Hearing God

“God opposes the proud

but shows favor to the humble.” 

Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded…Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up,” James 4:6b-8, 10, NIV.

Our church is currently going through a study about hearing God. It has been wonderful. The truth that God is still speaking and desires to do so is encouraging. He really does want a relationship with His children. This is one of those great mysteries that continues to baffle some. 

What’s sad is that it baffles some of God’s children. I get it. When the world is calling those who hear from God “crazy,” because they don’t understand, it actually can be confusing. But God continues to draw near to those who are seeking Him. It’s unmistakable.

Our job as believers who hear is to make sure we are listening with the intent to glorify God and respond in a way that will build up His kingdom. We are not to use our stories for selfish ambition. We are not to brag in a spirit of self-righteousness about what God says. This only confuses others, or worse, promotes jealousy and envy.

We are to make sure our sharing is delivered with a submissive heart and attitude. We are to ensure that what God tells us glorifies or keeps the attention on God only, not ourselves. After sharing a story of how God spoke to us, we need to be aware of the temptation to sit a little straighter and to smile with too much self-confidence.

Our sharing should be filled with joy that what we are about to share comes from God and is about to encourage another person. Our sharing should help build up the body, drawing them into God, desiring more of Him. 

We should be changed by our experiences. We should be loving God with a bit more of our heart, our mind, our strength, and our soul. We also should be loving others more than ourselves, wanting them to see, know, and experience God more for themselves as well.

This is the ideal. But we, mankind, get in the way. We desire to see our names on the marquee just under God’s name. Who am I kidding—we want our names on the same line as God’s, if not above His name. We are arrogant, selfish humans. It’s a wonder our Father works so hard at communicating with us!

Oh, how great and deep is His love for us!

”See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know Him,”

‭1 John‬ ‭3‬:‭1‬, NIV.

I want to hear Him with a pure heart.

Is this your desire, too?

Father,

We struggle at hearing Your sweet, tender voice. Then we struggle to not brag when we do hear it! Help us. Help us to be mindful of You and the reasons You want to communicate with us. 

You love us.

You want us to be part of Your family. You have called us children, and You want to be a good Father to us.

Help us hear in order to grow closer to You, encourage others, and build up Your kingdom. Help us have pure joy about the fact that You actually speak to us, but help us not to get carried away through boasting or bragging about it.

Thank You for Your Spirit who works overtime trying to train us to be good, obedient children. Thank You for Your patience through our preparations. 

We sincerely love You. We do want to lift Your name up above our own.

Amen.