You gave me life and showed me kindness, and in your providence watched over my Spirit. JOB 10:12 NIV

Paul wrote,"Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God."That means that Christians, who have the Spirit of God living within them, have an inward interpreter who helps them to understand what the Bible means.

Scripture is a guide for conduct as well as the source of doctrine. Seven times in the book of Revelation we read this phrase: "He who has an ear, let him hear" (2:7, 11, 17, 29; 3:6, 13, 22). What we read in this book should govern our conduct.

I don't really feel like I have anybody to answer to but myself and God and the people I love.

As a young Christian, I was praying fervently one day for guidance on a particular issue when I felt the Spirit gently interrupt. I was shocked to think I heard him suggest that I was too busy seeking his will. How could that be? Then I heard the rest of his suggestion. "Don't seek my will in this matter. Seek me—and then you will know my will." Seeking God's will is important, but in this case my focus was wrong.

As a pastor, I addressed the sorts of issues I see people struggling with most and the issues talked about most directly and most frequently in the New Testament. That leads us to recurring concerns with sexual immorality, relational sins, and vices associated with the breaking of the Ten Commandments.

Maybe not everyone got the mom who baked cupcakes and showed up at all the school parties. There weren't enough of those to go around, so maybe God used other people, like Mrs. Lora and J. Norm, to make sure you learned how to shell a purple hull pea or find Saturn in the night sky.

Hearing God is not all that difficult. If we know the Lord, we have already heard His voice - after all it was the inner leading that brought us to Him in the first place. But we can hear His voice and still miss His best if we don't keep on listening. After the what of guidance comes the when and how." (11)

For one's own work, thoughts and observation are not enough, we need the comfort and blessing and guidance of a higher power, and that is something anyone who is at all serious and who longs to lift up his soul to the light is sure to recognize and experience. Pining for God works like leaven on dough.

We do well to remember that the Bible has far more to say about how to live during the journey than about the ultimate destination.

Again and again I tell God I need help, and God says, "Well isn't that fabulous? Because I need help too. So you go get that old woman over there some water, and I'll figure out what we're going to do about your stuff.

The things, good Lord, that we pray for, give us the grace to labour for', as Sir Thomas More expressed it. The inner voice of prayer expresses itself naturally in action, just as the inner voice of my brain guides all my bodily actions.