Bible study week: Hearing God's voice

Salutations and recap

It is wonderful to be back this week to discuss the word of God and to glorify His Holy and righteous name. In the week gone by the topic was about faith and how we can actually grow in faith and come to a point of maturity. The topic this week is about hearing God's voice seeing that our faith comes by hearing and hearing from God's Word. Without further ado let's dive right into it.

Hearing Gods voice

When I was reading through the several scriptures over the last week or so, a thought entered my mind accompanied by a question. How incredible it would be to share your day's experience with your Heavenly Father, just as Adam did in the garden of Eden. But what is so amazing is that He does talk to us but at times we are so busy consumed in our daily activities that we can barely hear His voice. That is why Jesus perhaps chose that moment of silence, in a solitary place, far from the crowded cities of Israel, to be with the Heavenly Father.

In this life that I have lived on earth, I am nothing but a student, an apprentice of Christ awaiting his return. While in the waiting period I have been training my ear to hear His voice because the word says that only His sheep will recognise His voice.

But wait, faith also comes by hearing and hearing His word. His word is like medicine to us healing the broken and incomplete parts of ourselves. That is why we find ourselves falling sick when we are without His word because something is missing in our fellowship with the Lord.

Often times, we claim that God is not answering our prayers and is perhaps absent owing to the fact that we feel our prayers are remaining unanswered. But do we search our hearts and ask ourselves why when we come to the Lord, we are doing a lot of the talking and less of the listening? Most relationships fail because the principles of effective communication are missing. One way communication has often proven less effective than a two way channel.

Let me give you another quote from 1 Corinthians 4 verse 18, "so we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary and what is unseen is eternal". In addition, Hebrews 12 verse 25 to 28, warns us of the danger of trying to escape the voice of God. There is a reward for those who obey His voice and those who disobey should expect to be punished (Exodus 15:26 and Exodus 19:3 -6).

Now in the beginning of the book of Hebrews, chapter 1, the Bible states that the Lord will speak to us through His Son, Jesus Christ, who is appointed heir to all things both in heaven and on earth. Imagine the image of God's thoughts walking on the face of the earth and actually demonstrating God's actual thoughts about us in human form, through Jesus,His only begotten son.

Now, there came a point in my life where I was desperate for answers, asking why certain events had been happening to me. I searched for answers from all the wrong places such as social media platforms, book publications and even tried videos from different sections of society. Little did I know that God was talking to me daily, through His word. Those voices from different sources, only drowned me in a pool of confusion rather than giving me a solution to pending problems.

Well, if Jesus is how God speaks to us then we ought to pay attention to the words given to Jesus by God. In 2 Corinthians 4 verse 4, the word explains why it is difficult to see the light of the gospel through Jesus, if you are still living in unbelief. I was in that boat, at one time. Because of unbelief, I chose to see things through the lens of my spiritually blind eyes until that point in my life when I realised that my vision was impaired without Jesus.

I would also like to share a verse which is favorite amoungst many found in the book of Romans 10 verse 17. I noticed that it says faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. Well,the repetition of "hearing", is by no means a printing error but rather I noticed that if anyone should claim that he has heard from God, it should be tested against the scriptures after hearing that which has been spoken.

Remember that it is also stated in the Scriptures in John chapter 1 to be specific that God's word was there from the beginning. The book of 1 Corinthians 2 verse 11 asks who knows the thoughts of a person excepts the spirit of the one carrying these thoughts. So you can only know what God is thinking if you have one mind with Him. That is why Jesus said that he does only what he sees his Father do. That was evident in the way Jesus expressed himself. If he saw a lame man, his mind being that of God saw him (the blind man) healed. When people were hungry God through His Son, Jesus, fed them and that is God's answer to hunger. If someone laid dead in a tomb, just as Lazarus was, God's answer about death is found through his resurrection. What about the adulterer, what does God thinking about her? Well, he forgave her and told her to repent and sin no more. And for those who are hypocrites what does God say about you? Well, if the blind are leading the blind all of them are going to end up falling into the pit. In observing the life of Jesus, we observe that which

God had spoken through His Son Jesus, about His thoughts on what was happening on earth. It is clear through the actions of Jesus, God has made it clear what he thinks about hunger, death, sickness and demonic oppression which we are worried about here on planet earth.

So I conclude by stating that God speaks to us daily. But unbelief has blinded us from hearing what He has to say. I pray that you will train your ears to pay attention to His voice. May God bless you.