When was the last time you know you heard God’s voice? Do you know if you have ever HEARD His voice? I don’t mean audibly. I mean hear His voice on the inside, in your spirit.
If you talk to God, they call it prayer, but if you say He talks to you, they say you’re crazy. A nut case. Bizarro. Someone to be wary of, to shun or avoid. How sad. Wasn’t it Jesus Himself who said “But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice; and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. And when he brings out his own sheep, he goes before them; and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice.” John 10:2-4
Do YOU know HIS voice? I submit to you the most important thing you can do in a given day is to hear God’s voice. Instead we fill our hearts and minds with a myriad of other voices beckoning us to do anything but engage with the Father directly, intimately, personally.
We prefer an intellectual gospel, one we can argue about, one we can debate with others, one we can grasp with our pea brain. How small and futile. Christianity is first and foremost about having a relationship with God as our Father and with His dear Son, Jesus Christ. That’s very personal. So when was the last time you quieted your soul to HEAR God’s tender voice.
Oh yes it is tender. God took Elijah aside and displayed His great power through a wind so strong it broke rocks in pieces, through an earthquake so strong, it shook the land beneath it, and by a display of fire. But the Lord was not in any of those. He was in “the still small voice” that followed. That’s how God speaks. (1 Kings 19:11-12)
Have you ever seen someone at the front of a room speaking softly? You have to really tune in to hear them or you will miss their message. I believe God speaks like that so that hearing Him requires a choice on our part, even a diligent seeking of Him. His voice is worth hearing, but if you do not know this, you will never bother.
Do you lack faith? Faith comes by HEARING. Not by reading. By HEARING. Hearing what? Hearing the Word of God (Romans 10:17) But guess what? That doesn’t mean that faith comes by hearing someone reading the Bible out loud.
As you may know, there are two commonly used Greek words that are translated “word” in our Bible. Logos is the written, eternal, settled word of God. Rhema is the spoken, voice of God. Logos can and should be read and studied often.
The Rhema should also be sought as our daily bread. Jesus Himself said, that “man shall not live by bread alone but by every word (Rhema, spoken word) that proceeds from the mouth of God.”
I fear the church has lost not only its ability to hear the voice of God, but even worse, they have lost the desire. It breaks my heart! He alone has the words of life. They are like a river of pure living water. Yet we shun that pure living water and choose instead unflushed toilet water. Need I be more descriptive?
When you read the logos, you learn what is possible, but when you HEAR God speak to you (the rhema), faith immediately arises and the impossible becomes possible! Why on earth would anyone choose to drink from the gas station toilet when Jesus offers us a fresh flowing river of pure water?
Too busy to wait on Him, to learn how to hear His voice? Keep drinking from the toilet. Maybe you will eventually get sick enough and desperate enough to change your drinking source. I pray it’s not too late. More on this later.