Discerning God's Guidance

Discerning God's Guidance

Collin Leong. Mar 17, 2024

These are mostly excerpts from Rev. Paul Jeyachandran Videos

I. Introduction

This is the desire of God for us: "Thus says the LORD, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: “I am the LORD your God, who teaches you to profit, who leads you in the way you should go." Isaiah 48:17

To determine where or what God wants us to do, we need to learn how to discern God's guidance. This begins of our desire to follow God's will. 

There a 4 ways God guides us:

1. Sovereign Decree of God - this is not revealed to us in advance. We will only know in hindsight. 

2. Scriptural or Prescriptive Will of God - revealed will in the scripture. 

3. Spiritual Discernment - For mature Christians, God don't give them rules. If you are mature, you can do these on your own. But you need to grow your Spiritual discernment, It is when you have a surrendered heart and renewed mind.

4. Specific Directions - God speaks to us directly to us by voice and vision. However He doesn't always do this as He wants us to grow in our Spiritual Discernment and grow in our maturity. 

II. Spiritual Discernment

When God lead us by Spiritual Discernment, there are two principles found in Acts 15:28: "For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay on you no greater burden than these requirements."  

How to know if it is good for the Holy Spirit?  You need to spend time with God to hear from the Holy Spirit. We must wait upon the Lord and hear him clearly. Romans 8:14 - "For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God." Many Christians act presumptuously, thinking they know what God wants, and that gets them into trouble. Instead we should act on Prudent Faith, where you have heard from the Holy Spirit. This requires trusting the Holy Spirit. 

Secondly. Acts also said that the decision was good for apostles. This requires thinking, which is Faithful Prudence. They had done the due diligence and came to this conclusion. They are all in agreement and with the same view of the Holy Spirit. Some of us act without thinking and copying what others have done.  

III. Faithful Prudence

There are 7 factors in Faithful Prudence, i.e, How do we trust and think to know what is good for us. 

1. The Discipline of Decision Making – learn to make right decision. We need a mental model for thinking. Write the process of making the right decision.  Things that you want won't just happen over night. 

If you are 18. and planning to get married by age of 25, have you thought on how to support your family? How do you build your family in Godly way? Have you prayed to God for a partner? 

If you are 16 years old and desire to get a PHD by age of 25, what is your roadmap? What must you do now? Who do you have to help you? What lessons must you do now? 

There are decisions you can make in 2 seconds; but there are decisions you need 2 years to decide. You need to plan in advance. Rev Paul Jeyachandran decided to marry a woman after 16 days of meeting her. People ask him, how can you decide in 16 days to marry her? He said, I didn't decide in 16 days, I took 10 years to plan for this together with God. 

Romans 12:2 - "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect' 

The more your mind is renewed, then you can test and discern what is good, acceptable and perfect will of God. According to theologians, the "good will"  is seen as the basic moral will of God, which is inherently good and beneficial for individuals and communities. The "acceptable" will is considered to be pleasing to God when followed, aligning with His nature and commands. The "perfect" will is understood as the complete and ultimate plan that God has for individuals and the world, which leads to the fulfillment of His purposes.

2. The Supremacy of Scripture – Our decision should be based and aligned on the Word of God.  2 Tim 3:14 - "All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness"

We cannot compromise here and there, as it will lead to direct disobedience. Deut 17:16-18 gave a rule for kings, that he should not acquire horses, gold, and wives. David has no problem with these as he killed all the enemies horses and sacrifice them to God, and gave the gold to build the temple. But he has a weakness with women. He has many wives and committed adultery with Bathsheba. It was just one compromise and we are still referring to his adultery today. 

There are 5 wills of God:

a) Predetermined will (Sovereign) - hidden and will be revealed in time. We must submit to the will of God.

b) Prescriptive will (Moral) - written in the Word of God and which must be willing to embrace and obey. We must obey. 

c) Providential Will - When we obey God's word, and we get into trouble, we enter into His Providence. We must observed. God will provide whatever we need at that time. This is where God said that he will make all things good for those who love Him.

d) Permissive Will - When we disobey God's Word, we enter into what God permits, but does not desired for us. We must avoid.  Example = Jonah disobeyed God, but God works on Him to bring Him back. 

e) Prayed-for Will (Specific Direction) - Will of God about specific matters revealed to us as we persist and persevere in prayer. We must discern. We want a specific direction from God. 

 3. The Spirit of the Speaker – Some people prayed to God to say "yes" for our decision and plans. It's much better to walk in something He planned rather than ask Him to bless what you want to do.  Walk in His prepared blessing. For your critical decisions, come to him in a neutral gear. Allow God to lead and we accept whatever He decide, even if He chose something we do not prefer. 

James 3:13-14 - two wisdom contrasted - natural wisdom is what we think is good for us. A wisdom can be demonic, leading you to destruction. Trust the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. It may make sense to you, but when you go to Him, he may want you to do something else. We should go with God rather than go with our ego. 

Psalm 106:13-15 - Manna is angel food. God gave them what they asked but sent a wasting disease to them. God may give you a permissive will, but you will go no where. 

4. Patience of Prayer.  To wait upon the Lord. We want an instant download. We spend a quality time with God in silence and solitude. He will reveal our own condition. We need that expectancy to hear. This is where we developed a listening time.

a) Bring the options to the Lord in my heart. What is weighing in my heart.

b) Ask the Lord to show any thing that we don't know or have not considered.

c) Bring up to him any concern or anxiety we have

d) We wait for Him to say something, and we write it in our journal.  We summarize our journal every week, and another summary of the weekly summary every month.  This shows us the trajectory from God.

God is in control. We are not here to make decisions that make sense to us. We do not know things that will happen in the natural, but God knows. If God doesn't let you go, he is protecting you or saving you for something better. 

God is happy we did not favor our heart but we went to Him to know what He has in mind. God will reveal only to his people who intimate with him. We lean on him until he speaks his mind. When we do that we walk in His pleasure. This is when we experience the supernatural favor from God. (Amos 3)

5. Counsel of Consecrated Christians  – don’t seek directions, seek for confirmation.

Consecrated Christians are those who are already doing God's will for his life. We should look for such people for counsels. Prove 12:15 - a wise man looks for council; Prov 15:22 - with many advisers, plans succeed.  

Prophecy cannot be used for direction but only for confirmation. Not all Prophets will profit you. 1 King 13:16 - the young prophet was tricked by an older prophet to eat with him, when God had already told him not to eat in that country. 

6. Confirmation of circumstances 

Abraham asked his servant to find a wife for his son. The servant arrived at a well, and prayed to God to confirm the son's future wife, that is, whoever will give him and his camels a drink.  The moment he finish praying, he saw Rebekah as the first maiden who arrived at the well. Rebekah fed him and his camel with water. God had aligned the circumstances to confirm Issacs's wife.  

Ne need to see the micro and macro at the same time, so that we can glean what God is doing in our lives. 

Rev Paul once sat with Rev Edmund Chan at a dinner, and asked him to come over to Australia to conduct the IDMC conference. Edmund Chan said: "If you asked me to, I'll come."  Pastor Edmund went there after a year and did the conference, even though most churches had to wait up to 5 years. They later found out the reason he accepted readily was because Edmund had seen Paul's video before, and believed that he was a good person to mentor. Edmund doesn't know how to reach him until that dinner, when they were divinely connected. Today, Paul's is focusing on IDMC and his church is called the IDMC.Church. 

Acts 16:6-10, Paul saw that there was a closed door in Europe, and he ended up in Macedonia. Open doors can also help you know where to go. However, just because there is an open door does not mean you should enter it. Jonah, for example, wanted to run to Tarshish, and managed to get a boat ticket. While the door was open for him to escape, but that is not the will of God. 

There are four types of doors:

a) A door that is shut, need to apply force. The only thing we can open such doors is with prayer. 

b) A door that is locked with a key.  You need the key from the owner. You need to have intimacy with they key owner, who is God himself. 

c) A door that opens approaching it. Step our in faith.  We need to walk by faith towards it and it will open. 

d) A door that opens only for a limited time. We need to discern the timing. In Deuteronomy 1, it summarized that when God open the doors for the Israelites to invade the promise land, they were too afraid to do so. As a result, God closed the doors on them. However, they then changed their mind and started attacking the land and it became a disaster for them, for God had  not supported for them. The door is re-open after the generation has passed, in 40 years. 

7. The Presence of Peace

Jonah was sleeping on his boat to Tarshish, though he had peace, it is not real peace. Peace is not a feeling but a sense of clarity that comes even in the time of chaos and confusion. There can be a peace that passeth all understanding. Col 3:15. Peace doesn't come in pieces. Even if someone give us something beneficial, we have peace to turn it down, as we are clear that God wants us to do something or have something else.  

8. The Signs of the spirit – Prophecies from others. Do not bank on this if it’s the only thing.

As a disciple of God, we want to do the will of God. We are not asking God to come into our life, but that God wants us come into His life. We need to deny our self and pick up the cross. He have so many "own things" we spend time with, but we went to him to ask for more. 2 Pet 1:3 - He has granted to us all things that we need. Eph 1:3 - We have all the spiritual blessings. Everything has already been provided. 

In the old testament, nobody prayed for promotion, such as David. His prayer was "Lord, be the Lord of my life; The Lord is my shepherd; He provides for me; I'll dwell in the house of the Lord." All he need to be is to be in His will, he just need to enter into God. 

We all have the Holy Spirit in each of us. Do not be drunk with wine, but be filled with the Spirit. We do not ask the Spirit to enter and fill me. Like wine which intoxicated our body, the Spirit wants to fill our whole life. The question is how much of me does the Holy Spirit have? 

A spirit filled many does not mean we can do miracles. John the Baptist was full with the spirit but he didn't do any miracles. The more the spirit has me, the more I give myself.  The problem with us we are full of selves and had difficulty in hearing the Spirit. Our posture should be a surrendered heart and a renewed mind.