Step by Step: Divine Guidance for Ordinary Christians (Resources for Changing Lives)

At least half of my lunch appointments seem to come around to: "What is God's will for my life?" In my floundering to help people with this big `God's will' question over the last few years, I have been particularly influenced by two books: Bruce Waltke, Finding the Will of God (1995) and Sinclair Ferguson, Discovering God's Will (1982). While both are fundamentally in agreement with Petty's basic approach, reading Step by Step has helped me organize their thoughts (and mine) in helpful categories, and further distinguish them from alternative approaches.As Petty ably illustrates, the stakes are high in this venture. As we seek God's guidance, we are indeed more like `pilots in flight' than students in a library! (p. 18). Especially helpful were Petty's explanation of the `three views.' What Petty (somewhat disappointing) labels the Traditional View is certainly the most popular today among evangelicals (pp. 29-31). It holds that guidance from God involves discovering the specifics of God's particular plan for our lives through various combinations of "circumstances, spiritual promptings, inner voices, personal peace of mind, and the counsel of others" (p. 30). Guidance occurs when God reveals his plan through these means (p. 31).Petty next distinguishes the Traditional Charismatic view (pp. 32-33). The key difference between this view and the one preceding it in Petty's summary is that in the Charismatic view God communicates directly. Essentially, "each means of revelation that God used to give us the Scriptures is still available to individual Christians today" (p. 33), often with a new twist.The third view, the Wisdom view, is the one endorsed by Petty (pp.33-35). This approach contends that while God does have a specific plan for each Christian, this plan remains hidden. God generally does not lift the veil. Instead, "guidance comes... by God making us wise.... The wisdom view sees God as guiding his children mediately, not immediately....his guidance is mediated by (comes through) the illumination of our minds and hearts by the Word of God" (p. 34).Petty favors and unpacks the Wisdom view in relation to four topics: 1. the doctrine of providence, 2. the sufficiency of Scripture, 3. the doctrine of illumination, 4. the current work of the Holy Spirit (p. 35). Applying each of these criteria, it is clear that the Wisdom view in broad outline is more Biblically faithful than the proposed alternatives.The first three parts of the book (pp. 17-192) explore the theology of guidance. The fourth part (pp. 193-262) consists of a helpful case study, illustrating ways this model can be practically applied to our lives. The reader is invited to a robust confidence in the Bible alone (not the `Bible-plus'). Through it, "God guides us by progressively placing within us spiritual wisdom and understanding to know the will of God... He never leads us with a `guess the signs' model" (p. 155). This occurs as the Christian progressively consecrates herself to Christ. "The path of wisdom is a lifestyle of repentance from serving functional gods like security, safety, control," etc. (p. 179).VERY practical, wildly applicable book.

This remarkable book explains how to find God's will for our lives. The author makes important distinctions between God's moral decrees which will reveal what outright sinful behavior consists of, and God's more general "laws" such as love thy neighbor as thyself or love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind and all your strength. Here we are faced with tough decisions about marriage, career, housing, and relationships where we need to choose between options where neither choice is immoral in the decretal sense, but where we nonetheless are seeking a path consistent with God's will for our lives. Thirdly, there is another sphere called "Christian liberty," where there is even more latitude than in the second case. Our decisions, say, regarding what clothing to wear, do not have the same consequences as the more momentous decisions in the second area of life-decisionmaking noted above. Dr. Petty's main point is that God does not communicate his will for our lives directly through voices or other instantaneous communications as a rule. Nor do we pick our way through signs, circumstances, fantastic coincidences and powerful thoughts sometimes received in dreams (and sometimes waking). While these may come into play at various times in our lives, they must be subsumed under "wisdom." Wisdom leads us on a path of decision making based on Biblical understanding without our having to find an ideal plan for our lives that God has, and wisdom enables us to act in full responsibility for our actions as we discern for ourselves, based on our knowledge of Almighty God, the proper plan we want to take. There is no one plan for our lives that we either discover or miss out on. Rather, by growing in wisdom, we follow a godly path and that path with its setbacks, flops, disappointments, and confusions is the path God would have us follow, and...here's an important point: that path will bear godly fruit! I urge every Christian in the United States to read this book, and especially pp. 146-147 (I won't say what's on those pages so you will be surprised and challenged by what you read.) The case study in the last few chapters about "Don," an engineer seeking guidance from God about his career path (with many implications for his family life) is especially engrossing. As we go through Don's journey we see Dr. Petty's great kindness as he relates experiences that Don has in his charismatic church and other spectacular coincidences (which many Christians take as direct communications from God)and how these "prophetic" communications fit into the bigger picture of Don's Biblical walk in wisdom and discernment. I won't tell you how things turn out for Don, but I will tell you that I was gripped with suspense as I moved from chapter to chapter wanting to know what would happen next. I can only express great personal gratitude to Dr.Petty for havingpersevered in his search for wisdom and as a Christian administrator, pastor, and counselor to acquire the wisdom expressed in this book,and for taking the time and trouble to write this book. It's an incredible tour de force, but the humility of the effort shines through and I can see God's compassionate hand on every page.

Something I have always struggled with is decision making, as well as wrestling with the question "How does God guide us?" or "What is God's will for my life?"I could not deny that I have had thoughts I believe were God communicating to me but at the same time seeing validity to the view that "God leads us in the bible, we don't need to hear from God outside the Bible." This book offers a biblical and balanced view that acknowledges God can communicate to us through signs, thoughts, etc. but places the emphasis on Scripture, and praying for wisdom from God on how to apply it. He goes in depth on what the will of God is as explained in Scripture. It is very biblical and very practical. I would highly recommend this book to every Christian for how to understand guidance biblically for themselves and to be able to offer advice for other Christians who will inevitably ask the question "What should I do? "What does God want me to do?" or "What is God's will for me?" It is a book I can see myself reading multiple times because of how helpful it is.

I am going to this book with my Sunday school class and it covers a lot of great areas as well as misconceptions that people have about Determining God’s will

This is a wonderful book for those who are consistently not being able to discern the will of God. Not only will you have your thinking and verbage corrected, you will find your heart rejoicing in the truth of the freedom that is ours in Christ Jesus!

Very use - Great Christian Resource for any denomination.. James Petty is very gifted I would highly recommend his work.

Sehr guter übersichtlicher Ratgeber zur Entscheidungsfindung. Nur zu empfehlen.