John Flavel (1628-1691) offers much in very few words:-
If therefore, in doubtful cases, you would discover God’s will, govern yourselves in your search after it by these rules:
1. Get the true fear of God upon your hearts; be really afraid of offending him.
2. Study the Word more, and the concerns and interests of the world less.
3. Reduce what you know into practice, and you shall know what is your duty to practice.…
Christians, as J.I. Packer reminds us, believe in divine guidance. We believe that God has a plan for us, and we believe that God is able to communicate that plan to us.
We fall into error, however, when we think of guidance as inward prompting of the Holy Spirit apart from God’s written Word.
It is a mistake to narrow the focus of guidance exclusively to vocational guidance (Whom should I marry? Which church should I join?…
Evangelicals these days tend to be particularly uptight about guidance. Anxiety is caused by: (a) uncertainty about how to get it; (b) fear of consequences of not getting it. The following notes are based on a chapter by J.I. Packer in Laid-Back Religion, 71-89:-
The desire for guidance is a mark of spiritual health.
The world has alternative sources of guidance: gurus, palmists, astrologers, clairvoyants, agony aunts, counsellors.
The fear of spiritual ruin through mistaking God’s guidance is unwarranted: it assumes that missing one point in God’s plan forever ruins the whole, leading to a permanently second-class Christian life.…
