30 Jan 2017 - Are You Willing To Listen To God?

My Utmost For His Highest

Samuel was afraid to tell Eli the vision. —1 Samuel 3:15

{CHAMBERS} “God never speaks to us in dramatic ways, but in ways that are easy to misunderstand. Then we say, “I wonder if that is God’s voice?” Isaiah said that the Lord spoke to him “with a strong hand,” that is, by the pressure of his circumstances (Isaiah 8:11). Without the sovereign hand of God Himself, nothing touches our lives. Do we discern His hand at work, or do we see things as mere occurrences?  Get into the habit of saying, […] Never ask another person’s advice about anything God makes you decide before Him. If you ask advice, you will almost always side with Satan. “…I did not immediately confer with flesh and blood…” (Galatians 1:16).”

{ELGIN}  Knowing when it is God who is speaking to you. It can be a very difficult thing and a great test of faith.  First, your heart must be right – no unconfessed sin.  Second, your heart must be willing. Be willing to say “yes” to God no matter how impossible what He tells you might seem. And third, you must act on what He tells you to do, immediately.  When you actually go or do may not be the same day, week month or year, but your step of faith begins in the heart.  I have referred to Henry Blackaby’s Experiencing God in the past.  Dr. Blackaby wrote that there are four ways that God will speak to you by the Holy Spirit, 1) His Word, 2) prayer, 3) circumstances, 4) other believers – the Church.  In my experience it has been a combination of the four.  One confirming the other. 

For Samuel, he mistook God’s voice for Eli.  It was Eli that told Samuel it was God speaking to him and he should listen. Has God spoken to you?  What did you do?  Obeying God will always cost you something.  Are you willing to pay any price?  Are you willing to go anywhere or do anything? Really?  I remember sitting in a rather conservative congregation … no hand clapping, no arm raising, no shouting Amen!  There was a visitor in our midst.  During the sermon, that is that part where you sit still, read the scripture form the screen and take copious notes.  The visitor starts saying, in a loud voice, “Speak, Speak So.”  He wanted the Lord to speak in the midst of the sermon which was Truth.  Are you willing to say the same thing.  Maybe not in Church, although that might not be such a bad things, but because you want the Lord to speak to you.  Speak Lord!