Listening to God

When I became a Christian, I could not remember hearing God’s good news until the day Christ walked into my living room. Suddenly I knew who He is and what I must do. Later I realized that I had heard it many times, but it did not register, and now I know why.

Tozer quotes a pastor who said, “We assume that if a man has heard the Christian gospel he has been enlightened. But that is a false assumption. Just to have heard a man preach truth from the Bible does not necessarily mean that you have been enlightened.”

Today’s devotional goes on to say, “God’s voice must speak from within to bring enlightenment. It must be the Spirit of God speaking soundlessly within.”

Let me hear what God the LORD will speak, for he will speak peace to his people, to his saints; but let them not turn back to folly. (Psalm 85:8)

The New Testament parallel passage repeats this with a warning:

Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, on the day of testing in the wilderness, where your fathers put me to the test and saw my works for forty years. Therefore I was provoked with that generation, and said, ‘They always go astray in their heart; they have not known my ways.’ As I swore in my wrath, ‘They shall not enter my rest.’” (Hebrews 3:7–11)

‘Rhema’ is a Greek word in the New Testament which means: the word of God spoken to the need of the moment. This is not about hearing it from a man or reading it in the Bible, but more about hearing the voice of God in my heart. It has to do with listening, but more about God speaking.

Tozer says God somehow puts His voice of conviction in the conscience through the Holy Spirit at a point of contact, so He is witnessing truth inside a person’s being. That person is illuminated only when God’s voice sounds within him.

I’ve been praying for God to speak ‘rhema’ to both Christians and those who do not yet believe. We all need to hear from God. A Christian is equipped to know His voice, but those who are not believers may not recognize it as from God. Sometimes they silence it by ignoring it — which can be perilous like resisting our own conscience, but worse than that, ignoring Him will be eternally fatal.

^^^^^^^^^^

Jesus, I know that praying this way is important because of the resulting attacks from my spiritual enemy as I’ve prayed that God will speak. Now Tozer is telling me that it is also important to tell people to listen. He is right. Hard hearts come from repeatedly refusing to pay attention. Sadly, I know this from experience. Your voice is usually a quiet whisper, but I’m asking You to shout at me if I am ignorantly or deliberately not listening. I do not want to others to ignore Your still, small voice, but I do not want to invite disaster into my own life either.