Guidance and the Voice of God - Part One

In this series of blog posts, I'll be summarizing what I took away from the book "Guidance and the Voice of God", two chapters at a time. (3 chapters in this post because the first chapter is really short)

Being a summary, the points will naturally be underelaborated, so please do pick up the book to read it for more biblical references and further elaboration! I can lend it to you too once I'm done with it!

Chapter One 
A very brief chapter, which outlines the purpose of the book: "to outline God's will for our lives, how he guides us in it, and what we are to do in response".

Chapter Two
This chapter outlines a few key characteristics of God to help us 'understand God'. There are 3 main points:

1) God is the Sovereign Creator - he's all powerful and all knowing and he created the whole world down to the smallest detail. Yes, he has created amazingly complex stuff such as... our EYES.
2) God is the Shepherd of his people - (e.g. Psalms 23) Not just a gentle leading, but just like how real shepherds 'whack their sheep to keep them in line', we may be prodded to get us moving in the right direction. God shows us the way and guides them along it.
3) God is the Planner - God's master plan of saving his people covers centuries of human history - all the events recorded in the Bible didn't just occur by chance! (the book provides a sequence of events that unfolded over time, with biblical references, but I'm lazy to copy paste)

If we can understand God, if we know what his motivations are and what his plans are, we'll be better equipped to understanding his guidance.

Chapter Three
So previously it was mentioned very broadly and briefly that God's master plan is to save his people. But how so? This chapter breaks down God's plan into 4 main points:

1) We are destined for sonship - Eph 1:10 "... to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ" (Read verses 3-9 for more context).The goal or our lives is to be under Christ.
2) We are destined to inherit - (1 Pet 1:3-5) - we have an inheritance in heaven that will one day be ours!
3) We are destined for glory (Rom 8:28-30) - God wants to help us to be like Christ, to be 'conformed to the likeness of his Son'.
4) We are destined for good works (Ephesians 2:8-10) - We are saved for.. fun? No! It is for us to 'do good works'! (But what are these good works? DUN DUN DUN. Hopefully they'll elaborate further in the book!)

The first two chapters (I'm ignoring Chap 1) have laid some good groundwork for us - it paints a clear picture of what God is and wants, and what he has planned for us. Personally there really isn't anything new here, but I'm looking forward to see how the authors bring in specific real life implications later on (last 3 chapters).

So how do we respond, knowing all these? That's what the next 3 chapters are about! The 'right way' to respond, classic misunderstandings, and 'the wrong way' to respond. Till next time!