hearing God

04/09/2009 by John Marsden.

DEEP CALLS UNTO DEEP 

God Hears Us

In my distress I called to the LORD; I cried to my God for help. From his temple he heard my voice; my cry came before him, into his ears. Psalm 18:6

 ·        When we feel most alone and at our weakest point, that is when God draws closest to us, carrying us through the difficult times.·        We must cry out to Him for help, and He will be quick to hear and come to our rescue. Although God knows our thoughts, we must lift them up to Him in prayer, and ask for His intervention. He will hear when we speak our prayers to Him.·        This verse says that our cries come before God, even into His ears. Our prayers do not just float up and around randomly and reach God at some point in the distant future; they come directly to His temple, the place where He dwells and go into His ears where He hears our needs. 

God Calls to Us

Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me. Revelation 3:20

 ·        Our relationship with God is two-way: we speak to Him and He speaks back to us. Just as we expect God to hear our prayers and answer, God expects us to listen for His voice and obey what He speaks to us.·        In this passage from Revelation, Jesus is calling out to a church that has grown lukewarm towards Him. Rather than just letting them slide further and further away from Him and His ways, He comes and calls to them and knocks at their door in order to get their attention.·        God is calling to each of us to draw nearer to Him, to be on fire for Him and not lukewarm in our faith. When we answer Gods call by opening the doors of our hearts to Him, He will come in and we will enjoy His presence. There is so much He wants to say to us, but we must be willing to let Him speak. 

God Reveals Things to Us

He reveals deep and hidden things; he knows what lies in darkness, and light dwells with him. Daniel 2:22

 ·        The bible says that the Holy Spirit searches the deep things of God and makes them known to those who have the Spirit in them.·        When we spend time waiting in God’s presence, His Holy Spirit will reveal deep things about God to us so that we can know Him and His ways more clearly.·        God’s Spirit searches our own hearts, too, and reveals things inside of us that we might not have known. God can shed light on all our hurts, trials, struggles, joys, and doubts and, if we let Him move in us, He can heal us and reveal truth to us.·        We must belong to God in order to have His Spirit in us and to have Him reveal His heart to us. How do we know if we belong to God? 

WE MUST WANT TO HEAR HIM 

Seeking Him

My dove in the clefts of the rock, in the hiding places on the mountainside, show me your face, let me hear your voice; for your voice is sweet, and your face is lovely. Songs 2:14

 ·        Song of Solomon is a beautiful book about the type of love that occurs between a husband and a wife, but we can draw many great parallels from it to illustrate the love between God and those who belong to Him.·        In this verse we see the young woman searching for the one she loves. He is her delight, for his voice and face are pleasing and comforting to her. In the same way, we seek God with all our hearts; He is our greatest love in life, our comfort and delight.·        The woman says here, “show me your face, let me hear your voice.” When we pray, we can ask God to show us His face (Moses, too, sought God’s face in the wilderness) and to let us hear His voice. He is a good God who will not disappoint us or deny us these requests. 

Submitted to Him

Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts. Psalm 95:7-8

 ·        When God does speak to us, we must be willing to listen to Him and do whatever He commands. Sometimes He will tell us to do things that we may not be very excited about—like giving up sin or ministering to people we may not like—but our hearts need to remain softened to His voice.·        What does it mean to harden our hearts? How can we keep them soft? When we are in rebellion against God, doing our own thing rather than seeking to do His will in all things, then our hearts become hardened. 

Secure in Him

The people remained at a distance, while Moses approached the thick darkness where God was. Exodus 20:21

 ·        In this story, Moses goes up on the mountain to hear God and receive His instructions for His people to share with the Israelites. When God spoke the Israelites were very afraid and begged Moses to speak to them for God, because they were too scared to hear God’s voice themselves.·        It is right to keep a fear of God in your hearts, but if you are walking in purity and holiness, you have no reason to be scared of God or of His voice.·        Like Moses, who feared God but not His voice of authority, we can be confident to approach Him in order to hear what He is speaking to us. We must want to hear God and believe that He desires to speak to us out of love.
 

Exodus 33:7-11Now Moses used to take a tent and pitch it outside the camp some distance away, calling it the “tent of meeting.” Anyone inquiring of the LORD would go to the tent of meeting outside the camp. And whenever Moses went out to the tent, all the people rose and stood at the entrances to their tents, watching Moses until he entered the tent. As Moses went into the tent, the pillar of cloud would come down and stay at the entrance, while the LORD spoke with Moses. Whenever the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the entrance to the tent, they all stood and worshiped, each at the entrance to his tent. The LORD would speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks with his friend. Then Moses would return to the camp, but his young aide Joshua son of Nun did not leave the tent. 

·        Moses took time to seek God and listen to what God was speaking for him and for His people. God is always speaking to His children, but we must—like Moses—get away from the camp and quiet ourselves in His presence to hear what He’s saying.·        Jesus said that we will recognize His voice and follow Him. As we seek God, we will easily recognize His voice and hear what He is speaking to us more and more.God delights in us and desires to have intimacy with us as He did with His Son Jesus and with Moses, speaking to him as we would speak.

Have a great day.

John

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