God guides us through our relationship with him. He fulfills that responsibility by giving us incredible freedom within a few boundaries. Peace is one of those boundaries.
Colossians 3: 15-and let the peace(soul harmony which comes) from Christ rule(act as umpire continually) in your heart.
Peace is our umpire in the game of life. Peace lets us know when we’re in danger of striking out, or when we’ve hit a home run.
Using peace as an umpire in our life makes perfect sense when we consider that the foundation of our relationship with God is peace and rest. Christian should be the most peaceful people on the planet because we’re intimately connected to the Prince of peace. Peace, therefore, should be a byproduct of our lives. Peace empowers our sensitivity. It enables us to wait patiently and listen.
We can mature to a place in God where it is impossible to worry. When we rest in him completely, we frustrate the enemy. The Kingdom of darkness cannot find us when we are in our secret place of rest in God. In the songs, David referred to God as his hiding place, his fortress, and his strong tower. We can access that same place of protection. When we are wrapped up in Christ, the enemy’s ability to influence us is seriously diminished. The secret place is where we overcome-firstly ourselves; secondly our circumstances and finally, any opponent that is against us.
Each one of us, including those called to the prophetic ministry and office, it is called to a high level of relationship with God. Out of their friendship comes our ministry and significance. It doesn’t work the other way around; Our relationship with him must take precedence over any work we do for him. How we see and live with God transcends what we can do for him.
We need to learn how to allow peace to be umpire. a referee only stops the game when things get out of hand or when a rule is broken. Great referees let the rest of the game proceed naturally. When we discover that living in peace is God’s absolute design for our life, we can trust him to shake us up when we move out of his will. As long as we are fulfilling the conditions for a right relationship with him, we are at peace. If we begin to move away from God’s purposes, he will blow the whistle on us by lifting our peace.
God gave us peace as an umpire for one simple reason: he doesn’t want us to spend our lives searching out his will; he wants us to spend that time seeking his face. Our goal is to get as deep into the presence of God as we possibly can. Further up and further in, as C.S. Lewis put it in the last battle. God is responsible for guiding us, and we are responsible for our relationship with him.
There is no rigid, God ordained blueprint for our lives. The will of God is not a tightrope; It’s a broad, green pasture. The pasture has some boundaries to it, but the space between them is immerse and unimaginable. Sin, of course, is a boundary to the will of God. If we move so far to the side that we know our next step will take us into sin, we don’t need a prophecy to tell us to stop-we will be walking out of God’s will. another boundary is we have to live in a way that doesn’t cheat or hurt anyone.
Truth and integrity are also boundaries. Scripture is another boundary, especially as we interpret God’s instruction for our lives. We cannot do anything that transgresses the written word of God. The boundaries give us great freedom to explore the values of heaven in a sin sick world. When we make mistakes ourselves, our true friends surround us with a love and grace that pulls us back inside the circle of redemptive living. Unbounded love emanating from a place of bounded integrity- what a marvelous paradox!
The apostle Paul knew these boundaries well. 1 Corinthians 10: 23-all things are lawful, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful, but not all things edify.
The apostles modeled this idea of knowing God’s will perfectly. Paul and Barnabas, for example, travelled extensively throughout the Mediterranean region. The Bible doesn’t record a single instance of them asking God where to go next. Acts 13, the pair were commissioned and sent out for the first time. They want to Cyprus, Pamphylia, Pisidia, and Lycaonia, establishing churches in Antioch, Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe.
Paul only asked two questions when he entered the town: he wanted to know where the local synagogue was, and where the local prison could be found. He knew that his appearance in one may lead to an appearance in the other! Paul and Barnabas caused a stir in many of these towns, to the point that Paul was stoned in one city. The two didn’t interpret that attempt on Paul’s life as a sign that they had stepped out of God’s will. They didn’t spend 40 days fasting and asking God to reveal where they should go next. They just went, knowing that they would be persecuted everywhere because of the message they carried.
In Act 16, Paul went on another missionary journey, this time visiting Phrygia and Galatia preparing to continue on. Suddenly, in Act 16: 6, God made his will known: they passed through the phrygian, and Galatian region, having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia. God kept them on track by telling them what he didn’t want them to do. It’s like that with God; Sometimes, he tells us where not to go. They went on to Mysia and the intention of going to Bithynia, and again, the lord stopped him: and the spirit of Jesus did not permit them-at 16: seven. Instead, they want to Troas where Paul had an incredible vision of a Macedonian man asking him to come and help them. Paul concluded that the vision was God’s guidance, and he went to Macedonia.
God intervened whenever it looked like Paul was about to make a wrong choice. Otherwise, he just let them go and preach. He invited them to Macedonia while they were preparing to spend a lot of time in Troas. He protected them from straying out of his will.
Paul had a deep, intimate relationship with God. He continually submitted his heart and life to the Lord and trusted God’s nature. Paul took care of the relationship, and God took care of the direction.
We see this pattern again and again in scripture. And Acts 1: 23-26, the disciples cast lots to see who would replace Judas Iscariot in their ranks. There was no fasting and prayer, just trust that God would ensure the correct outcome.
Abraham was so secure in God’s provision that he let his nephew lot choose the territory he wanted first period Abraham took the leftovers, even though custom dictated that lot should have deferred to his uncle (Genesis 13).
God is silent a lot of the time in regard to his will. He knows that if he is too vocal, we will not make a move without his permission. It is his way of teaching us sensitivity and maturity. He wants us to make right choices.
In the natural, we adopt different processes for contrasting situations. For small children, we keep them from stumbling by holding their hand. A good father stays close and personal. So, in the Spirit, we are learning to be much loved children developing confidence and security in the father’s permission.
For teenagers, such attention would be deemed overbearing. We develop maturity through council, dialogue, and wise advice. We coach them into a place of maturity by teaching them to make wise choices and to take responsibility. In the Spirit, we teach them to be led by God through an interactive process.
When they become adults, we facilitate them into new growth and opportunities. We empower them to do what is in their heart to do. We have instilled in them the capacity to make wise decisions. Momentum is the key to this stage. They have a green light until it turns red. At this stage in the Spirit, God mostly intervenes when we look like we’re going off track. Isaiah 30: 21-your ears will hear a word behind you, this is the way, walk in it, whenever you turn to the right or the left. It is not until we turn off track that we hear the Lord speak.
God’s silence does not imply disapproval. He is letting us learn how to walk and flow with him. We can reach out knowing that he is there and that he is faithful. We can practice our trust until it becomes instinctive and intuitive. The Holy Spirit teaches us about waiting on God, developing stillness, practicing the art of meditation and contemplative prayer. As we cultivate our sensitivity by active listening, we learn how to anticipate it’s heart of goodness.
The normal way of guidance in the New Covenant is to be led by the Spirit from within. In relationship, we allow the Spirit to cultivate our fellowship with God so that we think and speak as he does.
The normal way of guidance is therefore more concerned with having a renewed mind than possessing a prophetic word.
God’s silence also does not imply his approval. He does not continually protest with us about sin. We have the scriptures, our conscience, the indwelling Holy Spirit and of course, people in our lives who love us. We learned to develop the sensitivity of the Holy Spirit as well as becoming accustomed to His Holiness. We do not grieve him. We learn to live in the revealed word of scripture. In our passion, we become God conscious. We want God in all of our thoughts.