The Guides Must Harmonize

It’s possible, of course, to assume you are living a God-directed life when you are merely following your own inclinations and impulses. The Bible cautions us about just such a trap:

“There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death.”
—Proverbs 16:25.

Our feelings must harmonize with Bible teaching. In fact, it’s not safe to conclude that God is leading us unless all three of the guides discussed above harmonize.

Take Jake, for example. He had a lovely wife and two children, but stumbled into an affair with another woman. How was he to reconcile his behavior with the Bible’s strong words about adultery? He told his friends: I’ve prayed about it and I feel it’s God’s will.”

Jake’s emotions and “inner impressions” clearly sent him down the wrong path. He imagined that it was somehow “providential” that he’d met this other woman and didn’t step back to look at this relationship in the light of biblical teaching. Bible commands against adultery, and counsel on how husbands should honor their wives, could have shown Jake the devastating consequences of his affair and that he was mistaking biological urges for divine impressions.

What is the final test for determining a right course of action?

“To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, they have no light of dawn [no light in them, KJV].”
—Isaiah 8:20.

The Bible, “the law and the testimony,” is our final arbiter, our authoritative guidebook. We must never allow any impression or apparently providential circumstance lead us away from a biblical principle.