TODAY’S WORD FOR TUESDAY AUGUST 4, 2015.
LISTENING
Hear attentively; pay heed.
Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight. Proverbs 3:5-6.
In the verse above when Jesus says acknowledge He means that we are to consider what He is saying, recognize His great power, trust His guidance, and follow His instructions. He is continually seeking to guide us but if we are not listening, we will miss His instructions and go the wrong way.
When Jesus was on this earth He made it clear many times that He wanted people to listen to Him. In Mark 4:1-3 He taught a large crowd and called for their attention by saying, “listen.” In Mark 4:23-24 Christ also announced, “If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.” And then said, “Pay attention to what you hear.” The NIV version reads, “Consider carefully what you hear.” In other words think deeply about what you hear.
In Mark 7:14 Jesus called out, “Listen to me, all of you, and understand.” His goal was that we understand what He is saying and comprehend what He says.
Jesus uses the phrase verily, verily over 25 times in the book of John alone. It was His way of emphasizing what He was saying. His words were the authoritative truth and deserved full attention.
Many people ask how God speaks to us today. His primary way of speaking to us is through the Bible. The Bible is the authoritative Word of God and the only source of truth. When we read it we are hearing directly from the Lord. This, for some, is a hard concept to understand. It is so simple but we try to make it complicated. Every word in the Bible is from God. Read it and listen. Hear and see what God is saying as you read His Word.
God also speaks to us through prayer. Prayer is our way to communicate to God. But we need to learn that it is a time for us to be still and listen, as we pray, and wait for God to give us guidance. When we wait and listen, God will bring thoughts to our hearts and convictions to our minds of things we need to address in our life. As we wait on the Lord we allow the Holy Spirit to work in our lives.
When our situation is painful, God sometimes will speak to us through the circumstance of the time. We need to learn that instead of focusing on why the situation happened we need to ask God what He wants to say to us. God also will speak to us through other people. This can be in a form of confirmation to a thought you have, encouragement or even a warning.
God’s voice is always consistent to His Word. His voice is quiet. He speaks to our hearts through His Holy Spirit. The Lord speaks clearly if we are tuned in and willing to listen. We get tuned in by reading His Word and praying and then waiting and listening.
The Lord gets our attention to communicate with Him by various ways. Sometimes it will be a sense of restlessness. Other times it will be loud and clear because we know the difference between right and wrong and when things are wrong in our life God will convict us.
Our memory verse for this week is found in Proverbs 19:17.
One who is gracious to a poor man lends to the Lord, and He will repay him for his good deed.
Teach me to listen to You daily. Help me to learn to communicate with you including learning to wait. Give me patience and an excitement to expect great and mighty things from You.
 |
| Special Price Only $10.00 Click Here for More |
ONE FINAL SUGGESTION.
If you have not received your FREE BOOKMARK from us, please click on either:
or
And we will send one to you. It includes 10 golden rules for a happy family.
