A Nugget from New Life Network
Scripture for the Day (November 26, 2018)
He that hath ears to hear, let him hear. (Matthew 11:15)
We have written several devotionals over the last few months about the critical importance of hearing God’s voice. It would appear that hearing God speak is an unknown occurrence in many people’s lives. That should not be!!! If you are a child of God you should be able to hear your Father’s voice. Today, I want to look at a few biblical examples of hearing God and a few reasons why we either don’t hear Him or we don’t want to hear Him.
The Bible (The Word of God) starts with God speaking directly to Adam and Eve.
And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. (Genesis 1:28)
The Word of God is replete with God speaking to His people.
Now after the death of Moses the servant of the Lord it came to pass, that the Lord spake unto Joshua the son of Nun, Moses’ minister, saying, Moses my servant is dead; now therefore arise, go over this Jordan, thou, and all this people, unto the land which I do give to them, even to the children of Israel. Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, that have I given unto you, as I said unto Moses. (Joshua 1:1-3)
And as he journeyed, he came near Damascus: and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven: And he fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? And he said, Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest: it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks. (Acts 9:3-5)
And then the last book in the Bible (The Revelation) is John’s account of what he heard directly from the Lord.
So, to me, it is pretty obvious that God wants to talk to us. He did not stop talking once the Bible was published.
There are however some things that keep us from hearing God and I want to touch on just a couple of those things today. Sin is obviously the first thing. Do you remember Adam hiding from God? Adam did not want to hear or talk to God. I can remember in my young rebellious years how I did not want to read the Bible or go to church. Why? As I look back on it now, I was scared that God was going to expose my sin. I was scared that if I did submit myself to Him He would send me to some far off place like Africa and I was going to have to give up all my sinful ways. Bottom-line, sin separates us from God.
Secondly, we don’t want the responsibility that goes along with hearing God so we try our best to pass that off to someone else, like our Pastor. Do you remember the story of Moses going on the mountain to talk with God and the people were afraid to go. This is what the people told Moses.
And they said unto Moses, Speak thou with us, and we will hear: but let not God speak with us, lest we die. (Exodus 20:19)
In my opinion, this was the beginning of us being afraid to hear God’s voice and the abdication of our personal responsibility to hear Him. That fear and irresponsibility are still with us today.
I think what we have also done to help shift the blame away from us is believe, and even preach, that God does not speak anymore. Some teach that God speaking to man died out when the Apostles died. That’s a very clever way of shifting the responsibility and blame over on God. I wonder who thought up that lie about our Father? Could it be the “father of lies”?
I am going to keep saying this, and keep writing about this, until someone out there starts believing it and starts hearing God. Jesus said my sheep hear my voice. That is either true or it is a lie and Jesus does not lie. Man does not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. Jesus said He did not say anything unless He heard it from the Father. Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of God which boils down ultimately to what God said or what He is saying.
God wants to speak to you personally. He will show you great and mighty things that you know not of. He will give you answers to your questions and directions for your journey. All you have to do is believe, ask, listen, and then respond to what He tells you. It’s that simple!!!
