Psalm 116:1-2 I love the Lord, because he hath heard my voice and my supplications. Because he hath inclined his ear unto me, therefore will I call upon him as long as I live.

I can understand why you might love someone who listens to you and provides for you, but I see this as a selfish type of love. Eros is a selfish type of love, it certainly isn’t agape love. Then I remembered that at the time of this psalm Christ had not died for our sins. The Cross of Christ is the game changer.

Only because of the Cross of Christ do we have access to all the promises made to us. Up until that day everything related to God’s promises towards mankind was performance based. All those promises are predicated on the if factor. “If you will I will, if you do not….”

Deuteronomy 7:12-14  Wherefore it shall come to pass, if ye hearken to these judgments, and keep, and do them, that the Lord thy God shall keep unto thee the covenant and the mercy which he sware unto thy fathers: And he will love thee, and bless thee, and multiply thee: he will also bless the fruit of thy womb, and the fruit of thy land, thy corn, and thy wine, and thine oil, the increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep, in the land which he sware unto thy fathers to give thee. Thou shalt be blessed above all people: there shall not be male or female barren among you, or among your cattle.

And did they hear them, keep them and do those commandments?

Isaiah 65:12  Therefore will I number you to the sword, and ye shall all bow down to the slaughter: because when I called, ye did not answer; when I spake, ye did not hear; but did evil before mine eyes, and did choose that wherein I delighted not.

John 16:13 Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come.

Yesterday I said that I don’t get to pick and choose what is truth. Here Jesus is speaking to us about the Holy Spirit and He will only speak truth to us. In the end of this verse is a line which is often misunderstood. “He will show you things to come.” Sounds prophetic, does it not? Well it is but not in the sense most people think of prophetic.

A harbor pilot comes on board to guide your boat out of the harbor because He knows all the dangers in the harbor and how to avoid them. Once out of the harbor a vessel comes along side and picks up the pilot to return to the docks to guide another ship out.

This is the essence of what the Holy Spirit does for us in showing us things to come. He never gets off the ship and is right there in the wheelhouse to guide us through life’s dangers. Do we listen or ignore His warnings? Do we ever let Him take the wheel?

If you are like me, I like to drive, I am the master of my own vessel. I don’t particularly like that voice next to me yelling “look out”. Now if the advice were “Slow down, there is a bad accident that just happened around this next turn.” That I would appreciate.

Most of the warnings I get come in the form of reminders of how things went wrong the last time I did this thing I am thinking about doing. “You know how this will turn out.”