My husband doesn’t sleep much and watches TV constantly. Consequently, I have a white noise app on my phone to help me sleep and I’m happy to report that, when I focus on it, pretty much everything else fades away. If, however, I get up for some reason and hear the TV, I have to actively turn my attention back to the white noise or whatever is currently playing will irritate me until I go ask him to turn it down.
It’s the same way with God’s voice. We are surrounded by noise, by myriad voices, sounds, songs… God is in that mix, but unlike everything else He won’t yell to get our attention-most of the time. If we are to hear God, we must tune the rest out-or at least turn it down-and focus on Him so we can truly hear Him.
We tune the rest out when we pray, when we turn our concentrated attention on Him just as I turn my attention to the white noise. Spend enough time in prayer, getting to know His voice, and you eventually become like the mother who can instantly recognize her child’s cry in a room full of bawling babies.
Focus on Him, strive to always stay sensitive to Him, and you will learn to instantly recognize that “still, small voice” when He speaks.
The next step, of course, and often more challenging, is to do what He says.
“I’ll never know how much it cost to see my sin upon that cross.”
Once again, it’s a line from a song that’s had my attention and made me think.
Many parents have lost children. I thank God I’m not one of them, and thank Him that I can’t even imagine their pain; I wouldn’t want to. With that in mind, what about God’s pain when He sent Jesus to die for us?
Sending your son to war where he may well get killed… That pain is beyond imagining, but for God, who has existed forever, to send to His death the One who has existed forever right there with Him, to be separated from Him for a time for the first time in Eternity…
That isn’t cost. That’s COST. That is a God-sized pain that…
Someone told me, once, that we’ll know everything when we get to Heaven. I don’t believe that for multiple reasons (For instance, knowing everything would mean the end of growth and I don’t see God stopping us from growing.) and this is one of them. God is merciful, and in His mercy He will never let us know a pain so overwhelming that only He could handle it.
I thank God I’ll never know that pain, and I thank Him for choosing to endure it…for me.
I once read that Smith Wigglesworth, who had a phenomenal ministry, never read any books other than the Bible.
On the one hand, this is hard to conceive. The amount of material that was available to the avid reader, even in his day, is staggering. Could one really turn aside from all of it? On the other hand, the Word is so rich, so full, that I often feel like the time I spend in it is too short, that my morning alarm going off is a rude interruption.
And I have seen evidence, in me, of what Wigglesworth talked about. He contended that faith is based on knowledge of Who God is, and that we gain this knowledge as we are in His Word. In fact, he said, “if you see imperfect faith – full of doubt, a wavering condition – it always comes of imperfect knowledge.”
That makes so much sense! My faith is stronger today than it has ever been. Yes, it grows as it is tried and strengthened, much like a muscle grows under the same conditions, but it grows as it does because it is rooted in my ever-increasing knowledge of Who God is.
Staying in the Word really is a necessity for the one who wants ever-increasing faith.
Christian, born-again one, think about how precious you are to God.
Consider a loving earthly father. He values all of his children, would give his life for any one of them. If all but one walks away, however, the one who remains becomes especially precious.
Since God created man, most of His creation has turned away from Him. If you count all those who were destroyed in the flood, it may well be that only one in a million has been true to Him.
You may well be one in a million, and that makes you VERY precious to your heavenly Father.
Jesus told us that His sheep would hear His voice, know His voice, and follow only His voice. When you’ve been following His voice for a long time, this is obvious and easy, but what do you say to the new convert, the one who asks, “But how do I know His voice? There are too many voices in my head. Which is His?”
The easy answer is that you learn like a baby learns to hear her mother’s voice–by listening and hearing it over and over. That’s not enough of an answer, though. We’re hearing voices all the time. Our flesh speaks constantly. the devil has his say. Voices from the past intrude. Then there is God, usually speaking softly, as a patient Father, trying to get our attention.
One of the first indicators that you’re hearing God’s voice is that it’s obviously not your own. You know what I mean, you think a thought and, startled, ask, “Where did that come from?”
The next step is testing the voice. Does what it is saying line up with God’s Word? (Yes, knowing His Word is vitally important for this reason and many others.) If it doesn’t, you know it’s not God.
As it was with your parents, the more you actively hear God’s voice the more you know it. With this in mind, when I was first learning to actively listen for God’s voice, I played solitaire.
Yes, I’m serious. I would sit down to play solitaire with God at my side. I asked Him to tell me what moves to make and, even when they seemed wrong to me, I made them. It was a great self-check, because when I really did as He told me to at every step I almost always won. Being analytical, I checked myself occasionally, intentionally playing without His help. As I did, I discovered that I wasn’t really improving that much as a player; I’d clearly been getting inside information.
Hearing His voice over and over in the safe environment of a simple game made me KNOW His voice. After that, following it in my day-to-day walk was relatively easy. Perfect practice makes perfect! Why not practice hearing His voice today?
When you put a bumper sticker on your car, people associate you with whatever that bumper sticker represents. Did you cut them off in traffic? They’re probably disparaging your preferred university. Even worse if you’re a Christian, when they see you behaving badly while driving a car that labels you as a Christian or a member of a certain church, they are quite possibly using your behavior as an excuse to judge God and your church.
You think I’m kidding? I know someone who will not put one of her church’s bumper stickers on her car because she’s heard, too many times, “Those ______ drivers are some of the worst on the road!” She doesn’t want to risk her driving reflecting badly on her church, so she won’t advertise where she goes.
I think of this sort of thing often as I pray the Lord’s Prayer. I wear the label “Christian” and, whether or not anyone around me sees that label (And they do!), I know there is a multitude of other witnesses both angelic and demonic that do. Even more so, God does. God’s name is holy, and my desire is to always, even in the privacy of my own thoughts, reflect His holiness, not giving the devil or man any reason at all to judge God poorly based on ME.
As I pray “hallowed be Thy name,” I renew my commitment to keep His name holy, to do nothing to sully or stain it. I remind myself that every little thing I do and don’t do DOES matter, and that even a moment of giving in to the flesh can have a terribly negative impact on people around me, putting a wedge between them and my God and, yes, between them and my church if they know where I go. What if my church is the one God has been calling them to and my actions make them turn away? God has said in His Word that He holds me accountable for such things!
I’m human, and I fight my battles with flesh in all its forms just like every other human does. I fail Him and the people around me all too often, but when I realize I have I hit my knees, repent, and get back up even more determined to get it right the next time.
I do it because His name is holy and I am well aware that I have a responsibility, that my part as a Christian is to always do my best to respect His holiness.
What if you knew that yes, there will be a Rapture of the Church?
What if you knew exactly when it would be?
(I know… “No man knows the day or the hour.” Just roll with me on this.)
How would that affect your life?
How would it change the decisions you make every day?
What if you knew it would happen next year? Next month? Next week?
If you knew it would be next year, would you slack off in certain areas, comfortable in the knowledge that you “have plenty of time”?
If you knew it would be next month, would you get more serious about your relationship with God because you’ve suddenly realized, “I have hardly any time at all to prepare for the next phase of life!”?
If you knew He was coming back in a few weeks, how would you spend your money today? Would you buy that new pair of shoes you’ve been wanting, or would you give that money to missions in hopes of more people coming to know Jesus before it’s too late?
If you knew He was coming back next week, how would you spend your time? Would you be out watching movies, or would you be getting deeper into His Word, sharing Jesus with everyone you could, and hitting your knees in prayer?
If you knew He was coming back tomorrow…
It’s a fact: No man knows the day or the hour.
We sure can judge the seasons, though, and from the looks of things…
God wants children who love Him above all else, children who obey Him completely, children who walk with Him—following His lead instead of choosing their own paths and expecting Him to bless them anyway—children who not only know Jesus as Savior, but also as Lord.
God wants children who understand the truth of the words spoken to King Saul, that obedience is better than sacrifice, that He will not condone us doing things our way even if our way does look good in man’s eyes and seems to result in great things for the church.
God wants children who follow in the footsteps of Jesus, the One who did and said, and only did and said, what the Father wanted, who obeyed all the way to the cross and beyond when His Father called.
God wants children who don’t say, “I have decided I want to…,” but say instead, “I have decided to do what God wants me to do.”
God wants
sons and daughters
who understand what it means to be CALLED.
Therefore I, a prisoner for serving the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of your calling, for you have been called by God.
The question is not, “Am I called?” but rather, “What is my calling?” Speaking specifically in the realm of the church, we must ask, “To which local church has God called me? To which ministry or ministries within that church has God called me?” We are to seek the answers to these questions and, having found them, lead lives worthy of His calling.
The Word is specific here as it refers to “your calling.” So first we are called with a specific calling. No man should walk in another man’s calling; God expects each man to walk in his own. A man’s flesh may declare that it wants to work in one ministry, but if God has called him to work elsewhere he would be walking in disobedience if he chose to follow his flesh’s lead—this would certainly not be an act of a life that was being lived worthily.
And we must consider carefully what it is to lead a life worthy of one who is called by HIM.
If one were called by the President—that is, if the President of the United States were to call on a man to do something—one assumes that he would not only do it, but do it to the very best of his ability. Who in their right mind would consider giving the President of the United States anything less than work of the highest quality? But we are not called by the President. We are not called by any mere man. Rather, we are called by GOD.
How is it, then, that we too often offer Him second or even third best…or nothing at all? Do we consider Him to be less important than the President? Do we subconsciously take advantage of His quickness to forgive? Do we find that, since we can’t see Him with our physical eyes, it is easier to ignore the fact that He is there and waiting for us to move, waiting for us to do (and do well) what He has called us to do?
When God calls us to a local church, He expects us to be active in that church. (Hebrews 10:25, KJV, …not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.) When He calls us to a specific ministry, He expects us to serve actively in that ministry—being where we are supposed to be when we are supposed to be there and doing all we are supposed to do to the best of our ability, with the right heart.
He has given us the great honor of calling us; it is also our honor to live lives worthy of this calling.
Copyright Barry Hatch