| The church’s chosen topic for the month is, to paraphrase it, learning to deal with others in love and Justice, rather than in gossip, dislike, hate, retribution or even failing to meet your responsibilities.  Christ put it this way, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."  However, in addition to that, we need to know to whom should we look for advice is such matters.
 Let's take some examples:  one morning a mother was shaking her son trying to awaken him to go to church.  He protested greatly and finally said to her, “Give me three good reasons.”  Her answer to him was, “One I'm your mother and I'm telling you to get up and go to church.  Two, it's Easter Sunday and you really should go.  And three, you're the pastor.” 
 Another excellent example is that of the prodigal son.  You'll recall that a father had two sons.  One was earnest, hard working, and God-fearing.  The other, the youngest, was totally irresponsible.  He convinced his father to give him his share of his father's property.  He then went into the city and squandered the money on all sorts of debauchery over the next two or three years.  
 When his money had run out he had no means of earning a living and thus found themself begging one of his father's servants for the job of feeding hogs.  When the boy's father finally learned of this he instructed his servants to slaughter a prime calf and throw a party welcoming the lost son home.  The father then instructed the older son to teach his brother how to take his place in the family business. 
 The older brother complained to his father that this is not fair.  While he, the older brother, had been working hard and diligently following God's laws, his brother had been wasting his time and money on the sloth.  Why should he now be brought back into the family as though he had never made these mistakes.  The father patiently explained to the older son that he should look at it differently.  He should see that his brother had been lost and had now been found and it was now the older brother's opportunity to do, as he should, and advise his younger brother on how to become a man who accepts his responsibility and is able to enjoy the love of God. 

 This was an example of a very wise fother.  But, how about the other kind.  Allow me to read you a poem written by the relative of a girl named Sarah
 
 

My name is Sarah   I am but three,   My eyes are swollen   I cannot see,   I must be stupid,   I must be bad,   What else could have made   My daddy so mad?   I wish I were better,   I wish I weren't ugly,   Then maybe my Mommy   Would still want to hug me.   I can't speak at all,   I can't do a wrong   Or else I'm locked up   All the day long.   When I'm awake   I'm all alone   The house is dark   My folks aren't home.   When my Mommy does come   I'll try and be nice,   So maybe I'll get just   One whipping tonight.   Don't make a sound!   I just heard a car   My daddy is back   From Charlie's Bar.   I hear him curse   My name he calls   I press myself   Against the wall.   I try and hide   From his evil eyes I'm so afraid now   I'm starting to cry

He finds me weeping   He shouts ugly words,   He says its my fault   That he suffers at work.   He slaps me and hits me   And yells at me more,   I finally get free   And I run for the door.   He's already locked it   And I start to bawl,   He takes me and throws me   Against the hard wall.   I fall to the floor   With my bones nearly broken,   And my daddy continues   With more bad words spoken.   "I'm sorry!" I scream   But its now much too late   His face has been twisted   Into unimaginable hate.   The hurt and the pain   Again and again   Oh please God, have mercy!   Oh please let it end!   And he finally stops   And heads for the door,   While I lay there motionless   Sprawled on the floor.   My name is Sarah   And I am but three,   Tonight my daddy   Murdered me.

Obviously, here was a child who, even at the age of three was doing her best to follow the fifth commandment, “Honor thy mother and thy father.”  However, in such a case it would not be wise to follow Sarah’s parents’ advice.

 The question now becomes, “To whom do you look for advice in learning to live in the love of God; your family, your associates and even a stranger?”

 There are four usual types of advisers, let's take a look at these.

 1.    As we have seen, those of us, who were fortunate enough to have parents who had been given the gift of great wisdom, can learn from it and continue to receive advice from them throughout our lives.  Still, there will be occasions when their experience or training simply does not qualify them to give us advice.  On such occasions, we will then have to turn to others who have special training.  As we will see later, there is an excellent alternative, but it is one that will require a great deal of time and training before it becomes reliably accessible.
 2.   Many of us have close friends, whose advice we have learned to trust greatly.  We usually develop these relationships over an extended period of time. Some such friends are those we met in school.  Others, we may have met at the University or in jobs that we took on after finishing school.  Taking advice from friends requires a great deal of care.  Some are occasionally likely to be competitors, and we don't know it.  Others may talk a very good game, which they are not able to play.  In any event, we must remember that the decisions we make from such advice still are our responsibility.  The friends may be the best we could hope for, but it would be foolish for us to rely on them being reliably accurate.
 3.   Your supervisor or boss at work will gladly share responsibility on such decisions, however, he is also in a position to leave us stuck with a bad decision that he made.  Granted, this would not necessarily be expected, but it does happen.  It very often happens in university settings, and in large corporations.  For example, nearly all Ph.D.'s, have to be able to continually be in print to retain their jobs.  When they are short of ideas, it is quite common for them to plagiarize ideas from undergraduates they are teaching.  Worse, it may be from students whom they are sponsoring at a masters degree level.  It is also very common to find people within corporations pilfering or plagiarizing the work of subordinates.  This, of course, is also unexpected, and thus, care must be taken when making a presentation of new ideas to your superiors.  
 4.   When one is in doubt about the correct use or discussion of our creative ideas, one generally looks to something we might call intuition or listening to the sound of that still, small, voice within our head.  It is the identification and determination of worthiness of the still small voice that is our topic here. 
 The first thing we have to figure out is what is the source of the still small voice that we hear.  Very often, it is simply the things that you would like to say but cannot say out loud.  For many it is the voice of their conscience.  Some have been trained since childhood that certain things are acceptable and others are not.  This is some help, but not a great deal, as there is nothing solid behind the decision that may be made because of this particular kind of still small voice.  
 Depending on your childhood training and religious beliefs, there are two usual sources of the still small voice: The most common of these, comes in the form of a temptation.  In this case, the still small voice uses such words as, “It's okay to steal a dime lying on the table.  Your mother won't miss it."  Of course, each time you accept such a suggestion the amount you take becomes larger and larger.  That is, it becomes easier to not resist temptation the more you respond to it.
 The other type of small voice is the one that insists you do things in accordance with at least the laws of Moses if not all of the laws of the Christian faith.  This small voice from our conscience is, of course, far more difficult to initially accept.
 The big question then becomes how do you decide which kind of advice to take?  
 Unfortunately, most people in this and most other countries, are taken in by the promise that, “If it gives pleasure it must be okay to do it.”  This sort of the advice usually comes from neighborhood bullies, gang leaders, and illicit drug dealers.  For others this type of advice may come from older friends who happen to be greedy.  And, as we grow older, it may actually come from workplace superiors, and others whose duty is, in fact, to teach us how to correctly conduct business. 
 The fortunate few of us derive our beliefs from a combination of our parents and our church.  From these two sources, we learn correct decorum in accordance with biblical teachings.  Later, when we go to school, we are taught similar things, in accordance with the general rules of society.  In high school, we may indeed have coaches, band teachers or other community leaders who reinforce what we have learned. 
 Our biggest problem is that nearly all of us have received teaching from both temptation and conscience sources.  If we have never come to the conclusion that we wish to gain His kingdom, it probably makes little difference which source we choose.  On the other hand, if we have been introduced to Christ's Gospel, we know that there is something better even than following our conscience. However, that is just the beginning. 
 Making the decision to dedicate our lives to following Christ’s teachings is not to be taken lightly.  One first should learn what He taught.  You might start here with the Biblical, New Testament books of Matthew, John and Acts.  From there you may wish to read the Old Testament books of Genesis, Exodus, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel.  Then you may be ready to read the Book of Revelation.  Its name means that it is a book that reveals a true understanding of Jesus Christ.   
 Many people find that they have come to accept Jesus Christ as their personal savior long before they have studied all of the suggested books mentioned above.  Others find that they need to read the whole Bible. And still others only come to accept Christ’s path through personal experience and talking with those who already know Him.  Once they have truly accepted Him they know that He has promised He would send the Holy Spirit to each and every new follower.  The first 40 verses of the second chapter of the  Book of Acts (of the apostles) details the specific steps, and an understandingof those steps., They incluce: penitence, public and private acknowledgment of acceptance of Christ’s Way, and welcoming of The Holy Spirit to become your constant companion.
 Once each of us has done this, we are in a dilemma. We know well the voice of temptation, but we have not yet learned to recognize the voice of the Holy Spirit.  It's a little bit like tuning in two radio stations at once, one with a strong signal and one with a weak signal.  The voice of temptation (evil) is strong and we are used to hearing it.  The voice of the Holy Spirit is, at this point, weak. And, we have not yet learned to tune it in.  With practice, however, it will become so “strong” that we almost cannot hear the evil voice.  We do have a very useful hint to help you get started: “A true prophet can be easily recognized as he will never predict in error.”  A false prophet will only be correct by accident.  Similarly, the Holy Spirit will never lead you astray, while the voice of temptation nearly always will.
 As our Lord Jesus has said, “. . .The door is wide, and the road is easy that leads to hell.  Many people are going through that door.  But the door is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life that lasts forever.  Few people are finding it.”  (Matthew 7:13,14)NLV  
 

 Is it worth all this trouble to have the perfect adviser in all things?  Of course it is! 

 If you will listen to the Holy Spirit, no matter what the situation, you will always be given the best way for you to proceed. There will, of course, be times when you wonder if the advice is correct.  Don’t forget that when you have learned to faithfully adhere to the advice of the Holy Spirit, the evil voice of temptation will occasionally do its best to dissuade you from righteousness.  However, Evil cannot succeed in this if you faithfully practice and learn to listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit. 
         

     To which voice do you listen?