When there is a prophet among you, I, the Lord, reveal myself to them in visions, I speak to them in dreams. –Numbers 12:6
In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. –Acts 2:17
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Dr. Jack Deere, Surprised by the Voice of God (Zondervan, 1996).
—. The Beginner’s Guide to the Gift of Prophecy (Regal, 2001).
—. Why I Am Still Surprised by the Voice of God (Zondervan, 2022).
Dr. James Goll, The Beginner’s Guide to Hearing God (Regal, 2004).
God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. –Romans 5:5
“‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’This is the first and greatest commandment.And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” –Jesus in Matthew 22:37-40
Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. –Philippians 2:3-4
How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north:I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit. –Isaiah 14:12-15 (KJV)
The mother of Zebedee’s sons came to Jesus with her sons and, kneeling down, asked a favor of him.“What is it you want?” he asked. She said, “Grant that one of these two sons of mine may sit at your right and the other at your left in your kingdom.”“You don’t know what you are asking,” Jesus said to them. “Can you drink the cup I am going to drink?” “We can,” they answered.Jesus said to them, “You will indeed drink from my cup, but to sit at my right or left is not for me to grant. These places belong to those for whom they have been prepared by my Father.”When the ten heard about this, they were indignant with the two brothers.Jesus called them together and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them.Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant,and whoever wants to be first must be your slave—just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” –Matthew 20:20-28
What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. Or do you think Scripture says without reason that he jealously longs for the spirit he has caused to dwell in us? But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: “God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.”Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. GRIEVE, MOURN AND WAIL. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up. Brothers and sisters, do not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against a brother or sister or judges them speaks against the law and judges it. When you judge the law, you are not keeping it, but sitting in judgment on it. There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. But you—who are you to judge your neighbor? –James 4:1-12
To be, or not to be: that is the question: Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep; No more; and by a sleep to say we end The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to, ’tis a consummation Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep; To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub; For in that sleep of death what dreams may come When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause: there’s the respect That makes calamity of so long life; For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely, The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay, The insolence of office and the spurns That patient merit of the unworthy takes, When he himself might his quietus make With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear, To grunt and sweat under a weary life, But that the dread of something after death, The undiscover’d country from whose bourn No traveller returns, puzzles the will And makes us rather bear those ills we have Than fly to others that we know not of? Thus conscience does make cowards of us all; And thus the native hue of resolution Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought, And enterprises of great pith and moment With this regard their currents turn awry, And lose the name of action.—Soft you now! –William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act III, Scene I
John Wesley, Farther Appeal to Men of Reason and Religion.
Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” –Matthew 28:16-20 (NIV)
The fear of the Lord is clean. –Psalm 19:9 (KJV)
Two-and-forty years ago, having a desire to furnish poor people with cheaper, shorter, and plainer books than any I had seen, I wrote many small tracts, generally a penny a-piece; and afterwards several larger. Some of these had such a sale as I never thought of; and, by this means, I unawares became rich. But I never desired or endeavoured after it. And now that it is come upon me unawares, I lay up no treasures upon earth. –John Wesley
Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor [perpetual animosity, resentment, strife, fault-finding] and slander be put away from you, along with every kind of malice [all spitefulness, verbal abuse, malevolence]. –Ephesians 4:31 (AMP)
An overseer must be blameless and beyond reproach, the husband of one wife, self-controlled, sensible, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not addicted to wine, not a bully nor quick-tempered and hot-headed, but gentle and considerate, free from the love of money [not greedy for wealth and its inherent power—financially ethical]. –1 Timothy 3:2-3 (AMP)
CRY ALOUD, SPARE NOT, LIFT UP THY VOICE LIKE A TRUMPET, and shew my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their SINS! –Isaiah 58:1 (KJV)
O GENERATION OF VIPERS, who hath WARNED YOU to FLEE FROM THE WRATH TO COME!? –Matthew 3:7 (KJV)
WOE UNTO YOU, scribes and Pharisees, HYPOCRITES! –Matthew 23:13 (KJV)
THOU CHILD OF THE DEVIL, thou enemy of all righteousness, wilt thou not cease to PERVERT THE RIGHT WAYS OF THE LORD!? –Acts 13:10 (KJV)
I AM FULL OF THE FURY OF THE LORD; I am weary with holding in. –Jeremiah 6:11 (KJV)
OPEN REBUKE is better than secret love. –Proverbs 27:5 (KJV)
Them that sin REBUKE BEFORE ALL, that others also may FEAR. –1 Timothy 5:20 (KJV)
THOU HAST LOVED RIGHTEOUSNESS, AND HATED INIQUITY; therefore God, even thy God, hath ANOINTED thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows. –Hebrews 1:9 (KJV)
THE RIGHTEOUS ARE BOLD AS A LION. –Proverbs 28:1 (KJV)
REBUKE THEM SHARPLY, that they may be sound in the faith. –Titus 1:13 (KJV)
I said, I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his name. But HIS WORD WAS IN MINE HEART AS A BURNING FIRE SHUT UP IN MY BONES, and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay. –Jeremiah 20:9 (KJV)
Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather REPROVE THEM. –Ephesians 5:11 (KJV)
The Word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. –Hebrews 4:12 (NIV)
Third time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, “Do you love me?” He said, “Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you.” Jesus said, “Feed my sheep.” –John 21:17 (NIV)