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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
J.D. Greear
Read between
January 9 - April 14, 2025
Notice that he did not say, “And how can they hear . . . unless we go,” but “how can they hear . . . unless we are sent.” Paul’s eyes are always on God to send, not on us to go, because unless the Holy Spirit does the sending, our going does no good. Salvation, from start to finish, is God’s work.
There’s no reason to feel guilty over what you’re not doing if you’re doing what God has commanded you to do. We must faithfully steward what the Holy Spirit has put our names on.
In the same way, God will not ask us all to make the same level of sacrifice.
Faithfulness, not degree of sacrifice, is our measure of “success.”
God “Jobs” us (the Old Testament hero who suffered tremendously), then we must bear it patiently. If he “Abrahams” us (a significantly rich man by the standards of his day), we should prove faithful. We can do all these things, Paul says, through Christ who strengthens us in the Spirit.
Ours, you see, is a posture of active waiting, in which we gratefully offer ourselves in full surrender to God to be used in his mission. As we do that, he guides. We pedal with love for God and others; he steers.
Extravagant generosity compels extravagant response.
So, is your heart ready to be led? The first question to ask is this: Have you offered your life to God in grateful sacrifice? God steers moving ships — ships driven by the winds of worship, gratefulness, love to God for what he’s done, and compassion for those he cares about.
Following Jesus means a full surrender of our wills to God. David likely remembered how his predecessor, King Saul, had failed so badly in this. Rather than giving God what he asked, Saul had offered a substitute — although a generous one — in place of surrender.
At the end of the day, obedience is what God desires most from us.
To follow Jesus means that you die to any control you maintain over your life. Like a man on a cross, you place yourself under Jesus’ complete domination, with no more dreams of your own. Dead men have no more ambition for their lives.
The true Spirit of Jesus serves the mission of the cross. His goal is to make the cross larger in our hearts and to compel us to yield our lives in service to its purpose. The Holy Spirit, you could say, is always leading to the cross or from it, to carry its message of healing to others.
“Before we can ever hear his voice, we must heed that verse [Romans 12:1, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices].”
In order for the Spirit of God to lead your heart, he has first to reform it into the image of Jesus. Until that happens, you’ll never hear his voice rightly.
What’s the difference between general intuition and Spirit-prompted insight . . . or between God orchestrating a set of events to communicate something to us and just a “lucky” or “meaningless” coincidence?
The way we first received the Spirit is also how we grow “more full” in him.
Is “peace in your heart” really proof that God wants you to make a certain decision? I remain often skeptical about that. First, people often tell me about some colossally stupid decision that, at the time, filled them with perfect peace. I’ve done that too. Second, I made some of the best decisions of my life filled with fear and trembling. Third, I see in Scripture an enemy whose whole goal is precisely to give us “peace” about spectacularly wretched decisions. (When Satan tempted Eve to eat the fruit, no doubt he gave her a “peace” about it, even though she was about to make the biggest
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This peace is the result of a trust, not a litmus test for confirming which choice is right.
The Spirit primarily guides us to obey God’s revealed commands, adopt his values, and become the kind of people he wants us to be.
God is more concerned with who we are becoming than what we are doing.
Nearly every time we find the phrase “the will of God” in the Bible, it refers to the shaping of our moral character.
“Love God and do what you will!”
The book of Proverbs describes the will of God more like “a path” than a door. It’s not that college A leads to God’s will and college B leads to his wrath. Rather, if we walk in the way of wisdom and avoid the paths of folly, God will direct our steps and establish our lives
God remains in charge of all the butterflies, and neither small nor large things will keep him from providing for us or guiding us to the people and places he wants us to go.
we come to know more about what God wants from us by reflecting on the gifts he has given to us.
As I “obeyed” his general commands to all believers, God made his specific will for my life clear.
Empowering prophetic speech is the primary thing the Spirit does in Acts.2
The act of proclaiming and applying God’s Word to people in particular situations is the primary form of prophecy.
Hearing the Spirit of God speak to us the Word of God through the people of God ought to be our experience every time we gather.
God guides us in the paths of wisdom by means of the church. Sometimes through supernatural insights; sometimes through just good advice and wise counsel.
Prayers that start in heaven are heard by heaven. So we should look to the Word of God and the Holy Spirit to inform and guide us as we pray.
The more Scripture you know, the more illumination the Holy Spirit can give regarding his will for various situations. God has never brought to my mind a Scripture I did not already know.
God did not give us the Bible simply to read through, you see, but to pray through as well.
Luke pursued it because circumstances provided the opportunity.
the presence of adversaries more likely indicates that we are in God’s will than out of it.
Many of God’s sweetest blessings are obtained only by persevering through difficulties. “Knock,” Jesus said, “and the door will be opened to you.” When you knock on a door, you don’t hit the door once and then just stand there. You hit repeatedly. When you seek God’s blessing, you keep pressing through stubborn obstacles and difficulties. You knock once, then again and again. So don’t let difficultly in your path make you automatically assume you’re out of God’s will.
Every open door should be viewed through the lens of Scripture and in the counsel of godly wisdom.
This verse doesn’t excuse our sins, but it does redeem them.
Many Christians assume that silence from heaven means something has gone wrong, that the inability to “feel” God’s Spirit means God has turned his face away. But this is not what God’s Word tells us. His apparent silence is, in fact, an important part of how he works in our lives and grows us up into the men and women of faith he wants us to be.
walk by faith, not by sight. You must re-believe the gospel, that God has removed the full extent of the curse — all that could ever separate you from him — and has given you Christ’s complete righteousness in its place. You must re-believe that in his finished work you couldn’t be closer to him than you are right now, regardless of how you feel. And you must reclaim the promises of God, almost all of which are made to us for times in which God appears distant.
We have to think for them, telling them what is real.
Tim Keller says a revival is “the intensification of the normal operations of the Holy Spirit (conviction of sin, regeneration and sanctification, assurance of salvation) through the ordinary means of grace (preaching the Word, prayer, etc.).”
when you knock on a door, you don’t knock once and then quit. (If my wife and I hear a single thump at midnight, we assume that one of our kids has fallen out of the bunk bed, not that someone is knocking!) You keep knocking until someone comes.
it is our false sense of ability, not our inabilities, that keeps us from the power of the Spirit.
Paul saw his weakness as an advantage, because he knew in those places he had to depend on Christ’s power. You see, if dependence is the objective, then weakness becomes an advantage.
