If what I'm saying is true - that we can only operate and rule well in our assigned sphere of influence by drawing from the Person of Jesus (tree of life) as opposed to drawing from a "manual" (tree of knowledge of good and evil) - then I believe it's safe to conclude that good and godly rulership on our part is possible only through vital relationship with Him. As fallen people, we humans greatly prefer to get our wisdom and instructions from a manual than from a Person, especially since we don't know Him super well and are uncertain about His goodness at times; and even when convinced that He is good, we are uncertain about whether we can hear Him very well. It's much riskier to live by faith in a Person than by faith in a manual that we can touch and see and have some interpretive control over. But just as Jesus governed/judged/discerned in His assigned domain through relationship with His Father and NOT by what He could hear and see with His natural senses (Isaiah 11:2-4; John 5:17-23, 30...), so we must learn to rule by the same means if we want to be life-givers in the domain we've been given oversight of.
So how do we grow in knowing this One in whom is hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge? I suggest the following as simple (though not necessarily easy) ingredients - none of these on their own is sufficient, and neither will they lead us to Jesus if we don't have a teachable spirit and obedient response to His leadings:
- Scripture - God has already weighed in on who He is and what He is like in Christ in the Scripture, so some things about Him are already evident in His Word. However, we need to be aware that we all read His Word through biases (because of our fallenness and sin, woundedness, culture, upbringing, training, gender, personality, preferences, etc.). Healthy ways to approach the Scriptures:
- Look for Jesus in all of Scripture. Ask the Holy Spirit to help you search for the living Word when in the written Word. Jesus is THE theme of all of Scripture, and it must be understood in light of the revelation of Jesus. If something in the OT conflicts with what we see in Jesus, the NT revelation of God in Christ carries more weight.
- In community…until recent centuries, people knew the Scripture in community. One person read while the others listened.
- (The book I'll be reviewing next, "The Bible Made Impossible", will deal at length with the topic of the Bible).
- Prayer (personal and corporate)
- Develop your personal history with God in prayer.
- Based on the Word of God
- Learn to listen to and hear the voice of God
- Obey what you believe you have heard from Him
- Seek out “corporate” prayer (2’s and 3’s praying together), and particularly seek to know what God is like together.
- Mature believers
- Seek out people with longer life experience (both in years and in vitality) in God and whose understanding of Him incorporates a broad range of views (in other words, someone who is able to receive truth from many sources and process it in Jesus).
- Look for those who are tracking with what God is doing in their generation – in other words, who are not "stuck in time".
- Books and blogs are a means of being mentored by good followers of Jesus; the ideal is to have a mentor "in the flesh" to process with.
- Normal circumstances of life – be intentional about receiving God’s voice through those around you (even those who don’t know Jesus) wherever you are, through the incidents of the day, in our afflictions and sufferings, in nature, etc. God is always speaking; the more often we turn to Him during the day, the more aware we become of His messages coming to us continually.
In summary - along with a teachable spirit and obedient responses, the critical
ingredients to growing in the knowledge of Jesus (the tree of life) are:
- Prayerful reading of Scriptures (both personal and corporate)
- Listening prayer and meditation (both personal and corporate)
- Community of Jesus followers (including a mature mentor(s))
- Trust in God's voice as it comes to us in life circumstances
