I want to teach you today about how to listen to the voice of God and to believe for God to do wonderful things in your life.
God is different from all the idols in the world. Idols are actually nothing but statues made of wood or stone or carved rocks. These are created things in the world, just like you and me. They did not make us, and we are not to fear them.
The problem is that demons use the statues to confuse people. They try to use the idols to make people think that there are other gods besides the one true God. But God wants a personal relationship with us. In fact, God wants more than a personal relationship with us, He wants to be our Father in heaven.
So, when Jesus taught about prayer he said, Do not think that God will hear you just because you talk a lot in prayer. It is more important to trust in God as our heavenly Father. Prayer is speaking from the heart, rather than saying the perfect words.
When I used to work in the real estate business as my daily job, I used contracts all the time. People who do not know each other have to use contracts with very specific words.
But God does not make a contract with us. He made a covenant with us sealed with the blood of His Son Jesus Christ. When Jesus died on the cross, he offered up his life to pay the death penalty we deserved for our sins against God. Paul wrote to the church at Ephesus and said,
Remember that you were ... separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. (Ephesians 2:12,13)
... So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God. (Ephesians 2:19.)
If we turn away from our sins against God and ask God to forgive us, then He will. The apostle John wrote, "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9 ESV).
God does not require any payment because Jesus has already died for us as payment in full for our sins. All He asks is for us to believe him. This is not hard to understand. This is a gift from God. You do not have to stop eating food, or do anything crazy. You do not have to pray for hours and days. You cannot buy God’s love with money or good deeds. God loves when you hear Him and believe in Him.
But today I want to teach you more about how to listen to God and not so much about talking to God. There are many who like to talk about what God said to them. They want you to listen to them as if they are special. But I want to talk about what God says to you. Can you hear Him? How do we hear Him?
I think the first time I remember really hearing the Word of God was when I was 13 years old. I was a very plain person. I was not handsome or rich, and I did not talk a lot. I was weak and unsure of myself. I was very average.
When I was 13 I went to summer camp and the counselor said that he wanted us to learn to have a daily time alone with God. He said we should have a time to think about God and read the Bible. So, I said okay. The camp was located next to the ocean, so I went out to the hill by the ocean and sat in a big wooden summer chair. I opened the Bible to the Gospel of John. I began to read. And maybe for the first time, I began to remember what I was reading.
This is what I read:
In the beginning was the Word. And the word was with God and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him... And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we saw his glory, (glory as of the only-begotten of the Father), full of grace and truth. John, Chapter 1.
As I read the Bible, I began to think thoughts I did not think about before. The Bible is called the Word of God because it was written by men who were taught what to say by the Spirit of God. Jesus is called the Word of God because he is the visible lesson about who God really is.
Paul wrote,
All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. 2 Timothy 3:16-17 ESV.
What was happening to me as I read the Bible as a teenager was that I was beginning to hear God speaking. The Bible is God speaking to us. And I did not really understand how this happened, but it did happen, because I stepped away from the daily activity that filled my life as a teenager, and I gave a few minutes to listen to God out of his book.
Let me tell you a secret about God. It is not a secret to many people who know God, but it is a secret to many people because it is not widely understood. This is the secret: God loves hearing and believing. God loves when people hear Him and believe Him. God has designed the world to be saved from judgment for our sins by hearing and believing God.
This is more important to God than any miracle. Many people come to church seeking a feeling or emotion from God. They say to themselves, When I get that special feeling or emotion from God, then I will know that God is real in my life. Then the pastors and leaders in the churches all look to inspire feelings in people. They want to become wonderful preachers that are entertaining. They want the right lighting in the sanctuary to enhance the “experience” of worship. They want all the decorations of the church to be pleasing to the eyes. But sadly, they don’t leave any room for faith.
One of the biggest revivals of the baptism in the Holy Spirit happened in 1906 in Los Angeles on Azusa Street. A very old building ready to fall down was rented for a revival meeting. The preacher stood on a wooden box. He would preach a while and then lie down on the floor, put his head in the box and pray. People were so blessed with the presence of God at those meetings that churches started all over the country and thousands of people received the baptism in the Holy Spirit.
We have all been guilty of thinking that God must manifest Himself to us in a supernatural way for us to believe He is with us. No! No! NO!
God loves us hearing the word of God so that we can believe in Him. That is the way God is working. This is why Paul wrote in First Corinthians:
For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. 1 Corinthians 1:21 ESV.
Paul was one of the most educated men in the country of Israel. He was the head of all the lawyers in Israel. But he said it was the will of God to save people who believe, not those with a lot of education. And what did they believe? ...the preaching about Jesus who died on the cross for our sins, and rose from the dead.
Paul preached everywhere and his conclusion was “the Jews demand a sign and the Greeks seek wisdom.” Nothing has changed since Paul wrote,
As the scripture says, "Everyone who calls out to the Lord for help will be saved." But how can they call to him for help if they have not believed? And how can they believe if they have not heard the message? And how can they hear if the message is not proclaimed? Romans 10:13-14 GNB.
The whole world says, Seeing is believing! They mocked Jesus as he died on the cross saying, "Come down from the cross and we will believe you." But Jesus could not come down from the cross because he came to earth to die for our sins.
When he arose from the dead after three days he showed the disciples he was alive with many proofs. Thomas said, I must see the nail marks in his hands before I believe.
What did Jesus say? Jesus said to him, "Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed." John 20:29 ESV.
Why did Jesus give a special blessing to those who believed he was raised from the dead and is now alive? It is because God loves hearing and believing!!
Jesus taught a parable about a man sowing seed. “Sowing” seed means the farmer is throwing the seeds around, not planting them one seed at a time. The seeds fell on hard soil, shallow soil, soil with weeds, and good soil.
This is a wonderful parable to study because in Mark chapter 4, Jesus told the parable and then he explained each part of the parable to his disciples. We do not have to guess what the story means. Jesus told us what it means.
He said the story is about a man who was preaching about Jesus to anyone who would listen. The parable is about how people responded when they heard the gospel message. This story teaches us more about hearing than it teaches about preaching. The story tells us how to listen better to God.
Jesus said the seed in the parable is the word of God, and the parable tells us how people hear the word of God. Some people are very angry against God. Any time you start a conversation, if you start talking about Jesus, they forget it immediately. Jesus said, Satan takes the word right out of their minds.
I gave a little food to a man sitting by the road last week. I saw him sitting there for two days, so I knew he was homeless. When I mentioned Jesus, he got very angry. He started to yell and yell loudly. The demons in him did not want him to listen.
A second way people listen is that they agree and say they believe God. But Jesus said these people are shallow. They do not think about things deeply. When the word brings them persecution or difficulty they quit. The problem they have is that do not think about the value of the word.
When someone tells them “God loves you” they do not think about what an amazing thing it is that God who made everything really loves me! They forget that the love of God is more important, and will last longer than any difficulty or hard times.
Is that like you sometimes?
A third group of hearers is more serious. They want the word of God to grow in their heart, but then they also want other things to grow also. They do not understand that your heart does not have room for many different things to be number one. For example, God made us for only one husband or wife. We cannot have many wives or many husbands. Marriage must be with one only.
It is the same with our relationship with God. There is only room for one God in our life. Everything else is an idol. If we choose to follow God, we must say no to many other desires for money, entertainment, or things that take our time. If you have ever gardened, you know that weeds choke out the plants you are trying to grow. But it also takes a bit of experience to know a small weed from an immature vegetable seedling. This is why we need to stay in prayer and ask for a revelation of God's will for our life.
But the last group are those who let the word of God grow a deep root in their heart. The love of God grows, and with the love of God comes our love for other people. Jesus said the two great laws of God are to love God completely, and to love other people with the love God teaches us.
So, in closing let me teach you how to hear the word of God when God speaks to us, especially as he speaks to us when we read the Bible.
1. Hear with your heart. When we hear with our heart, we pay attention to what we are hearing. We all hear so many things every day. Traffic, airplanes, gossip, complaining, news... We need to pray every day for God to speak to our heart. Say in your praying, “Oh God, everyone is talking all the time, please help my heart to hear the important things you want me to know today!” When you hear those things, hear with your heart, so that God can teach you.
2. Hear with Discernment. We all hear so many advertisements every day that we feel like everyone is hitting us with baseballs. We become very hardened and defensive. Do not become defensive so that you reject everything. Become discerning so that you can still hear God speaking to you. Paul wrote,
Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things (Philippians 4:8 ESV).
When Paul wrote, “Think about these things...” he was saying you must choose what stays in your mind. Be discerning between what is good and bad. God expects Christians who believe in Him to judge between what is good or bad. When Jehovah Witnesses come to my door I tell them about Jesus and sometimes I offer them something to read. They will usually talk with me, but they always say, We are not allowed to read anything. How sad!
God never expects you to be the slave of anyone else. Many religions and churches try to own you, but remember that you belong to Jesus. God wants you to use the mind he gave you. Many church leaders will not let anyone speak in church except themselves. The church needs the gifts of God working in every person. The apostle Paul wrote, “Do not quench thee Spirit. Do not despise prophecies, but test everything; hold fast to that which is good.” (I Thessalonians 5:19-20).
3. Hear with faith. God gives the word to the world like a farmer planting seed. Paul taught that we can learn truths about God from all the Scriptures. Knowledge of God is never given to be put on the shelf like the books I have given to people. It seems like they never read them. But God sows the word in our hearts to produce 30, 60 or even 100 times more good in our lives! But this can only happen when we believe the words He gives to us.
Peter wrote about the Bible promises God made. He said, “God has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4 ESV).
Promises are words from God that are meant to be believed. Some promises are meant for the present and others are for the future, but all are to be believed today, when we hear them.
4. Hear with action. “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.” (James 1:22 ESV). The full picture of life lived as a Christian is that God loves hearing and believing because it is through hearing and believing God that we change.
The word of God is sown to produce a harvest of good in us. This was God’s original purpose in creating us, and He does not give the word to us for entertainment. The word of God is not like a music concert. That is hearing for entertainment. Church meetings are never for entertainment, but for hearing the word of God from pastors, teachers, prophets, and any of the people in the church who are prophesying with the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Did you know that Paul wrote, “For you can all prophesy one by one, so that all may learn and all be encouraged”?
God has sent us the Bible to be the personal word of God in our ears. It is good for us to listen to it carefully, to believe in it fully, and to act on it purposefully.
Amen
Blog # 20230821
Comments