What is we do not heed God’s spoken No!?

If we neglect to heed His inner speaking of restraint as God’s No! God will be faithful to speak louder. He may speak to us by the words of others in our path of life; our spouse, our friends, or by our circumstances.

He will be faithful to clearly say, No! He is faithful to re-speak His inwardly spoken No! by the mouth of two or three (2Cor. 13:1). If we still do not heed His inner restraint or His outer speaking, we are left to learn by bearing the consequences of our refusal to listen and obey. He will allow us to reap what we sow. Even then this is in no way punitive to punish us, rather it is intended to be remedial, as of the hand of our loving Father, correcting us as His child.

God’s Protective Playpen

I see it this way; the Father has made us absolutely free to live and “learn Christ” as our Lord and our only life, by placing us in the God-ordained, large, protective playpen of our life. Within its perimeter we can learn to live and move spontaneously in freedom in Christ. In the pen we will mostly learn by our mistakes, but we are never condemned (Rom 8:1a), and these failings will not destroy us.

While a young child is free to move about and is safe in a protective penned area, he may skin his knee but not be killed. If, however, we insist on jumping the perimeter fence, by refusing to heed His restraining inward “No!” and the “outer No” that we hear from Him, we will bear the consequences, just as may a child when he jumps the fence and runs into oncoming traffic. The consequences of free will choices may harm or even destroy the child in this earthly realm of living. All the while, whether in or out of the pen, God is still our loving Father and Christ remains the loving life within us and as our eternal life.  

Examples of Jumping the Fence

Examples of jumping the fence would be when we may refuse to heed Him by insisting on our own selfish ways to seek self-fulfillment, perhaps by marrying a partner whom God has not chosen for us, and which may then ultimately results in abuse. Consider the child of God who, against God’s spoken No! partners in business with someone God has not chosen, only to wind up in prison together. Consider a child of God who will not listen to His “inner No!” or “outer No,” and then puts a needle of drugs in his arm only to get HIV. This all leads to unnecessary harm and quite possibly a premature physical death, even as the Lord dwells within.

To this, Paul says the following.

Ephesians 4:17-24 (AMP) So this I say and solemnly testify in [the name of] the Lord [as in His presence], that you must no longer live as the heathen (the Gentiles) do in their perverseness [in the folly, vanity, and emptiness of their souls and the futility] of their minds. ¹⁸ Their moral understanding is darkened and their reasoning is beclouded. [They are] alienated (estranged, self-banished) from the life of God [with no share in it; this is] because of the ignorance (the want of knowledge and perception, the willful blindness) that is deep-seated in them, due to their hardness of heart [to the insensitiveness of their moral nature]. ¹⁹ In their spiritual apathy they have become callous and past feeling and reckless and have abandoned themselves [a prey] to unbridled sensuality, eager and greedy to indulge in every form of impurity [that their depraved desires may suggest and demand]. ²⁰ But you did not so learn Christ! ²¹ Assuming that you have really heard Him and been taught by Him, as [all] Truth is in Jesus [embodied and personified in Him], ²² Strip yourselves of your former nature [put off and discard your old unrenewed self] which characterized your previous manner of life and becomes corrupt through lusts and desires that spring from delusion; ²³ And be constantly renewed in the spirit of your mind [having a fresh mental and spiritual attitude], ²⁴ And put on the new nature (the regenerate self) created in God’s image, [Godlike] in true righteousness and holiness.

Thus, we are absolutely free to live spontaneously in God’s protective pen of life. We’re also, however, cautioned to heed His inward spoken No! that is to deny or put off our soulish self-desire, which is our old man’s habits of the unrenewed mindset of self-interest. This we do by heeding His inward spoken No! Thereby, we return to live by Him within, abiding in union with His life in us, as our new man. <End>