Dear….
‘But know that the Lord hath set apart him that is godly for Himself, the Lord will hear when I call unto Him.’
Psalm 4:3
The thought that God placed in my heart last night was to share about Him speaking to me. And this morning, as I turned the Bible to the relevant verses that He shared with me last night in my quiet time, He brought me instead, to the above verse Psalm 4:3.
Why bring me to the other side of the coin, I pondered? Yet is not this a truism, that most Christians spent more time asking God than listening. And we spent time telling God about our will, rather than listening for the His still quiet voice showing us His will.
‘I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go. I will guide thee with Mine eye. Be ye not as the horse, or as the mule, which have no understanding…’
Psalm 32:8-9
“Hold your horses’ we must, for this might be a restraining phrase more associated with Western movies of yond, where fresh in the face white cowboys were more than eager to scalp a few Red Indians, on the misguided notion that their guns would out-shoot the arrows of the original natives of America. When we first believed, the Spirit of God will imbue us with that joy and peace, but believing is just the beginning of a process of refinement and transformation, as we learn to let go and let God mold us. It is not a 100 meters dash, nor is it a walk or trot in the park, and certainly it is not an easy breezy run, as God will surface for refinement, the multi-layers of carnality still encrusted in our very being.
Would we allow the Spirit of God residing in us to “hold us back” from letting our own sinful understanding plunge us back into sin and instead, learn to take time unto the presence of God, for Him to speak to us and to lead us, in His way and in His will?
‘The Lord God hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary, he wakeneth morning by morning, he wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learned. The Lord hath opened mine ear, and I was not rebellious, neither turned away back.’
Isaiah 50:4-5
Prayerfully, the first line of Isaiah 50:4 is not a statement of sinful pride but rather a joyful thankfulness to our Great God for allowing me to be used by Him, as He speaks words of healing, encouragement or even gentle rebuke through me, to those He wants spoken to. And indeed God truly speaks to me often enough these past one year, as shared previously, in the transient period between my sleeping and my waking up. And these impressions that He left with me might be in all brevity, yet they are the most specific commands that I have ever received from Him. And much as this has been an ongoing experience in the past one year plus, like new toddlers learning to walk, I have often tripped over my own logic and prayerfully, save a few bumps here and there, God is good and I have learned to be more resolute in obeying, in surrendering and in following Him.
‘He that loveth his life shall lose it, and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal. If any man serve me, let him follow me, and where I am, there shall also my servant be, if any man serve me, him will my Father honor.’
John 12:26
You could say I literally stumbled unto this verse, as I was leafing through the pages of my Bible to look for the details of John 10:4. A little side track this might be, but it is a reminder of what it means to work on our salvation, much as we do not work for our salvation. A Christian is a follower of our Lord Jesus Christ, and this is what we are commanded to do. For to live is Christ, to die is gain.
‘….and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. And a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him, for they know not the voice of strangers.’
John 10:4-5
Lately, in my conversations with friends or even once strangers, I have matter of fact stated that God spoke to me and I shared on what He said. A moment of madness such thoughts must have crossed the minds of some of these recipients of my attestation of faith, but the truth only resonates when the sheep knows the voice of the shepherd. So who am I the once mule to even want to harbor the thought of judging my fellow brothers who have yet to know the Shepherd and will not understand nor fathom the significance of what I am saying?
Our omnipresent God truly communicates with us, if we only we could take time to know Him and be still to know His will. Christianity is a relationship, it is different from other beliefs, which often have physical symbolisms that the natural man could grasp and understand. God is Spirit and His Spirit communicates with our spirit, and we need to allow Him to help us discard our natural carnal self, in order for us to “hear” Him in a dimension that we are not familiar with.
And to seek God in His Words, in prayer, in praise and in works, to love others as Christ has shown us and to live out the fruits of the Spirit, these are the very necessary responses that God expects from us for us to truly know and hear Him.
‘Surely I have behaved and quieted myself, as a child that is weaned of his mother, my soul is even as a weaned child.’
Psalm 131:2
America is turning the lights down in many of its cities and tearing up its paved roads, by virtue of lack of funds. For most of us, we are not cognitive of the darkness of the sinful world we live in till the delusory lights are shut off and our lives unraveled. And indeed, God looks for a humble and contrite heart, for it is often when we are flat on our back, will we learn to want to take time to know God and in doing so, we will over time come to recognize and know that still, quiet but yet resonant voice of our God and how wonderful it will be.
God Blesses
Eng Hieang
(12th Aug 10)
When sparks fly!!
The closest I ever came to hearing God with my ears, was in a vision I had a few years back, when His voice sounded like the roaring of waves as described in the Book of Ezekiel. Most of the time, I hear Him through His Words speaking to me as I read the Bible, or lately through impressions on the heart, both in my sleep as well as in my active hours.
Is the recent intensity and scale of disasters from the Asian tsunami, to the Myammar cyclone to the present fiery maelstrom in Russia and the floods in the Indian subcontinent and China as much as result of men’s follies as it is God allowing our lives to be shaken up a lot more to get our attention?
A cursory glance most of us would pay heed to these distant disasters, but clearly a continued looking away from God could mean that one could be the next in line, as the world shakes further, as it surely would.
And does it mean that determined and diligent followers of our Lord Jesus Christ will have no storms in their life?
Psalm 23, the verse quite frequently used in funerals and obituaries was explained to me(by my present study topic in the Bible Online course) in a different context to what most of us have understood till now. In Psalm 23:1 it acknowledges and affirms that ‘The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want.’ And it follows through with some wonderful reassurances in Psalm 23:2-3 ‘He maketh me to lie down in green pastures, He leadeth me besides still waters. He restores my soul, He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.’
Yet, abruptly, in Psalm 23:4, God brings us into a less than ideal environment for ‘Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me, Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me.’
God never promises us who seek Him no storms in our lives. In fact, storms are a very part and parcel of our refinement process. Yet the promise of God is that He is with us throughout, be it the hills of joy and valleys of depression or the in between nonchalant moments of our finite lives.
And yet God also promises that after the storms, is already prepared wonderful things for those who trust in Him.
‘Thou prepares a table before me in the presence of mine enemies, Thou anointest my head with oil, my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.’
Psalm 23:5-6
Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen. That is true if we in our carnality continue to look for conclusions, but if we take time to know God, we will know Him and will acknowledge that His presence is very real, and what matters will no longer be the conclusion, but the certainty that it is God Who matters and what must matter to all of us is that we do know His voice.
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