“The Lord spoke thus to me with a strong hand . . .” (Isaiah 8:11).
There is no escape when our Lord speaks. He always comes using His
authority and taking hold of our understanding. Has the voice of God
come to you directly? If it has, you cannot mistake the intimate
insistence with which it has spoken to you. God speaks in the language
you know best— not through your ears, but through your circumstances.
God has to destroy our determined confidence in our own convictions.
We say, “I know that this is what I should do”-and suddenly the voice of
God speaks in a way that overwhelms us by revealing the depths of our
ignorance. We show our ignorance of Him in the very way we decide to
serve Him. We serve Jesus in a spirit that is not His, and hurt Him by
our defense of Him. We push His claims in the spirit of the devil; our
words sound all right, but the spirit is that of an enemy. “He . . .
rebuked them, and said, ’You do not know what manner of spirit you are
of’ ” (Luke 9:55). The spirit of our Lord in His followers is described in 1 Corinthians 13 .
Have I been persecuting Jesus by an eager determination to serve Him
in my own way? If I feel I have done my duty, yet have hurt Him in the
process, I can be sure that this was not my duty. My way will not be to
foster a meek and quiet spirit, only the spirit of self-satisfaction. We
presume that whatever is unpleasant is our duty! Is that anything like
the spirit of our Lord— “I delight to do Your will, O my God . . .” (Psalm 40:8).
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