Hear God

P 2891 Obedience is its own reward.

/ DVH

People say odd things sometimes. things like: “I can’t hear God.” Here’s a big fat clue. Did you obey the last thing He told you to do? How are you going with putting Matthew chapters 5&6 into practice? That’s a great place to start!  I think the Beatitudes will keep us busy for a lifetime of practising, listening, learning, and allowing His Word to transform us. I must admit I have never quite figured out why we skip those first two commandments, and still feel good about ourselves, because we’ve obeyed all the other ones.

Opportunity came knocking on this man’s door! “Why do you ask Me about what is good?” Jesus replied. “There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, keep the commandments.”“Which ones?” he inquired. Jesus replied, “‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, honour your father and mother,’ and ‘love your neighbour as yourself.’“All these I have kept,” the young man said. “What do I still lack?”Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow Me.” Matthew 19:19-22. Jesus is not talking about our owning stuff, by the way, He’s talking about the kind of stuff that owns us.

Point number one: This young man was on the right track:  when we choose to follow Jesus, we need to ask Him this kind of question. Yes I am serious! There is way too much back-slapping going on in the Body of Christ, and not enough soul-searching. I ask myself questions, because I know I am not done yet.  I know I’ve wasted a great deal of my life so far, trying to fit in, and find approval. However, this young man had approval from the Lord immediately, because he had done his best to obey what he already knew. God is so generous – He values the attitudes of our heart. But, at the same time He’s not shy, He will also expose what’s else is in there too.

Point number two; Never ask a question when you are not prepared to get an answer!! I believe this man was sincere, he wanted the life of God in him and he wanted to be wholly His. Jesus gave him what he asked for – right there, on the spot! There are many times we go to the Lord and all we want is to be petted and patted. Life has gotten rough and we need a big cuddle. If we want to be mollified and pronounced excellent, then we need to go to someone who wants something from us and ask them the above question. Those people will tell us how great we are because they have an agenda!

Personally, I think we are better off asking our enemies to give us their opinion – they may not be entirely accurate, but they won’t pander to our needs either. Our enemies may have a great read-out on what’s wrong with us!  In the interest of full disclosure I must say I haven’t done that one yet…! I’ve been put off because I’ve had plenty of enemies tell me – they volunteered! … what’s wrong with me. My problem was … because they were enemies I didn’t think I had to listen! Ya might want to Selah that thought a while.

Point three: did you notice that Jesus praised the man for his ongoing efforts? Yet at the same time, the Lord actually knew what was holding this man back from his expressed desire to do whatever God wanted from him. The desire to do what is right in God’s eyes, is not the whole ball-game. There is always more, and in this guy’s case the ‘more’ was in his finances! None of us are perfect, so learning what we need to know is a blessing, not a criticism.

Now let’s not miss the punch-line, shall we? After Jesus tells this young man to sell all the profits from his own hard-work and give the results to the poor — then He says the most amazing thing: ’YOU can be My disciple and follow Me.’ This is the reason I wrote this blog today, we all have things in our lives that we want more than God – we just choose to ignore them. We live our lives virtually unaware of what could be holding us back from utterly yielding our lives to Him. Maybe you could ask yourself this question: What is it that is holding me back from giving the Lord all of my life, and choosing to obey Him – no matter what it costs? 

I can’t answer that question for you. I can only tell you that in my own experience, you can never ever out-give God. His plans for us are to give each of us a hope and a future. Sometimes we can stumble over full-surrender, because we don’t know what is on the other side of yielding everything to Him. However, we do know that God is gracious, He is kind, He’s OUR loving Heavenly Father! 

If we only focus on what we will lose … we’ve missed the real point. God is good, what He does, is always GOOD. We just don’t get to define ‘good’ for ourselves! Obedience is its own reward — check it out:  Deuteronomy 6:24; 10:12-13; and Proverbs 9:12; Ecclesiastes 11:5b.  Bye 👋

P 2588 Can you tell me how I can hear God?

/ DVH

It’s like the telephone or the internet. First you need a connection! Jesus talked about that in John chapter 3 – He told Nicodemus …“you must be born again.”  This is not necessarily a feeling – it isa spiritual transaction. To hear God all the time, you need to give your life to Him. BTW, this is not a try now and buy later system. When you jump in, and surrender to Jesus Christ, you are all in – you can’t just dangle your feet in and hope that will do! This place is a place of decision and complete surrender. That means I have given away my life, my hopes, my dreams to Him.

It is a serious place. This decision is not just about whether you will spend your life in heaven one day or not. It is about here and NOW, because when we’ve made this decision, we want to become God’s kids. Now, we bring heaven with us wherever we go.  This process is described in Galatians 2:20. NIV. “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, Who loved me and gave Himself for me.” 

The minute I gave my life to Christ, for Him to use for His purposes, I died. However, I am not a zombie, nor am I subject to mind-control! Instead, I have been given power to control my own mind because of what Jesus Christ did for me. Sadly I can still choose to do and say dumb things, but now I live my life knowing Christ has already forgiven me – He will not give up on me.

Because of my decision to follow Him, His life has flooded my heart, soul, mind, and body, and I found the real reason I am here… Which is to serve Him, and you!  An eternal seed was planted within me when I made that decision. It is up to me to water, fertilise and care for that seed, otherwise I am just going to stay a teeny tiny fragile little plant who expects everyone else to look after them. However, I was born into God’s kingdom to grow and mature. I can’t blame my pastor if I don’t talk to Jesus, or read the bible or obey what God has told me to do in His book. Like the mustard seed Jesus talked about in Matthew 13:31-32. I’ve been designed to grow into a spiritual tree, that gives other people spiritual food, shade and shelter, in this life. 

From the moment I was born again, I was given spiritual ears to hear Him and spiritual eyes to see Him at work in my life, and in the lives of others. However, He does not necessarily talk to me through a booming voice, or angel visitation, He talks to me in the place where I have always talked to myself. Some people call that my conscience, or my thoughts – others might say: “He speaks into my heart.” Because this new kingdom we have entered is spiritual, we can be deceived if we don’t read the bible. The bible is the manufacturer’s handbook, so it tells us what spiritual people are, and what they do. Jesus’ life and death is our visual aid. He shows us what living a life of love toward Him and others looks like.

Because … the devil has been talking to you and I from the moment we first understood language– we know that satan also talks to us in the place where we think. he’s been lying to us and telling us God does not want us or care about us, because we are not special enough!  It is up to me to read the bible so I know for myself, what God says — then I can hear when satan tells me a lie. satan is pushy, loud, and mean. he twists things and tries to make us feel stupid, small and inadequate, because he uses the place where we self-talk, to play on our feelings and bring up old circumstances. satan will even use our rational thought processes against us.

We have been absorbing knowledge one way or another all of our lives, However, what we’ve absorbed from that knowledge does not have to be accurate. It can be influenced by who taught us, or our past experiences., and by the dumb things we’ve chosen to do or read, or the people we’ve hung around with. Not every thought that pops into my head is God speaking, and sometimes those thoughts that sound like me are my enemy. satan sounds like me because I am used to his whispering. Nevertheless, I must always take whatever I hear/think, and hold it up against what God says in His book.

The best thing anyone can do to prevent deception is to know, for themselves, what the Holy Spirit has said in the bible. We need to keep reminding ourselves that we are now God’s house:“Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, Who is in you, Whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honour God with your bodies.” 1 Corinthians 6:19-20. 

We are meant to digest His book by reading it, and then we must obey — do what it says. That’s how the bible becomes part of us. It will change our minds and thinking. It will help us diagnose our own wrong thinking, as well revealing as satan’s whispers.We are in a war … we live in enemy territory.  Some of the worst wars often happen INSIDE our own heads! But sometimes we blame satan for stuff that is really us. Maybe we chose it, or we continued to participate in things that the bible says are not good for us. Everything we do in this life is about choices. As we start to mature, we will make better more informed choices. 

When you and I hear, whispered quietly inside our own thoughts, “I love you” ….that’s God speaking! satan doesn’t love anything. I urge you to pray for eyes to see the Lord at work in your own life, plus ears to hear Him, then check out what you hear with what it says in the bible. The bible is one of God’s ways of manifesting His steadfastness. 👋