A Nugget from New Life Network
Scripture for the Day (November 19, 2018)
I tell you the truth, anyone who sneaks over the wall of a sheepfold, rather than going through the gate, must surely be a thief and a robber! But the one who enters through the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep recognize his voice and come to him. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. After he has gathered his own flock, he walks ahead of them, and they follow him because they know his voice. They won’t follow a stranger; they will run from him because they don’t know his voice. (John 10:1-5, NLT)
We live in a day and age where it is critical that you and I hear God’s voice. He wants to talk to His sheep but we have to learn how to hear Him and learn how to respond to what we hear.
In First Samuel we read about a young child named Samuel that had been dedicated to the Lord by his mother Hannah. If you remember the story, Hannah was barren for years and she prayed and asked God for a child and she made a vow to dedicate that child to Lord. God answered her prayer and she became pregnant. So, Hannah brought the child to the temple after he was weaned, as she had promised, and the Priest Eli raised and trained Samuel in the ways of the Lord.
In 1 Samuel 3:4-19 we read about God speaking to Samuel for the first time and how he reacted. At first, Samuel thought it was Eli speaking. He did not recognize God’s voice. God spoke to him three times and Samuel still thought it was Eli. On the third time Eli told Samuel how to respond to the voice he was hearing. Eli told him to say, “Speak Lord, for thy servant heareth” (! Samuel 3:9).
So, on the fourth time that God spoke to Samuel he responded as Eli had instructed him. God then told Samuel what was going to happen in the future due to the sins of the sons of Eli. This had to be a hard message for Samuel to deliver to his mentor Eli but he told Eli everything God said. And then in 1 Samuel 3:19 the scripture says the following, “And Samuel grew, and the Lord was with him, and did let none of his words fall to the ground.”
There are a lot of lessons we can learn from this story about hearing God. I remember the first time I heard God speak to me about a situation. He told me what I needed to do but then all these other thoughts and questions came flooding in. Was that really God? Am I just imaging this?. You don’t really think God would speak to you directly? If you do what you just heard you are going to look like a fool. The enemy comes immediately to steal the Word and you have to fight through these type thoughts.
Once I actually did what God said, there was victory in the natural and in the spiritual. It was a victory in the spiritual because now I knew how to recognize His voice. Samuel never had to ask Eli again about God’s voice. He recognized it now.
The second important thing we need to see from this story is that when God speaks to us it requires an action on our part. Samuel had to tell Eli what God said and that was not easy because it involved the sons of Eli.
The other event that I will always remember in my life is when God prompted me to prophesy in a large meeting in Texas. There was all kind of well-known ministers at this meeting and hundreds of attendees. To make a long story short, I succumbed to all those voices that told me that you just need to stay quiet. You will make a fool of yourself in front of all these seasoned ministers. Well, when the next speaker came to the platform, he spoke about the exact thing I felt God was prompting me to prophesy about.
Now, of course the enemy jumped on me with both feet and told me I had missed God and He would never talk to me again. That was not true. I think I did miss God but I also learned a great truth. God will get his message out. If you don’t do it, He will find another person and that’s exactly what He did in that instance. He will also give you another
chance somewhere down the road.
Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes out of the mouth of God. God still speaks!!! He is not dead. He has given us His Word, His Son, and the Holy Spirit to communicate truth to us. We just have to have ears to hear and we have to respond to what we hear. It’s God’s on-the-job training program.
Has God spoken to you about something you haven’t done yet???
