Application: Listening For How God Is Speaking

An evening on application. I have wanted the children to develop a happy instinct for application rather than a set of rules for doing it. But recently it has seemed that some intentionality and consciousness of what we are doing would be good for us. Below is an outline of what I led us through. More should be said about application than 'our response to God's words,' but this seemed like a foundational place to begin.

Commands

Introducing the topic. When God speaks, we should respond. Right?
For example, is it ever OK for children to hear their parents' words and not respond to them? Of course not. How much more important is it to respond to the words we hear from God? This is also called application. 

Readings: Leviticus 19:18; Ephesians 4:1
What is that? How is God speaking to us here? It’s a command. One of the major modes of speech God uses in the Bible is to command. When He commands, He directs us to action. Do this or that. Don’t do this or that. Love, honour, repent, trust, and on and on. Now, what do we do with commands? That’s right, we obey them. A huge part of the Bible is the Lord commanding the obedience of His people.

So, when God is speaking, we can be asking this question as we listen: Is there a command to obey?

Promises

Reading: John 14:3; Colossians 3:4
How is God speaking to us here? What kind of speech is He using? It’s a promise. This is also a major mode of speech the Lord uses all through the Bible. When God promises, He tells us not what we must do (command) but what He will do. Or He tells us what will be true of us in the future. And what do we do with promises? We believe them. Or more deeply, we trust in them. One of the children added that we may need to wait for them. Indeed. We wait patiently for them, trusting the promise will be kept. 

So, when God is speaking, we can be asking this question as we listen: Is there a promise to trust?

For each of these, we emphasised that these applications (or ‘uses’ as the Puritans called them) were not only to be done in the mind. They should have concrete action follow them. Examples of obedience and trust are useful here. 

Warnings

Reading: Matthew 7:21; Colossians 3:5-6
How is God speaking to us here? What mode of speech is He using? This one is a little more subtle. But it helps to consider passages with consequences attached to disobedience. This is a warning. Warnings caution us against a certain path or course of action, and they often bring the consequences of such paths and actions before us to sober us. 

So, when God is speaking, we can be asking this question as we listen: Is there a warning to heed? Heed is an old word that means ‘take to heart,’ ‘take seriously,’ ‘act upon.’ 

Good News

Reading: Titus 2:14; Ephesians 2:4-5
How is God speaking to us here? What mode of speech is He using? Someone said, “declaration.” That’s right. But what kind of declaration? Here we’re dealing with good news, God announcing good news. This is not something we ought to do, or something He will do. It is Him announcing something He has already done. It is a fact, a reality. The Bible is covered with good news. “God blessed them.” “I am the LORD your God.” “The LORD reigns.” “He is risen.” “By grace you have been saved.” “God so loved the world.” “There is therefore now no condemnation.”

This is the most important one of all. All living to God flows out of good news. The goodness and grace of God are always prior. It is always first. And what do we do with good news? Someone said, “Rejoice.” Absolutely. But maybe even better, “enjoy.” We ought to enjoy good news; we will include all sorts of things. Praising God, rejoicing in Him, telling each other, telling our neighbours, taking comfort in good news, and so on. 

So, when God is speaking, we can be asking this question as we listen: Is there good news to enjoy?

At this point, there had been a lot of good engagement, as there often is when we work through something that repeats and gets clearer with each pass. We finished with an illustration of containers in the mind. What we’re doing with all this is filling up our containers in the mind and heart with all these words of God. We hear a command, and we put it in the command jar of our heart like marble. And so on with the promises, and so on with the warnings and good news. Why? So that we can empty those containers into our lives! 

We enjoyed this image before refining. Really, we want to reach into the jars and ‘use’ these words in our lives. The jars don’t ever actually run out. They are… never-ending jars. When we are reading the Bible, we are listening to fill up our jars for use in life, in living to God. What is God saying to us? How is He speaking? How should we respond to Him? We obey His commands, we trust His promises, we heed His warnings, we enjoy His good news. I ended by reminding the children that there were other ways God speaks to us as well - could they discover any others?