Our Passover Lamb

This morning was the third day that my wife and I started our day with prayer, scripture reading and communion.  Each morning we’ve started by praying and then asking the Lord to direct our hands to the texts that he would have us read and meditate on.  This morning my wife read from Psalm 36:5-37:7 and I read from Exodus 12:1

When I was just a boy I started trusting the Holy Spirit to guide me when I would go to read the scriptures.  I would simply plop open my Bible and then start reading from whichever passage the pages fell to.  Sometimes I would flip around first, left or right a little or a lot.  The point being I just would kind of “feel” it out.  When I felt like I came to the place that the Holy Spirit was asking me to stop and read I would stop and read.

If you’ve never tried this you may want to pray about it and ask the Holy Spirit if he’d like you to do this.  I can’t begin to tell you how much it has done to increase my reliance and dependence on the Holy Spirit always and continually leading me throughout my day.  I truly believe this is what is meant by “abiding in the vine”.  We seek the Holy Spirit’s guidance as if we actually believe what the Bible says about him.  Namely, that he is a PERSON (John 15:26) and that he teaches you ALL things (John 14:26, John 16:13, 1 Cor 2:10-16, 1Thess 4:9, 2 Tim 2:7, Hebrews 3:15, 1 John 2:20-27)

Psalm 36:5-37:7

⁵ Your steadfast love, O Lord, extends to the heavens,
    your faithfulness to the clouds.
⁶ Your righteousness is like the mountains of God;
    your judgments are like the great deep;
    man and beast you save, O Lord.

⁷ How precious is your steadfast love, O God!
    The children of mankind take refuge in the shadow of your wings.
⁸ They feast on the abundance of your house,
    and you give them drink from the river of your delights.
⁹ For with you is the fountain of life;
    in your light do we see light.

¹⁰ Oh, continue your steadfast love to those who know you,
    and your righteousness to the upright of heart!
¹¹ Let not the foot of arrogance come upon me,
    nor the hand of the wicked drive me away.
¹² There the evildoers lie fallen;
    they are thrust down, unable to rise.

He Will Not Forsake His Saints

^[b] Of David.

37 Fret not yourself because of evildoers;
    be not envious of wrongdoers!
² For they will soon fade like the grass
    and wither like the green herb.

³ Trust in the Lord, and do good;
    dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness.^[c]
4 Delight yourself in the Lord,
    and he will give you the desires of your heart.

⁵ Commit your way to the Lord;
    trust in him, and he will act.
⁶ He will bring forth your righteousness as the light,
    and your justice as the noonday.

⁷ Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him;
    fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way,
    over the man who carries out evil devices!

 

Exodus 12:1-32

The Passover

12 The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, ² “This month shall be for you the beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year for you. ³ Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month every man shall take a lamb according to their fathers’ houses, a lamb for a household. ⁴ And if the household is too small for a lamb, then he and his nearest neighbor shall take according to the number of persons; according to what each can eat you shall make your count for the lamb. ⁵ Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male a year old. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats, ⁶ and you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight.^[a]

⁷ “Then they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. ⁸ They shall eat the flesh that night, roasted on the fire; with unleavened bread and bitter herbs they shall eat it. ⁹ Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but roasted, its head with its legs and its inner parts. ¹⁰ And you shall let none of it remain until the morning; anything that remains until the morning you shall burn. ¹¹ In this manner you shall eat it: with your belt fastened, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. And you shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord‘s Passover. ¹² For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the Lord. ¹³ The blood shall be a sign for you, on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt.

¹⁴ “This day shall be for you a memorial day, and you shall keep it as a feast to the Lord; throughout your generations, as a statute forever, you shall keep it as a feast. ¹⁵ Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day you shall remove leaven out of your houses, for if anyone eats what is leavened, from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel. ¹⁶ On the first day you shall hold a holy assembly, and on the seventh day a holy assembly. No work shall be done on those days. But what everyone needs to eat, that alone may be prepared by you. ¹⁷ And you shall observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread, for on this very day I brought your hosts out of the land of Egypt. Therefore you shall observe this day, throughout your generations, as a statute forever. ¹⁸ In the first month, from the fourteenth day of the month at evening, you shall eat unleavened bread until the twenty-first day of the month at evening. ¹⁹ For seven days no leaven is to be found in your houses. If anyone eats what is leavened, that person will be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he is a sojourner or a native of the land. ²⁰ You shall eat nothing leavened; in all your dwelling places you shall eat unleavened bread.”

²¹ Then Moses called all the elders of Israel and said to them, “Go and select lambs for yourselves according to your clans, and kill the Passover lamb. ²² Take a bunch of hyssop and dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and touch the lintel and the two doorposts with the blood that is in the basin. None of you shall go out of the door of his house until the morning. ²³ For the Lord will pass through to strike the Egyptians, and when he sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, the Lordwill pass over the door and will not allow the destroyer to enter your houses to strike you. ²⁴ You shall observe this rite as a statute for you and for your sons forever. ²⁵ And when you come to the land that the Lord will give you, as he has promised, you shall keep this service.²⁶ And when your children say to you, ‘What do you mean by this service?’ ²⁷ you shall say, ‘It is the sacrifice of the Lord‘s Passover, for he passed over the houses of the people of Israel in Egypt, when he struck the Egyptians but spared our houses.’” And the people bowed their heads and worshiped.

²⁸ Then the people of Israel went and did so; as the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron, so they did.

The Tenth Plague: Death of the Firstborn

²⁹ At midnight the Lord struck down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the captive who was in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of the livestock. ³⁰ And Pharaoh rose up in the night, he and all his servants and all the Egyptians. And there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was not a house where someone was not dead. ³¹ Then he summoned Moses and Aaron by night and said, “Up, go out from among my people, both you and the people of Israel; and go, serve the Lord, as you have said.³² Take your flocks and your herds, as you have said, and be gone, and bless me also!”

A Wonderful Savior

As I’ve been thinking about the current trial that my family is going through I feel as if the Holy Spirit has been ministering to me by reminding me to the great love of God that has been demonstrated toward me in Jesus Christ.

When considering my suffering I’m prompted by the Spirit to consider those of Christ and I am humbled.  And then I am overwhelmed.

In Paul’s letter to the Colossians he speaks of the preeminence of Jesus Christ and here we’re given a small glimpse into the majesty, power and glory of our great King.

Colossians 1:15-20

¹⁵ He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. ¹⁶ For by^[f] him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. ¹⁷ And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. ¹⁸ And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. ¹⁹ For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, ²⁰ and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

Think on this for a moment.  All things, everything that exists in all the earth, in all the universe, all of it, was created BY Jesus, THROUGH Jesus and FOR Jesus and Jesus now HOLDS them all together by his awesome power.  It’s impossible for the human mind to even begin to understand the scope of Jesus’ power and might and awesome glory.  There is truly nothing like him.  Right now, as I type these words he holds my fingers together by his very power so that I might write to the praise of his glory.

This should be staggering to you.  The breath in your lungs, the matter that makes up your brain and the desk you sit at; all of it was created BY him, THROUGH him and FOR him.  Awesome indeed.

Now consider this.  Christ, who being awesome in power and might and Holy without spot or blemish, existed in perfect unity with the Father and the Holy Spirit before creation, lacking nothing, full of glory and grace and truth; would enter a fallen creation in the form of man in order to redeem sinners like me.

Philippians 2:5-8

⁵ Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus,^[a] 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,^[b] 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant,^[c] being born in the likeness of men. ⁸ And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

The King of all Creation, for whom everything was made, would willingly get off of his throne* (this is not to suggest that Jesus ever actually cease to be God) and enter this world as a man and suffer the consequence of sins he did not commit.

What’s more the King rode a donkey.  He was born in a manger.  He was homeless.  He was maligned.  Ridiculed.  Doubted.  Questioned.  Rejected.  Despised.

What grotesque injustice.

The King of everything that has been made.  The King that made everything that there is.  The King that now holds all of that there is together by his very power and he rides a donkey?

Luke 9:58

⁵⁸ And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”

I fox and a bird have a home but the King of all Creation has no place to lay his head.  I can’t even begin to fathom the level of gross injustice in this.  It’s simply beyond my intellectual grasp.

As appalling as these injustices were, we see the King WILLINGLY accept them.  At any moment the King could have stopped this injustice, he could have screamed, “are you kidding me?!, I made it all, it’s all for me and yet I have no place to lay my head at night?!”  And yet he didn’t.

Hebrews 12:1-4

12 Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, ² looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

³ Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. ⁴ In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.

John 15:11

¹¹ These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.

He willingly endured this shame for the joy that was set before him and further that we might share in his joy.

Our suffering has been significant.  But it isn’t even worth comparing to the suffering that Jesus endured on our behalf.

Knowing that the Lord would be so kind toward me is truly overwhelming.  I am humbled and comforted by such a great love.  I can’t begin to express my gratitude toward you Jesus for what you endured on my behalf.  And now you share your reward, your joy with me?

Lord, who are you?

I am so unworthy of your love and yet you have freely lavished your grace upon me, receiving in yourself all my sufferring, sin and shame and now that you have victory of sin and death by your resurrection from the grave you share your reward we me?

Lord, forgive me.

My King, there is none like you.  Not one.  You alone are worthy of praise and honor and glory.   I worship you Jesus for you alone are God and you alone save sinners.  I am so overwhelmed by the love you’ve demonstrated toward me that my words simply fail me.  Lord, I long to see you face to face that I might fall at your feet and worship you.  You are so worthy of praise.  You are so wonderful, in all your ways.  Blessed be my great God and King Jesus, a wonderful savior.

 

The Lord Forgives

This morning I told my wife that I felt compelled that we begin taking communion once daily until the Lord says otherwise.  Once in the morning with a time of prayer, scripture reading and meditating on the Lord.

We are currently in the battle of our lives.  We are pressed in on all sides.  All we know to do anymore is to seek the Lord at his table.  We know we will always have a place there.

Lord, we love you.  We magnify your name.  Precious Jesus who takes away our sins.  Lord we thank you for the cross, for your broken body, your shed blood.  It is by your stripes that we are healed.  Lord we have sinned against you.  In our doubt and fear, in our questioning your will and character, Lord we have maligned your name.  Forgive us.

Father, when you look upon us in our sin, remember your Son.  Wash us in the blood of the Lamb that we might be reconciled to you completely.  Create a new heart in us and breathe the breath of life into our souls.  Restore your Spirit within us Lord.  Give us your peace that we might share in the resurrected life of your Son Jesus who is Christ and Lord.

Amen.

We started our communion time today with prayer and then I asked my wife to follow me in simply opening our Bibles and reading whatever passage the Lord brought us to.  My wife read first from Job 5:17-27 and I read Psalm 116.

Job 5:17-27

¹⁷ “Behold, blessed is the one whom God reproves;
    therefore despise not the discipline of the Almighty.
¹⁸ For he wounds, but he binds up;
    he shatters, but his hands heal.
¹⁹ He will deliver you from six troubles;
    in seven no evil^[d] shall touch you.
²⁰ In famine he will redeem you from death,
    and in war from the power of the sword.
²¹ You shall be hidden from the lash of the tongue,
    and shall not fear destruction when it comes.
²² At destruction and famine you shall laugh,
    and shall not fear the beasts of the earth.
²³ For you shall be in league with the stones of the field,
    and the beasts of the field shall be at peace with you.
²⁴ You shall know that your tent is at peace,
    and you shall inspect your fold and miss nothing.
²⁵ You shall know also that your offspring shall be many,
    and your descendants as the grass of the earth.
²⁶ You shall come to your grave in ripe old age,
    like a sheaf gathered up in its season.
²⁷ Behold, this we have searched out; it is true.
    Hear, and know it for your good.”^[e]

Psalm 116

I Love the Lord

116 I love the Lord, because he has heard
    my voice and my pleas for mercy.
² Because he inclined his ear to me,
    therefore I will call on him as long as I live.
³ The snares of death encompassed me;
    the pangs of Sheol laid hold on me;
    I suffered distress and anguish.
⁴ Then I called on the name of the Lord:
    “O Lord, I pray, deliver my soul!”

⁵ Gracious is the Lord, and righteous;
    our God is merciful.
⁶ The Lord preserves the simple;
    when I was brought low, he saved me.
⁷ Return, O my soul, to your rest;
    for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you.

⁸ For you have delivered my soul from death,
    my eyes from tears,
    my feet from stumbling;
⁹ I will walk before the Lord
    in the land of the living.

¹⁰ I believed, even when^[a] I spoke:
    “I am greatly afflicted”;
¹¹ I said in my alarm,
    “All mankind are liars.”

¹² What shall I render to the Lord
    for all his benefits to me?
¹³ I will lift up the cup of salvation
    and call on the name of the Lord,
¹⁴ I will pay my vows to the Lord
    in the presence of all his people.

¹⁵ Precious in the sight of the Lord
    is the death of his saints.
¹⁶ O Lord, I am your servant;
    I am your servant, the son of your maidservant.
    You have loosed my bonds.
¹⁷ I will offer to you the sacrifice of thanksgiving
    and call on the name of the Lord.
¹⁸ I will pay my vows to the Lord
    in the presence of all his people,
¹⁹ in the courts of the house of the Lord,
    in your midst, O Jerusalem.
Praise the Lord!

Still waiting…

This posts is going to be a little different.  I guess with a title like “propheticwordofgod.com” you’d think this site would be filled with nothing but positive affirmations and assurances of good tidings.  Maybe it should be.  I don’t know.  What I do know is that right now I don’t really have any good tidings to give you.

My family is in a very difficult season and we simply don’t know how to go on anymore.  We’re just so very tired.  Calling this a “season” would be a misnomer.  For the entire 6 years of our marriage (and for me, the previous 3 years) we have just always been in this trial.  We, like most, thought that at some point this “season” would end and that better days would be ahead.  We thought that at some point the Lord would come in and deliver us from our trial but that simply hasn’t happened and we are at a loss as to why.

We’ve shared our grief with our brothers and sisters in the faith, we’ve shared it with each other, most importantly we’ve shared it with the Lord.  But this trial has gone on without ceasing and I am starting to lose hope.

I know that Jesus Christ is Lord.  My wife knows this.  With every fiber of my being I know and believe the good news of Jesus Christ, crucified and risen for the remission of sin.  I know the Lord loves us.  I know the Lord is with us.  Nevertheless we are so very tired or our trial.

In November of 2009, I was 29 years old, had a good job and a nice truck; generally my life was a good one.  Then one morning as I was driving into work I heard the Lord give me a prayer to pray.  I hear the Lord speak, I have throughout my life, but rarely this loudly and clearly.  As soon as I heard what he wanted me to pray, my inner voice yelled, “NO!!” but before I could do anything about it the words came pouring out of my mouth, “Lord, if it be your will and bring glory to your name, crush me.  My life is yours do with it what you will.”

Two weeks later I lost my job.  Since then, the Lord has simply refused to bless the work of my hands.  There was one year in there were I made just enough money to provide for our family.  The rest of the time though has been a practice in futility.  No matter what I do, how hard I work or how gifted I may be for a particular job or enterprise, all manner of things have worked together in the most comedic ways to ensure that money would not come to my hands by my hands.  It’s uncanny, we’ve never seen anything like it.

I’m heartbroken by my inability to provide for my family.  Some days I feel as though I will literally go insane.  I’m a smart, well educated, man.  None of this makes any sense apart from the providential working of God.

Back in 2011 about 2 years into the 9 years (and counting) trial, I was at a very low point.  Thoughts of suicide were starting to become a regular occurrence.  I felt like the Lord was asking me to spend some time alone with Him and so I decided to head out to the woods of Southeast Texas where my Dad and his friend have had a deer lease for decades.  There’s a very rudimentary camp there.  A little shack, with no running water or electricity.  I felt like it would be a good place to just go away and spend time with the Lord.

Knowing that I’d been dealing with suicidal thoughts my wife (then girlfriend) and parents were afraid of me being alone but they trusted the Lord with me.  Not knowing what our enemy was capable of we agreed that I wouldn’t take any gun with me.  There’s all kinds of critters in those woods though and so I needed something with me for protection and so my Dad made me a staff of sorts out of an old broom stick with a metal point on the bottom end.  The thought was I’d use that to fend off any coyotes or worse that might be inclined to bother me.

This was the summer of 2011, which is to this day the driest year on record (records go back about 100 years) in the state of Texas.  And it was the second hottest on record.  It was dry and hot and the woods I planned to spend some time in were a literal tinderbox.  There had been historic wildfires and people were on edge and praying for rain.

My Dad took me out to the camp and dropped me off with some water and basic supplies and then left.  It was quiet.  It was sunny.  It was hot.  It was one of those kind of days where the heat just hangs over you and presses down on you.  Not exactly comfortable, but it was where I was supposed to be.

I decided I would take my “staff” and go for a quick walk around the familiar lease.  A got about a quarter mile into my walk when something really pretty incredible happened.  Out of nowhere, and I mean nowhere, a dark cloud formed over the area and I thought, “is it going to rain?”  Just then there was a lighting strike so loud over me that it made my ears ring.  It scared me half to death.  I dropped the staff because it had metal on it and I thought it might function as a lighting rod.  This lighting/thunder was this close and this loud.  Then, it began to rain.  And I mean rain.  The rain came down hard and full and did so for about a minute or so and then just stopped and the sun and heat returned.

I’m not sure what that means or if it means anything.  But I’m inclined to believe the Lord was with me during that time in a way that I don’t fully understand.

As I spent day after day in the woods, I would read my Bible, pray and ask the Lord to speak to me.  I would read some more, pray and ask the Lord to speak to me.  It was hot during the day so I would make a trek down to a nearby creek and cool off in the water and then sit by the creek side and read, pray and asked the Lord to speak to me some more.

I read and prayed a great deal during this time and there were two things that I distinctly remember hearing the Lord say to me.  1.  “Wait.”  and  2. “You can trust in my steadfast love.”

For the next seven years I have clinged to these words.  “Wait.”  “You can trust in my steadfast love.”  Setback after setback, loss after loss, I’ve clinged to these words, this promise.  Hoping beyond hope that the breakthrough was right around the corner only time and again to realize there was another mountain to be climbed on the other side. We simply don’t have anything left in our tank to climb another mountain.

I know the Lord loves me, I know he is with me but I am just so very tired.  I can trust in his steadfast love and we are still waiting but we are just so very, very tired and not sure how much longer we can go on like this.

If you feel pressed by the Holy Spirit while reading this would you please for my family as the Spirit leads you to?  If you don’t feel led to pray in a certain way will you please pray and the Lord to remember his servant, to consider his frame, remember his family, his wife and his children and to put a stop to this trial at once.  Lord have mercy on us.

Let the dead bury the dead…

I started this blog about 7 years ago as I believe the Holy Spirit asked me to and then I just kind of set it down and walked away.  Through what would seem to be many providential circumstances and events I believe the Lord is again asking me to write on this blog.

I have many things I’d like to say, flesh out, explain; but for now I’m just going to write whatever I feel like the Lord asks me to write and just trust Him to handle the rest.

When I was a little boy the Lord revealed himself to me and preached to me then what I now know to be the gospel of Jesus Christ.  Shortly thereafter I remember the Lord telling me that I was going to go into ministry, for his namesake.  I was initially excited about the idea.  But over the years that feeling turned to anger and resentment and so I ran.

Fast forward a couple of decades and a whole lot of stories of divine providence and it appears as if that calling has come to fruition.  Last week the pastor of my church and his wife as well as another minister from the church came over to pray for my wife and I.  After talking for a while about my calling they asked me if I would accept the ministry the Lord had placed before me and I said that I would.  They laid hands on me and prayed over my wife and I and simply affirmed what I believed I had heard as a little boy, that the Lord had called me into a ministry for his namesake.

It was agreed this ministry would now be my first priority.  What exactly this whole thing would look like we don’t know yet and we’re simply trusting the Lord in the matter to reveal his plans for my wife and I as we move forward in this.  That being said, one of the first objectives was to begin writing on this blog again.  To simply share whatever the Lord gave me to share.  After that I would still have a vocation outside ministry, a “tent making” as it were but my ministry would be a first priority with everything else being subordinated to that ministry.  Again, what that even looks like apart from this blog, right now, we don’t know.  But we do feel as if the blog is a first step of obedience.

Now comes the matter of rearranging priorities.  I’m in business for my self as a general contractor and feel as though the Lord has clearly said that I am to set that aside and find other work that will allow me to truly devote the time necessary to the ministry he’s called me to.  That being said, I’m near the end of this job I’m currently on, a very complicated construction project with a lot of moving parts.   My initial thought about how to step away from being a general contractor and into my new bi vocational ministry included a professional and timely completion of my current project.

But as soon as I began to think about closing out this job before moving on to the blog or anything else ministry related, the Spirit immediately quickened in my heart, “Let the dead bury the dead.  You follow Me.”

^“59 To another he said, “Follow me.” But he said, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” ⁶⁰ And Jesus said to him, “Leave the dead to bury their own dead. But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”  – Luke 9:59

I kind of brushed this off and thought to myself, “Well yeah, just as soon as I wrap up this project, it’s the professional thing to do.”  I would get to the blog just as soon as the project finished.  Only the project won’t finish.  All manner of things have seemed to move against me in my effort to complete what would seem to be pretty insignificant tasks and wrap this job up.  Honestly, there are too many examples to go into in an effort to explain, but things my wife and I can’t help but feel is serious resistance in the spiritual realm.

But why?

“Let the dead bury the dead.  You follow Me.”

Today I was on my job site trying to tie some things up.  Again, a proposition that’s become seemingly impossible for the last couple of weeks since we prayed together with our local body about this ministry call.

Again, I heard the Lord.  “You heard me right the first time.  Let the dead bury the dead.  You follow Me.”

I immediately left the construction site to come home, get this site up and write something.  Anything.  I don’t know if this will mean anything to anyone who reads this but I feel a great peace and purpose in simply following Jesus.  Regardless of what my intellect, my loved ones, my clients or the world may say, I know what the has Lord said.

“Let the dead bury the dead.  You follow Me.”

Yes, Lord.

Today if you hear his voice…

“Today if you hear his voice do not harden your hearts…”

I’m praying that those who are reading this blog post would feel pressed in their hearts to open their Bibles and read through Hebrews 3 and 4.  Pray and ask the Lord to open your heart to receive his word.

James 1:5 tells us that if we lack wisdom that we can ask the Lord and he will give it to us, as he does so liberally (abundantly) and without hesitation.  So I want to encourage you to do just this.

What do you believe the Lord is saying here?  Why is he so concerned with us hearing his voice?  How does unbelief led to a hardened heart?  What is the Lord saying to you today?

Grace and peace to you in our Lord Jesus Christ.

How do we hear?

I had a recent exchange with someone about how we hear God’s voice and I thought it might be worth sharing here.  I hope and pray this encourages any who may read it.

Henry Blackaby said,  “God speaks through a variety of means. In the present God primarily speaks by the Holy Spirit, through the Bible, prayer, circumstances, and the church.”  I would agree with Blackaby whole-heartedly.  1 Corinthians 2:10-16 makes this point clear; we who hear the voice of God hear him speak to us in our spirit.

The point was made in our exchange that perhaps also, God speaks to us through our inner witness or “gut” and through our intuition.  To which I replied with the following:

Wouldn’t all those fall into prayer?  That is if prayer is considered an open and ongoing dialog?  Just a thought.

Also, I don’t know if I would include intuition in there.  A semantical issue but an important one nonetheless.

Here is the etymology of the word “intuition”:

intuition (n.) mid-15c., from Late Latin intuitionem (nominative intuitio) “a looking at, consideration,” noun of action from past participle stem of Latin intueri “look at, consider,” from in- “at, on” (see in- (2)) + tueri “to look at, watch over” (see tuition).

The Bible teaches us that faith comes through “hearing” and “hearing by the word of God”.  (Romans 10:17)  Taking into light our ongoing dialog concerning the important Biblical symbolism of seeing/hearing, it seems intuition would be a derivative of the former rather than the latter.  An arrival at the Truth through self initiated effort via sight, apart from God’s graced revelation via hearing.

Just a thought but I think our “gut” is, for a lack of a better word, a fair description for how we hear God’s voice.  When you say we hear God’s voice through our “gut”, I take you to mean that there is a certainty, a knowing in our gut of some thing, in spite of a lack of understanding or reason.  This is the essense of the voice of God.  Manna, “what is it?” (Please read and prayerfully consider the following Scripture.  Exodus 16 and John 6. Specifically; John 6:26-27, John 6:35, John 6: 47-51, John 6:63)

Remember, what is faith?  “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” (Hebrews 11:1) Faith, at its root, is certainty apart from reason.  “I can not see it but I know it is there.”

Man is graced ears to hear by God himself and graced to receive revelation by the Word of God; the still small voice of our Creator.

“⁸ For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, ⁹ not a result of works, so that no one may boast. ¹⁰ For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” – Ephesians 2:8-10

Unfortunately, the most common response to hearing the voice of God is fear, but fear is soon followed by the reassuring voice of our Shepard, who perfects our love and drives out our fear, “Be ye not afraid, it is I!”

The reason we can hear the voice of God in our “gut” and not through our “intuition” lies at the very character of who He is and who we are.

We his sheep, are ones who run, prone to wander, prone to leave the God we’ve loved.  We are rebellous. We are hard of hearing.  We are foolish and often find ourselves trapped in the trouble we’ve caused.  We are easily frightened and quickly slaughtered by the wolf.  At our root, we the sheep, are self righteously prideful believing we can arrive at a knowledge of the Truth apart from hearing – by our intuition – our own eyes and efforts.

But He.  He is the Shepard who goes after lost sheep.  He is loving.  He is full of grace.  He is patient and reassuring.  He is long suffering and full of mercy and his steadfast love knows no bounds.  He is the good Shepard who lays down his life for his sheep and crushes the wolf under the might of his righteousness.  He calls softly his sheep by name and they hear His voice and they follow it for they will not follow another.  He understands his sheep’s hopeless condition and in a wonderful display of his glorious grace He grants them ears to hear and words to receive that they might eat and have their fill.  He does this so that they might not fear their Shepard’s voice but know for certain – in their gut – that they have tasted of the Lord and He is good.