I've always wrestled against God being any form of genie, but in the last few years, I've been trying to process verses like this without handling them like modern Evangelical Christianity's attempts to tie up every loose end. Instead, my goal is an attempt to see what aspect of the nature of God they reveal.
- “Ask me and I will tell you remarkable secrets you do not know about things to come.Jeremiah 33:3
For the most part, the impressions I got of God for decades was that He was silent and that any external, non-Scripture related impressions I received were not from Him. However, I currently do believe this is very a very fictitious perspective on how the Spirit communicates with us.
The key is He "leads" us into all truth. We have this idea that God only drops truth bombs on us as that's the reflection of God the Father interacting with people in the Old Testament, and that's how Jesus deals with the Pharisees.
The Spirit, however, seems to lead us deeper into ourselves, allowing us to experience the world as it is and be awakened to God's reality. This seems to be the ultimate heart of the Godhead, as that's how most people's lives work out. Law-based accountability, loosely reflective of the Nature of God, is solely useful to define the scope of human limitation to embody righteousness, and not much else. Thankfully, we are out from under the law.
The law is immediate and demanding, but God isn't, and His Spirit definitively works differently than the cold, binary nature of the old Mosiac law, to the effect that most Christians do not feel comfortable letting the Spirit do its work, as it takes away from humanly-perceived control.
We like to have our Sanctification packaged nicely so we can define those involved and those who are not. This is intrinsic to human nature, and not reflective of the nature of God.
The key to all this, however, is the Spirit will not do its work without us practicing the revealed nature and character of God, better known as righteousness, which is defined in Scripture. Unfortunately, when he doesn't show up, we like to replace Him with the dead law, because we want performance and results.
So righteousness and the Spirit walk hand in hand — not the defunked law and the Spirit. In fact, the law often times stands against the working of the Spirit, keeping our rotting corpses safe from the rocks upon which we so desperately need to be cast upon. Yes, sometimes we need to experience the heat and pain of the world we live in, as living in pristine white-washed tombs isn't helpful for spiritual growth.
Sin causes grace to abound, and though Paul warns us against it, he also warns against "spying out each other's liberty" in order to bring each other into bondage. Laws are worse than abuse of the liberty we have in Christ. John enhances this and promotes a higher conscience — Love is the true embodiment of the intent of the law. This is why sin is done away with. You don't need the bringer of death to reveal to you the righteousness and nature of God. You need Jesus. And instead of taking Jesus, resurrecting the law, and holding it up next to him, and trying to live both in the Spirit and in conformity to the law — we should be walking in God's love.
Does that mean we are going to screw up a few things and sin as we walk in the spirit? Yes. Absolutely. Sometimes intentionally.
That's because the highest goal we have shouldn't be to "not sin" or even "act like Jesus"... it should be to know God and let the Spirit do the restoration of our minds and spirits into the nature of God as we know his goodness. This is why Jesus paid for all sins, so we no longer have to fear them, and can focus on knowing Him and the Father and letting the Spirit do its work within us.
Martin Luther famously said, "Sin Boldly." This is because the Spirit and the Revealed Nature of God work best with that. They purposefully cast aside hidden sins that we deceptively dress up into acceptabilities that measure up against the law, just as the Pharisees peddled, and move towards those sins being shouted from the rooftops. Thus we are to "confess" or affirm/acknowledge our sins to each other so that God can begin doing his amazing healing... in our hearts. That's where we want the restoration to take place, not due to guilt and the law.
Ultimately this points us back to a lively walk between us and the Spirit, as we move like liquid through the life God is taking us through. We have His righteousness and we have the promptings of the Spirit.
Personally, I do believe the Spirit lead my wife to divorce me. Yes, that is contrary to the Revealed Perfect Nature of God, but that's because He has a bigger plan that involves taking us away to Babylon. The Spirit works in and through the muck and mire of our sin natures, His ultimate goal to reveal the Father to us, not make us perfect.
Does this mean every secret from the Spirit is perfectly righteous? Is every little gift is aligned with the perfection of God's nature? To think such would be errant since everything in this nature is broken. The Spirit gives us what we need, and it's our job to work with Him to transform each gift into righteousness, putting on the armor of God and embodying love — not the law. Yes, all gifts from the Father are perfect — perfect for us to do what He needs them to.
Case in point, the divorce I'm going through and the ex-wife God gave me for a while. Movement forward, every relationship I have been given, every skill, every breath. It's my job to transform them all into righteousness with the aid of the Spirit.
So what secrets should we ask for? I'm starting with this: to know about the things God has planned to take us through so I can more fully understand the path I must walk to transform them all into righteousness.
So, tell me, Father — Tell me what things You have planned for me, so that I may know You more.
— Micah