How to Hear from God – Part 1
March 6, 2022
Story Time
Reframing the Problem
Proverbs 1:20-22
Competing Commitments
Most people who seek help from God want one of the following things:
- for the life they currently live.
- for the life they would like to live.
Here’s the problem with wisdom: it sits outside of the life we would prefer to live.
Here’s why we resist wisdom: What God wants to tell us is at odds with the life we prefer.
Our preferred life is the one we would live if left to our own devices.
The irony of all of this is that the benefits of God’s wisdom will give us a life that is better than the one we prefer
Proverbs 3:13-18
The High Cost of Wisdom
With benefits like these, why doesn’t everyone heed wisdom?
Because wisdom is not free.
Wisdom costs you your preferred life.
Anyone would heed wisdom if its benefits were simply left out in the open to grab.
Wisdom and its benefits cost us our lives.
Proverbs 1:23
If you respond to God’s words with obedience, then He will give you more words.
Here’s the pattern: Hear and obey, hear and obey, hear and obey. . . .
- Matthew 7:24
- Matthew 7:26
- Proverbs 4:18-19
The Blessings of Wisdom
This pattern of hearing and obeying God is the path that leads to peace and prosperity.
The spirit of wisdom on you is not just to bless you, but to bless others:
The High Cost of Foolishness
The pattern of hearing and ignoring is a path that leads to calamity.
The Security of Wisdom
Proverbs 1:33
© Joshua D. Smith, Ph.D., 2022