The following discourse is commentary from a social media site based on reactions to one of my posts. The main context of this Q&A is concerning hearing God's voice and walking in righteousness. There are some important lessons to learn regarding how we hear God's voice and how we walk according to the Spirit and not according to our own 'works' or efforts. Questions or comments in the post are bulleted.
- "John 10 says “My sheep hear my voice and follow me.” Do you hear his voice and obey him?"
The only way to 'hear' His voice is through the written word of God. It is the word of God within you, acquired through reading and studying it and gaining understanding in it that embeds God's Spirit within you. Jesus says in Jn6:63, "the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life." So, to get God's Spirit in you, you need to get into the written Word of God and get it into you. It is through the knowledge and understanding of God's Word within you that you are led by the Spirit of God and walk according to His will and ways. Without the written Word of God, the only voices you hear are your own imagination, or even worse, the voice of spirit of this world.
- "I do [hear his voice], and he leads me into all righteousness all truth. The truth that sets you free, not a lie where we have a god who pretend he no longer sees our sins and dysfunction."
In the epistle of Romans, Paul lays out the grace doctrine. In a nutshell, it says that we have all sinned and are guilty before God. We have no capacity in ourselves to walk in righteousness. Thus, Christ died on our behalf to take upon himself our sins and pay for our unrighteousness so that we could be justified before God through Him. When we believe in Jesus, we are freely justified of all sin and unrighteousness. This is God's declaration according to His word and plan to save us. However, just because we are freely saved through faith in Jesus, it does not do anything in our flesh which still contains the corruption of sin. This is why we will get a new body on the day of resurrection. Our spirit is the part that is saved, and our mind is the part that needs to be renewed so we can be an instrument of reconciliation while we still remain in the flesh.
God does not pretend to ignore our sins. Those who are in Christ, even though they still fall in sin due to this corrupt flesh, have truly been forgiven, their sins nailed to the cross, Col 2:14. Paul says,
Rom 5:1-2 Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: (2) By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
The key after justification is to renew your mind with the word of God. We need to get Gods written Word (His Spirit) into us. We need to gain understanding of His Word so that our thinking can be straightened, so that we can start to walk in the knowledge of His will, so that His Son can start to be formed in us and we can start to bear the fruits of righteousness through the obedience to the Word. Isn't it interesting that the fruit of the Spirit is just that, fruit, NOT works! We cannot produce love or peace or patience or kindness, etc, by our own works and strength. Even if one wills to be patient and works actively in one's own capacity to exercise this, it will eventually fail because the flesh resists it. We can work at things, but we delude ourselves as the FRUIT of the spirit is something that is produced by the Word (Spirit) in us and shows out of us more and more as we allow the Word to work in us and influence us, changing our mind, our thoughts, our speech, and our actions.
We cannot walk in the spirit without the knowledge, understanding, and obedience to His written Word. If we ignore the Word, we ignore God's voice and we end up walking in delusions, bearing fruit that is of no profit to God.
- "If you truly receive the Spirit his purpose is to whisper into your ear what the Father tells him, and lead us into all righteousness. If you are practicing all righteousness, you cannot sin, it is not possible to do righteous good works we were created to do in Yashua and sin."
The only source for the spirit of God is in His Word. It is not some ethereal voice in your ear or behind you. God speaks through His Word which is the only source of truth that we can receive. Any other 'voice' is one's own imagination or spirits in this world.
Practicing righteousness comes by obedience to the Word of God. We are to grow in obedience by partaking of God's Word. This is how we grow in spirit, from babes in Christ to maturing adopted sons of God. Nevertheless, even our pattern and example in this world, our Apostle Paul, (Rom.11:13; 1Tim.1:16; 1Cor.4:16; 1Cor.11:1), said that he had not yet attained that level of godliness God desired, Php 3:12. While we are in the flesh, there is always capacity to sin. Perfection will come when we have our new resurrected bodies. Thus, sin is always possible in the flesh, but we as believers aim to be renewed that we might walk to please God in all things in this world, even though we are already perfect in his sight by the blood of Jesus Christ.
The portion of scripture you quote, "If you are practicing all righteousness, you cannot sin...", is from 1Jn.3:9, is not doctrine in this dispensation. John is referring to Jews in the Millennial Kingdom in this passage. At this point, these Jews have the new covenant written on their hearts, Jer.31, and they follow the statutes of God in perfection as priests of God and examples to the nations during that 1000-yr reign of Christ on earth. Consider the standards that Jesus taught in his Olivet discourse in Matthew chapters 5-7. Those standards of righteousness are impossible to maintain in this life and in this corrupt body of flesh. This is the standard that will be enforced as law in the Millennial Kingdom when Satan is bound for that 1000-yrs and when peace and righteousness is the norm. These are dispensational truths that need to be understood in the correct context. This is why we remain under grace today, not under the law.
- "So the truth is we are not saved by our own works, they are works of selfishness or self righteousness. Instead we are to do the good works the Lord Yashua will tell us to do. The faith is in hearing Yashua and obeying him."
It is not good works 'we' do! It is good works that God works through us by the spirit of His word working in us renewing us and compelling us. The fruit of the spirit is the result of the Word of God producing these traits out of us naturally. Yes, I agree that faith is in hearing Jesus through his Word and obeying him.
In summary, we must heed the instruction of Paul to study the Word and rightly divide the Word of truth. We are NOT Israel today. we are the body of Christ under a new doctrine, not of law but grace. To rightly divide means that we apply the correct doctrine in our walk with God, and that doctrine is given to us through the epistles of Paul. Until we recognize this, we are exercising a false doctrine that has no value to God in this dispensation.
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