that unmistakably, we’ll talk.” Don’t let people manipulate you that way.
If you want to know more about decision making and God’s will, I have a complete video lesson here.
Copyright 2022
Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible
Eternity Matters 