Let’s look at “Is God Speaking to Me? How to Discern His Voice and Direction” by Lysa Terkeurst- Chapter 3
Terkeurst, Lysa. Is God Speaking to Me? How to Discern God’s Voice and Direction. Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 2007. 60 pages
Part 3. Read part 1 here. Read part 2 here.
Only 60 pages long, this is a handy little booklet containing 3 “crucial” chapters from her book What Happens When Women Say Yes to God. In chapter one she presented to us the reason we should be learning to discern God’s voice. She believes that we can miss God’s divine appointments, and cannot experience Him unless we are hearing from Him to direct us and guide us through our day. To fix that we must become women who say “yes” to God. We took some time to look through Scripture and think about God’s Sovereignty and His Word bring us to a better understanding of Him. Any experience we have can become uncertain, but Scripture is more sure and, by the Spirit can bring us to KNOW Him.
In chapter two, Lysa believes that God talks to us everyday, but not audibly. He “speaks” in nudges, heart impressions, and inner inklings. So, because God is not powerful enough to make His words very clear to us we must learn how to discern these feelings or thoughts. She gives us 5 questions to help in our discernment. We went through them hoping to show how we do not need questions like these if we hold to Sola Scriptura. If we believe what Psalm 119 and 2Timothy 3:16-17 says then we can trust that Scripture is God’s very breath teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training us to be thoroughly equipped for every good work, never missing a divine appointment. The constant questioning and the doubt that we need to discern if our inner impressions are from God are not needed when we go to Scripture. We also got a look at how she views Scripture, as a tool to interpret private revelations instead of THE revelation that God has given to her.
Perhaps you think we have enough critique to stop here. But I’m a glutton for punishment and perhaps so are you. So on to Chapter three we go. And be prepared it’s a wade through the LAW.
Chapter 3: “Radically Blessed: You can experience the blessing of radical obedience.”
Back in chapter one she said, “Radical obedience is hearing from God, feeling his nudges, participating in his activity, and experiencing His blessings in ways few people ever do” (Pg.19). And this booklet is her invitation to say yes to God to hearing from Him and she wants us to respond.
But before we look at what she says in Chapter three I’m going to go back to quotes made in a paragraph on page 19 back in Chapter 1 because they clarify how important she believes radical obedience is to the Christian life.So we will look at what she says about this “Radical Obedience” sentence by sentence.
“…you won’t find the full blessing until you give walking and obedience your full attention. Obedience, however, is more than just not sinning. It is having the overwhelming desire to walk in the center of God’s will at every moment. Don’t stumble over fearing you won’t be perfect or that you are sure to mess up. Saying yes to God isn’t about perfect performance, but rather perfect surrender to the Lord day by day. Your obedience becomes radical the minute this desire turns into real action” (Pg.19).
First let’s tackle what Scripture says about blessings. Scripture tells us that we have been given every spiritual BLESSING in Christ (Eph.1:3). If we have every spiritual blessing, and in Christ the fullness of the deity dwells (Col. 2:9-10) then won’t full blessings be given in Christ? Whoever believes in Christ will have eternal life (John 3:16), and He came that we may have life and have it to the full (John 10:10). Does that not include the full blessings of God? Is obedience what we should give our FULL attention to to receive full blessings?
Now what does Scripture say about walking in God’s will? The desire to walk in the center of God’s will AND doing it is called righteousness. Scripture says there is no one righteous, not even one (Rom 3:10). Good luck, having the desire to walk in the center of God’s will at every moment. The moment you don’t have the desire to love God or neighbor, you’ve sinned. But there’s more: even our good deeds are filthy rags (Isa. 64:6) to God because there is always something missing in our righteousness.
What does Scripture say about perfection and full surrender?Jesus told us that unless our righteousness (obedience) exceed that of the Pharisees, we will not see the Kingdom of God (Matt 5:20). Sorry, but yes, God requires perfect obedience and perfect surrender. And that’s our problem. If we perfectly surrendered we would not sin.
How about that desire to obey turning into real action? Remember how the Pharisees added to the Law to make sure they obeyed it? Sounds to me like their desire was strong to obey and yet it wasn’t good enough to enter the Kingdom. It’s not “few people” experiencing God’s blessings, it’s NOBODY experiencing His blessings if not for Christ and His righteousness without which we cannot be justified. But now that we are justified by faith, we can also be sanctified; made Holy for His purposes (1Pet.1:16, 1Pet 2:9,Eph.2:10, Gal.2:20 Rom.12:1).
She believes that Radical Obedience is so important that it is what the whole of Scripture is about:
“His one requirement is so simple and yet so profound: whatever God says to do, do it. That’s it. That is the entire bible, old testament and new, hundreds of pages, thousands of verses, all wrapped up in seven words”(pg.21).
Let’s set the record straight here: The entire Bible is about God’s plan of redemption through the “seed” that would bruise the serpent’s head, Jesus Christ (Gen. 3:15). Jesus said to the Jews “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life” (John 5:39). On the road to Emmaus, two of the disciples meet Jesus who tells them how foolish they were to not believe all the things the prophets spoke of the Messiah to come. “And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself” (Luke 24:27). Jesus tells us that Scripture is about Him.
Now that we see what she believes about Radical Obedience we can look at chapter 3. She reminds us that this little booklet is her invitation to say yes to God and she wants us to respond. She anticipates questions that may flood our minds in response to the invitation. Remember what saying “yes” to God means? Listening to the inner nudgings, discerning if it was from God by answering the 5 questions, and then…radically obeying.
In the first part of chapter three, Liza goes into a time when she came to a traffic stop that was broken, flashing green and red. It had caused chaos in the intersection. She says:
“it was just as if God were showing me a picture. It’s like when a person is indecisive in her obedience to him” (page 48).
For her we too can be caught in chaos by being indecisive. So the purpose of chapter three is to get us to obey those nudges and inner impressions so we can be blessed by radical obedience. She anticipates doubts and questions such as:
- “What if I don’t feel able to make such a commitment?”
- “What if I say yes and then mess up?”
- “What if I have times when I just don’t feel like being obedient?”
Let’s look at her answers to these questions.
“You don’t feel able? Good! Christ’s power is made perfect through weakness (2nd Corinthians 12:9). Ask God for the desire to remain radically obedient and to see the radical blessings He will shower upon you”(pg 49).
I agree. It is Christ’s power that causes us to commit to Him despite our weaknesses. But I don’t think Paul was talking about being weak to obey God. Let’s look at the verse in context:
“…to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations,1 ga thorn was given me in the flesh, ha messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. 8 iThree times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. 9 But he said to me, j“My grace is sufficient for you, for kmy power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that lthe power of Christ may rest upon me. 10 mFor the sake of Christ, then, nI am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For owhen I am weak, then I am strong”(2Corin. 7-10).
There are three things I want to look at here: 1) the weakness is connected to a physical ailment in the body of Paul not a lack of ability per-se. He then lists certain things to which he will be content with all things that happen to him, physically and mentally, namely weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. 2) We can know that it most certainly the weakness is not in relation to a lack of ability to obey otherwise he would NEVER boast nor be content with a weakness to obey. Ps- remember this is all toward the goal of being able to radically obey the supposed nudges we receive from God. While one who is in Scripture can clearly know what God wants from us, and be fully equipped to obey. This is part of the good news to come…
Next:
“What if you mess up? Grace! ‘God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and He will come near to you… Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will lift you up’ (James 4: 6-8, 10)…. but God doesn’t expect Perfection from us- He expects a person humble enough to admit her weaknesses and committed enough to press through and press on.“(pg 50)
If we look at James 4:6-8,10 in context we can see James is not talking about merely “messing up” but sin that results in passions that are worldly in fact those verses between 8 and 10 give exactly the meaning to what it means to humble ourselves: “Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. hCleanse your hands, you sinners, and ipurify your hearts, jyou double-minded. 9 kBe wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom”(James 4:8-10). To humble ourselves is to not just admit we mess up but to acknowledge that our passions create wars within ourselves, murderous hearts, fighting and quarreling. If we behave in this way it is because we are desiring things of this world to which we humble ourselves, repent, and turn to Christ. I commend her encouragement into grace here, but I believe she should call out what she cavendearly calls “messing” up as sin. Cause see if God did speak to us and we don’t do what He says that is sin, plain and simple. God is loving and gracious, but He still must be fully and completely obeyed. And when we don’t obey God it’s called sin and we deserve His wrath.
The solution to this is Christ, His death on the cross for that failure to obey. Her mention of grace here would have been a perfect time to go into the Gospel. Especially, if we are assuming God is speaking but we cannot discern, or we think we get it wrong, because to get it wrong when He has spoken is to sin and we then need Christ everytime we get it wrong. But she doesn’t. Instead she says in essence that we should just get up and try again, and “press on”.
Think about the covenant God made with the Israelites. They would be blessed if they would “just do it” and obey. And yet they continually transgressed the law, they continually needed a sacrifice. Year after year, sacrifice after sacrifice. But we have Christ and are under the New Covenant, where God Himself sent his son to radically, fully, perfectly obey for us. And “Christ appeared as a high priest… Through the greater and more perfect tent… [who] entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption… and the blood of Christ who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, [will] purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God” (Hebrews 9: 11-14).
The beautiful thing she misses is the very Good News of the sacrifice of Christ who purifies our conscience from dead works so we CAN serve the living God. If we mess up we don’t merely pick ourselves up by our bootstraps and just start being humble and submitting. God does expect perfection and by His grace He provided that perfection in Christ. So we repent and look to Christ who died for that lack of obedience. That is what humbles us and He is how we are lifted up to serve God.
Moving on…
“What if I just don’t feel like being obedient? Choice! Obey based on your decision to obey, not on your ever-changing feelings… it is God who works in you to act according to His good purpose (Philippians 2: 13). When we ask God to continually give us the desire to remain obedient He does.”(pg.50)
Again, not having the desire to obey is transgression of the 1st Commandment, to love the Lord with all our hearts, soul, mind, and strength. It should be acknowledged as sin, repented of, and placed at the Cross of Christ. After that, if we ask for the desire to obey He will give.
There is something I think I should mention here. I can’t help but think of the parable of the Pharisee and theTax Collector. The Pharisee thanks and praises God for the power to obey (“I thank you (God) that I am not like… this Tax Collector) exulting himself. While the tax collector prays for God’s mercy because he is a sinner. I fear sometimes that there is this prevalent exulting of ourselves in what God has given because we do not first acknowledge our deep sin and need for Christ’s sacrifice. Instead we are like the Pharisee, thanking Him for His grace to bring us to obedience and not seeing that OUR righteousness is filthy (Isa. 64:6). That we should be like the tax collector and daily understand our need for the perfect righteousness of Christ to please God. We avoid this by humbling ourselves, identifying our sin against a holy God, looking to Christ, and then praying to make us more like him.
And this is where we look to Christ. He fully and perfectly surrendered to God’s will every minute of every day. His righteousness exceeds the Pharisees because it was perfect. And we are “found in him, not having a righteousness of [our] own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith…(Phil.3:9) And as our love “abound[s] more and more, with knowledge and all discernment,…[we] may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God (Phil. 1:9-11).
What causes us to remain obedient? The Apostle Paul said that through Christ we “received grace and apostleship to call all the Gentiles (that’s you and me) to the obedience that comes FROM FAITH…”(Rom.1:5). Faith in what or Whom? We are “justified by His grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by FAITH” (Rom.3:24-25). We not only receive justification through Faith in Christ’s work but also obedience. We are “in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption….” (1Cor 1:30-31). It is God who sanctifies us wholly; so that our spirit and soul and body may be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. “He who called you is faithful, and he will do it.”(1Thess. 5:23-24). By these verses we know that by faith we are saved, and by faith we obey. God, in His grace, sanctifies us, bringing us more and more into obedience to Him. Our full attention should be on the one we have FAITH in, Christ Jesus. It’s not just choosing to obey that causes us to obey. But the more we focus on Christ the more we obey.
“If your answer to this invitation is yes, then get ready. You have not only signed up for the most incredible journey you can imagine, you’ve also just given God green light to pour out His radical blessings on your life“(pg51).
I am saddened that she thinks blessings come from listening and obeying the impressions in her heart instead of the Word in which we find Christ who gives us every spiritual blessing. And it saddens me that Christ’s spiritual blessings are not enough. And I want to talk about this for a bit.
In the first chapter she had described how her travels allow her to meet Christians from all over the place and was saddened by the idea of people missing out on their Christian experience:
“As I’ve traveled around the country speaking at conferences I am amazed and saddened by the number of people missing out on the most exciting part of being a Christian-experiencing God. Over and over people tell me they want something more in their Christian life. They want to recognize God’s voice, live an expectation of his activity, and embrace a life totally sold out for him. I suspect that tucked in the corner of your heart is the same desire. And I’ve discovered that the key to having this kind of incredible adventure is radical obedience” (Pg.18).
How can what God gives in Salvation, not be the most satisfying, joyous, most wonderful thing? In Christ we have Salvation, and in the Spirit we have sanctification. What more can we want? Is this not transgressing the first commandment? To love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength? To want more seems to say that what God has given; His Son, His Sacrifice, His Spirit, His gifts, His Word, and the promise of a new body, new heavens and Earth in the eternal presence of God; is not enough. If our hearts want more it’s a sign of discontentment. But more in this case, a sign that perhaps these people do not have a true understanding of all that they have been given.
To sum up all she’s gone into, discerning our heart’s impression as God’s voice, saying “yes” to Him, and radically obeying “will give you a feeling of acceptance and significance that you can’t get any other way”(pg 51). Yes. Scripture doesn’t bring acceptance and significance, and neither has Christ. This is why she has written this booklet. Because Scripture is insufficient to provide these things. I’m sorry…my sarcasm is starting to get the best of me…So I think it’s time we conclude this critique. There were other statements I could include in this critique, but I feel enough has been said to make the point. More than enough, even.
In conclusion I want to lay out two equations. Here’s her belief in equation form:
Hearing God’s voice + getting out of our comfort zone + radical obedience= the incredible, adventurous, Christian life of experiencing the fullness of God.
This is Law. Just like she says in the chapter title: “Whatever God says, just do it”. This whole booklet is Law. Each and every word. It’s prettied up with piety and talk of desires for God, but it is a noose around your neck and a burden on your back. Why? Because it is Christless with no Gospel in sight.
Here’s a different equation:
Christ + Faith = Christian LIFE, Reconciliation to God, receiving of the Holy Spirit, sanctification, and eventually glorification.
Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross and His life of righteousness given to us by faith WILL result in LIFE, period. We don’t need an adventurous life, we need to be raised from the grave and given new LIFE to live unto God. The adventure comes when we are glorified at Christ’s return. On this side of eternity, we may get times of adventure, but there also will be trials, and tribulations, pains and sufferings. And even in those troubled times we can learn the secret to being content in any situation, whether full or hungry, rich or poor. We can do all this through Christ who gives us strength (Phil. 4:12-13).
And guess what! There is no need to discern Scripture in any of this. No questions to ask, no signs to look for, no doubts that He has spoken to us in His Word. In them we find ALL we need for life, godliness. It thoroughly equips us for every good work.
What a difference!
If you have made it all the way to the end…it’s time for a shower for your brain. I suggest John MacAthor’s sermon on the Sufficiency of Scripture in Psalm 19.
May it bless you like it has me!
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