Being in listening mode. . . .

We took my dad for a hearing test. Mom said to the doctor, “Sometimes I say something and he seems to not have heard what I said.” Dad turned to the doctor with a twinkle in his eye and said, “Don’t you do that to your wife too?”

We chuckle at that, but there are times when spouses want to use a brick to the head when ignored, especially if the communication is vital.

It works concerning the voice of God as well. He says, “Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.” (James 1:18) and “Faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.” (Romans 10:17) But the question is if hearing the Word produces faith, how come not everyone who hears it is saved?

John Piper and many others would say that God’s ‘brick to the head’ is the gift of faith given through grace. He imparts new life and in that instant the ability to hear is also given.

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. (Ephesians 2:1–10)

While these verses only imply the way grace provides both faith and the saving knowledge of Christ, this idea of both being given at the same time explains why many theologians say that the gospel message given to us from God is irresistible. We not only hear it but are given ears to hear at the same time.

The downside is like my dad’s joking remark to the doctor — that those to whom God speaks can be in a ‘I’m not listening’ mode. Pharaoh prior to the Exodus was like that. The Bible says he hardened his heart, a very similar description of someone who refuses to listen. I do it when someone says something I don’t want to hear. It could be bad language, a coarse joke, or even a request that I’ve no intention of answering. It might go around inside my head, but without a response, whoever spoke might as well not have said it.

If I do that with God, my spiritual life takes a nosedive into deafness and even darkness. Because Jesus promised to save me from sin, He will take measures to turn on the lights and turn up the volume. He has ways of communicating that do not involve words, such as circumstances or the actions of others. As He ‘speaks’ through whatever communication method He chooses, He makes me realize that my bad attitude is no joke. If I don’t listen to Him, I will listen to my own ideas, or the world’s ways, or the devil’s lies. It does not take long to experience the folly of being deaf to God.

Faith does come by hearing. The more I listen, the more my response to life and its quirks and foibles is trusting God with everything. Besides, unlike the noisy chatter that might be happening all around me, God never says anything useless or inane. His words are life-giving, inspiring, helpful, and a great blessing.

Some families play “I spy God” and share what they see Him doing. Another interesting activity is “I hear God” and sharing what He is saying to us, including what He is asking us to do!

PRAY: Jesus, as I meet with prayer partners today, remind me to share with them the answers to both questions and ask them to do the same. We are learning to be better listeners and also excited to hear You speak to us. Thank You.

The results of hearing God

 

A few weeks ago a woman came a bit late to our church and took a seat on the end of the row in front of us. The congregation was singing, but she was sobbing uncontrollably. To my eye, she appeared devastated by loss and overwhelmed by sorrow. The Lord prompted me to step forward and go to her. As I put my arm around her, she leaned into me and continued to sob. She only said one thing: “He is so beautiful.”

I had no idea who or what she was talking about. A lost child? A broken relationship? Bad news of some sort? As the song neared the end, she settled and nodded when I asked if she was okay. I returned to my seat. After the service, we invited her to sit with us at brunch (a weekly event at our church) and she told us that her tears came when she realized the beauty of Jesus and was overwhelmed with joy.

This reason never entered my mind, yet now I understand the transparency of her response. As today’s reading says, to some the revealing of the Lord comes as a mighty and overwhelming power, yet to others He comes as the tender and gentle presence of love. Either way, He always makes His presence manifest and real to those who experience it. Jesus described it and the certainty of this wonderful gift, even though many would be too self-conscious to allow this revelation to affect them so deeply in a public place full of strangers. But as He said…

In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. (John 14:20)

I was deeply impressed by this woman and her response to meeting Jesus. It was not the first time. She told us of her faith and how God revealed Himself and His will to her. Today’s devotional says we may have believed certain things before because God says it in the Scriptures, but when He gives it to us with the testimony of an inward consciousness, it becomes ours — totally unassailable by any form of questioning or doubt.

Our son told us that God was revealing much to him about the source and extent of evil in this world. He added, “I couldn’t see it before, but now I do and sometimes I wish I could un-see it.” In other words, when what God says is heard, it sticks. Not that we don’t have lapses. Our spiritual enemies (principalities and powers in heavenly places) make many efforts to rip truth from our minds and plunge us into darkness, yet that light from the Lord cannot be extinguished.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. (John 1:1–5)

In the OT stories, the Israelis believed the Lord was in their midst during their wanderings and in their years of bondage, even when no sign of His presence was seen among them. After they settled and Solomon built the temple, Solomon prayed: “But will God indeed dwell with man on the earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you, how much less this house that I have built!” (2 Chronicles 6:18)

I can relate to Solomon’s prayer: How can God be in my life? Yet “As soon as Solomon finished his prayer, fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices, and the glory of the Lord filled the temple.” (2 Chronicles 7:1) At once, without the need of any command from Solomon, the people bowed themselves with their faces to the ground and worshiped and praised the Lord. In the midst of whatever happened, they knew He never abandoned them.

PRAY: Lord, Solomon’s prayers and requests affirmed faith and You answer me just as You answered Solomon, “I have heard your prayer and have chosen this place for myself as a house of sacrifice.” (2 Chronicles 7:12) The sacrifice part is as real as the understanding that You are with me, even when all seems dark. If I did not know your presence, I would fight or flee the discomfort and pain sacrifices bring. However, hearing You makes a difference. Your voice helps me accept that Your plan involves death to self and giving up my desires. Your voice also reveals Your plans. Not only that, when I hear You, I know You are standing very close to me!

Hearing God Speak…

 

Years ago two cult members came to my door. They were interested in what I believed, but they insisted that someone must have taught it to me. When I told them that I learned about God by reading His Word and by the things He revealed to me, they insisted all that I knew must have came by teaching from someone else. Eventually I realized that this was the only way of learning that they knew; a revelation directly from God by the Holy Spirit and through what the Bible says was foreign to them.

Faith is an important part of how everyone lives in ordinary life, not only in spiritual matters. If I believe something, I act upon it in little matters like turning on the lights or running water into the sink. Because I believe my children are capable of doing many things, I don’t worry about them all the time. Because faith tells me the sun will come up in the morning, I’m not looking for a flashlight to get me through the day. All sciences and activities are based on faith also. Those engaged in anything must believe something about it or they would not do it.

I read this morning that God made us like that. However, in matters related to faith in Him, it isn’t about some idea or proof or evidence that I come up with, or that someone else teaches me. This does not negate Christian teaching, but if that is the only ground for faith in God, then I could change my mind if something else is more appealing to me.

The nature of true faith depends on God revealing it and giving me the ability to believe what God says, not the content of what He says so much as that fact of who is saying it. When God speaks to me through His Word and His Spirit, and I hear it, I cannot deny it. That is faith.

And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?” So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ. (Romans 10:15–17)

However, the Bible is clear — merely hearing the Gospel does not automatically result in saving faith; I must hear God speaking in whatever form that hearing happens, either in reading His Word, or hearing it preached, or when someone says His truth and God uses it to speak to me. It is the Word of Christ that produces faith, not the words by themselves.

My experience verifies this, even though it needs no such proof. After many years of daily Bible reading without understanding it, I was reading a non-Christian book and God spoke to me through a verse of Scripture quoted in that book. This time, I heard God and faith happened. In that instance, He changed my life to one of faith in Him instead of trusting myself or my own judgment.

Lately I’ve noticed that many who call themselves Christian have not really heard God. They have had much Christian teaching, but like the cult members who came to my door, hearing it from others, even if what others say is true (not so in the cults). That alone does not create belief in what they say. To have genuine saving faith means hearing the Lord speak. When that happens, so does obedience and a change of life.

Merely hearing it from a human source without the voice of God may produce a form of believing, but it does not change lives nor does it last. The idea of “I must be good enough” remains, the idea of “I need to earn it” remains and motivates.

Once I asked a different member of that same cult mentioned above to read this aloud to me:

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. (Ephesians 2:8–9)

Then I asked her how a person is saved according to what those verses say, and she replied, “By doing good works.” She did not hear God speak nor even understood the words and remained in spiritual darkness.

PRAY: Lord, I know too many who never hear You or expose themselves to hearing You. Some of them go to church and will say, “Oh what a good speaker” about the sermon and yet their lives are not changed. I know that it is possible to shut my mind and at times put faith in myself. I need You to speak to me, even now as a saved person. My heart aches for those who think they must earn salvation and for those who are not at all interested. Speak, Lord. We all need to hear You.

 

Hearing what He says

 

 

A video shows small children, even babies, who were deaf and given aids to hearing. For the first time they can hear the voices of their parents and their faces are alive with joy. I’ve also met a child who was kept quiet since a babe because his parents were in hiding. Now free, he can speak but does not know how. I complain at times that I am not heard, but I know nothing about communication problems compared to these little ones.

It is not a surprise that the word for SAY or utter or speak is the most common verb in the OT. God is a communicator and we are made in His image, made to communicate. Even with the disaster of Babylon, the world is involved in learning how to talk to those of other languages. Learning to express our ideas and feelings is a big part of education. Learning the other side of it, to listen, is also a vital part of human life.

“Speak, Lord, for thy servant listens” is an important prayer. Realizing that the writers of Scripture had a commitment and said, “As the Lord lives, what my God says, that I will speak” is also vital. Even more important to all of life is saying this and meaning it: “Whatever the Lord our God says, declare to us and we will do it.” If being heard is important to me, how much more does my Creator want me to do more than merely hear Him but to also do what He says to me.

Think of the power of His words. He said, “Let there be light” and “there was light.” He spoke promises to His people, promises and covenants that have been kept. He warned them of disaster when they didn’t listen and those disasters happened. We humans speak and try to influence others with our words but we do not have the power and control that the words of God have. Compared to Him, we mutter and babble.

In the NT, the word for say and its variations is about expressing oneself orally or in writing, in specific ways and to inform others, even to call or name something. It is about asking and replying and about making declarations. Many times Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you . . . .” to tell His followers something of importance to their lives. Often His instructions were, “But I say to you . . . .” as He showed them the contrast between human and sinful ways of thinking compared to the way that God speaks. For instance . . .

Matthew 5:43–48. “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

In this, Jesus is saying that to be a complete person and without defect, I’m to be like Him, like God. The good news is that because He died for my sin and offers new life, His life, to me, this is possible. Faith begins the transformation and even though it will not be complete until I see Him face to face, because of this “Word of God made flesh” I and all of His followers can do what God says. Without Him and the power of His Holy Spirit, this never happens.

GAZE INTO HIS GLORY. Focusing on Jesus is impossible without reading and hearing what He says. His Word is the agent by which He transforms His people. Peter said it well:

1 Peter 1:22–23. “Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart, since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God.”

The Bible also says that “faith comes by hearing.” I need to be a good listener to what God says. Also, I know my heart tends to follow whatever my eyes and ears prioritize. Whatever Jesus says is life-changing for those who hear Him, believe Him, and do what He says. These are good reasons to give attention to Jesus, yet the best reason is His love, love expressed in all that He does and every word He says.