God Works in the Secret of our being: we say Amen to His Gentle, Quiet Voice within

If we study the Scriptures carefully we will realise that God has the kind of temperament that dislikes ostentation; He likes to work secretly rather than openly, and He is in us as a gentle, quiet voice to which we must say Amen.

Our God is a God who hides Himself; He created the entire universe with all its grandeur, yet He hid Himself in it, and it is not easy to find Him.

Even when He Himself became a man, He didn’t come in splendor and majesty for all to behold and worship; rather, He came as a lowly man, a carpenter, and He worked in a small way until He was thirty years old.

His face was not pleasant to look at but was rather marred and even disfigured, and others never thought that the infinite God would indwell Him.

After the Lord Jesus manifested Himself in glory before Peter, James, and John, He told them not to tell the vision to anyone until the Son of Man is raised from the dead (Matt. 17:1-9). There was the divine glory that dwelt in Him, but He did not like to display it openly or show it off to others.

After He resurrected, He showed Himself to Mary who was lovingly seeking Him and weeping, and she didn’t recognise Him; she thought He was the gardener, until He called her name, Mary (John 20:14-17).

Then, when the two disciples were walking on their way down to Emmaus from Jerusalem, Jesus joined them and started talking to them, and they didn’t recognise Him; they didn’t realise it was Him when He opened up the Scriptures to them to show that it was necessary for Christ to suffer all these things and enter into His glory (see Luke 24:13-37).

It is only when He blessed and broke the bread that they realised this is the Lord, and they said, Was not our heart burning within us, while He was speaking to us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?

Then Thomas, who missed the first meeting in resurrection, said he does not believe Jesus rose from the dead until he himself sees Him and touches Him; so the Lord came to the disciples again and Thomas believed, but the Lord said, Blessed are those who don’t see and believe (John 20:24-29).

Finally, we need to be warned by the story in Isa. 39:2-8, where Hezekiah, who was just healed by the Lord, received the gifts from the king of Babylon and showed his messengers all his riches and everything in his house and kingdom.

When Isaiah came and asked him what did these men want, Hezekiah told him, and Isaiah said that days are coming when everything that is in the king’s house and what his fathers have laid up as treasures, all will be carried to Babylon – nothing will be left.

We should not expose everything we enjoy and experience of the Lord to others; rather, we need to have secret experiences of Christ, enjoy Him and seek Him in secret, and even when we fellowship with others, we need to realise what not to speak and what to open up.

We should live by the hidden life and nature of our Father and always have some secret experiences of Christ.

Realising the Hidden Nature of God’s Working; His Surest Work is done in the Secret of our Being

We need to realise the hidden nature of God’s working; we shouldn’t think that only great miracles, mighty visions, and tremendous revelations are of God, but realise that He works in the secret of our being.

God’s surest work is done in the secret of our being.

He comes into us as the seed of the kingdom, and He grows within us; He then seeks to make His home in our heart through faith (Eph. 3:16), and He does this in the secret of our being, not openly.

The more we serve the Lord and the more we abide in Him, the more we realise that God is a very quiet God; He is so quiet that His presence is often undetected.

God’s mightiest mode of activity is a gentle voice hiddenly within our being, something so slight that we can scarcely distinguish it from our own impressions.

Sometimes from our innermost being comes a faint suggestion, a feeling, a voice, or some words, something like, This is your natural life – don’t do this, this belongs to the cross! We may think this is ourselves, for these are almost indefinable words, but these words are indications of God’s most positive activity within us.

Many times we may think this is us, this is our own thinking, but if we give heed to the gentle voice within us, we will enjoy His surest work, which is done in the secret of our being.

We need to realise the hidden nature of God’s working; His most intimate way of guiding us is so natural that we scarcely perceive He is guiding us at all, yet somehow He does it.

When God came in the Son, the only begotten Son came for the purpose of declaring God, yet He hid God in a human life whose appearance was “marred”, a human life that had “no attractive form nor majesty” (see Isa. 52:14; 53:2).

This is not the way we would have come through incarnation; we would come in an attractive form and with majesty…

He came from Galilee, an insignificant province, and from the town of Nazareth, a small town of which it was said by the Jews that no prophet or person of repute ever came from there (see John 1:46; 7:52).

Thus, when the Lord appeared, people found it hard to believe that God was present in Him; they even found it hard to believe that He was a prophet from God, yet God was hidden within Jesus of Nazareth, and in Him all the fulness of the Godhead was pleased to dwell (Col. 2:9).

Also, Jesus of Nazareth belonged to a poor home and He grew up to be a carpenter until He was thirty years old; who would have ever thought that He was indwelt by the infinite God? We need to realise the hidden nature of God’s working and realise that His surest work is done in the secret of our being, not merely outwardly or in a spectacular way.

Lord Jesus, cause us to realise the hidden nature of God’s working to see that God’s surest work is done in the secret of our being. May we not think that only mighty influences, great visions, tremendous revelations, and miracles are of God but may we realise that God’s presence is within us, and He is a quiet and often undetected One in us. Lord, may we heed Your most intimate way of guiding us and cooperate with the inward activity of God so that we may receive Your guidance.

God Works Secretly rather than Openly, and we Cooperate by saying Amen to His Gentle, Quiet Voice Within

Yes, the Bible does show us that God performs miracles, He does great things, and He is almighty and all-powerful; however, if we study the Scriptures carefully, we will realise that His temperament dislikes ostentation.

God likes to work secretly rather than openly. We may like God to do great things for us and in us, and we may tell others what He doing for us, but God’s surest work is in the secret of our being.

It is a wonder and a mystery that we believers in Christ love Him whom we have not seen (1 Pet. 1:8); we have not seen Him physically, yet we love Him and exult with joy that is unspeakable and full of glory.

Christ is in the midst of men yet He doesn’t show Himself to men; He dwells within us yet many times He withholds the consciousness of His indwelling.

Since the resurrection of the Lord, the chief discipline for us, His followers, has come along the line of knowing Him as a God who hides Himself.

Everything of God’s economy is in the unseen atmosphere and realm of faith; Christ as the centrality and universality of God’s economy is not in the seen realm but in faith (see 2 Cor. 4:13, 16-18; 5:7; Heb. 11:1; Eph. 3:17a; 1 Tim. 1:4b).

The things that we see are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal; we need to exercise our spirit of faith to believe in the Lord and experience Him. We need to exercise our spirit to enjoy the unseen things of Christ’s riches in God’s eternal economy.

When we are most conscious of impotence, God is most powerfully present (see 2 Cor. 12:9-10).

Paul implored the Lord three times to remove the thorn in his flesh, but the Lord said, My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is perfected in weakness.

When we are weak, we are powerful in the Lord for He is powerful in us; when we think we can’t make it, the Lord is powerful in us in our inward new being.

The God who hides Himself is at work within our lives, and He is working mightily; God works secretly rather than openly, and we can cooperate with Him by saying Amen to His gentle, quiet voice within.

Our responsibility as kingdom people is to cooperate with the Lord by responding to His voice within; the gentle, quiet voice of the Lord within us, the voice that seems so much a part of our feelings that we scarcely recognise it at all, this is the Lord speaking to us.

To that voice, registered in the deepest depths of our being, we must say Amen, for there, secretly and ceaselessly, the God who hides Himself is working.

Many times the Lord within us speaks to us, but we think it is our own feelings or thoughts; this is why we need to exercise our spirit and realise that God works secretly rather than openly, and we cooperate with Him by saying Amen to His gentle, quiet voice within.

Lord Jesus, we have not seen You with our physical eyes but we believe into You and we love You! We believe that You are within us and You like to work secretly rather than openly. We open to Your working within us. When we are weak, we are strong in You; when we cannot do it, You work within us. Lord, may we know You as the God who hides Himself and who works within our life. We want to cooperate with You, Lord, by responding to Your voice within. We want to say Amen to Your gentle, quiet voice that seems so much part of our own feelings that many times we scarcely recongise it as a voice at all. Dear Lord, we love You!

You can read this article also in Romanian – citiți acest articol / această împărtășire și în limba română via următorul link, Dumnezeu Lucrează în Secretul Ființei Noastre: spunem Amin vocii Sale Blândă și Liniștită din interior.

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by bro. Ed Marks for this week, and portions from, A God Who Hides Himself, pp. 5-11 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Development of the Kingdom of God in the Church Life and the Christian Life (2019 spring ITERO), week 2, Living the Kingdom Life by Living a Hidden Life.
• Hymns on this topic:
  # Whom having not seen, you love, you love; / Into whom though not seeing Him at present, / yet believing, / You exult with joy / That is unspeakable / And full of glory. / You exult with joy / That is unspeakable / And full of glory. / First Peter 1:8. (Scripture song)
  # Take time to behold Him, / Be calm in thy soul, / Each thought and each temper / Beneath His control. / Thus led by His Spirit / To fountains of love, / Thou then shalt be fitted / His mercy to prove. (Hymns #643)
  # Fresh as the dew of the morning, / Bringing a sweet rest unheard, / Christ, in the gentle anointing, / Whispers His comforting word: / Stand till the trial is over, / Stand till the tempest is gone, / Stand for the glory of Jesus, / Stand till the kingdom is won. (Hymns #708)