John 10:16 "And other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they will hear My voice; and there will be one flock and one shepherd.
Deuteronomy 30:19-20 This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the Lord is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
As you see from the first verse, we are told that we WILL hear His voice. Jesus is speaking to the Jews here and the "other sheep" He is referring to, are the Gentiles--in other words, us!
The second verse, from Deuteronomy, is one that’s probably familiar to us all. Yet as often as I have read it, I always seemed to skip over the part that said, “listen to His voice.” As you can see, the Lord has been speaking to people since the very beginning and has been telling us each since day one to listen and pay attention. Our society is set up in such a way however that to even discuss this openly, especially to unbelievers, could quite easily land us in a psych ward. The world can’t believe in hearing from someone that they can’t see. Although unbelievers will readily believe in “angels” whether or not they’ve seen one, they cannot do the same with God. Even seeing or hearing angels however can cause unbelievers to think we’ve lost our marbles. That’s why this subject isn’t spoken about very much, which is unfortunate because the lack of our leaders teaching us about this, and the attitude of society toward the idea of hearing from God, cause many new believers to resist hearing God’s voice and has caused many to wonder if something was wrong with them. It has also led to false doctrine about this subject being accepted because no one is teaching the truth about it. New believers who do realize that they’re hearing from the Lord aren’t taught to discern His voice from the world, Satan, and even their own imaginations, so many begin to believe that everything they hear is from God and that too can be disastrous. The easiest way to determine something like that is to always remember that God will never tell you anything that goes against His Written Word.
On Monday I told you that nothing can get in the way of us hearing His voice, and while that’s true, He won’t force us to listen. It’s like the difference of a child hearing what their parents are saying and listening to what they are saying. Parents cannot stop their words from going in their child’s ear and right out the other one. The Lord won't push Himself on us if we don't want Him to. He will speak to us, but if we choose to ignore Him, or if we allow doubt that it's Him and not respond, we can miss that voice when He speaks to us. Of course that's not what He wants us to do, but He will allow it. So you see it’s not so much that we don’t hear His voice, it’s more that at times we choose to ignore it.
Today, let’s practice listening to the Lord and reflecting on what He says to us.
Join us at Fresh-Hope.com
| Philippians 1:9-10 “And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ,” Brought to you by BibleGateway.com. Copyright (C) . All Rights Reserved. |
