General Methods of Guidance Pt 1

How to Know the Will of God Conclusion: Repetition of Personal Crises.

Sometimes it seems like we get locked into habit patterns where we repeat the same mistakes over and over again. This is one of the ways God brings to our awareness that we are going in circles. It’s important to review your personal history, not just so you can learn from it, but so you can reflect, study, develop new skills and set goals on the basis of what your history reveals.

Out of the Will of God? To say that we’re out of the will of God is to say that our will is stronger and bigger than His will. This is not true! If He’s not guiding and directing us actively, He is guiding and directing us providentially.

General Methods of Guidance According to Grace

Take some time to reflect and let the Lord bring to your mind those areas you may have overlooked in which He was trying to give you guidance, but it was perhaps missed because it was misinterpreted.

1. Providence/Circumstance Unconditional guidance in which God acts sovereignly without any requisite for such guidance. ALL THINGS are under His complete control. This form of guidance is most obvious to us “after the fact,” looking back over our lives.

2. Law/Morality The law of the land, or social/cultural guidance, governs the natural realm in which we live, and the consequences of breaking the law are also natural. Likewise, morality is cultural; what is acceptable and “right” in one culture may not be acceptable in another.

3. Instruction/Direction Conditional guidance in which our participation, awareness and enjoyment of the leading of God is contingent upon our compliance with certain conditions.

4. Knowing God We become more and more sensitive to the internal direction of His Personal Presence.