Month: March 2023 Page 3 of 4

“Look! I stand at the door and knock.
If you hear my voice and open the door,
I will come in,
and we will share a meal together as friends.”
Revelation 3:20, NLT

I don’t know about you, but I get excited when someone knocks or rings my doorbell!  That means someone has come to see me, and if they are family or friends, they are always welcome.  I love to visit, share a meal or a snack, play games, and just enjoy each other’s company.

Posture.  How is your posture?  When you’re sitting, do you slouch or sit up straight?  When standing, are your shoulders bent over with the weight of the world or are your shoulders squared back with confidence in the Lord?  In this verse Jesus is the one talking and He says He is standing.  When we’re sitting, if we want to take a step, we have to stand first which requires action.  Standing indicates that we are ready to move.  Jesus was ready to move, knocking, and ready to step through the door when it opened.

Action.  Jesus stands at the heart’s door and is ready to raise His hand to knock.  I have one friend who never rings the doorbell but always knocks, so I know by that simple action who it is at my door.  I had some relatives who never knocked nor rang the doorbell; they just walked right in.  They could do that because there was a doorknob and they had a key.

One day I noticed some salesmen canvassing my neighborhood and I wasn’t interested in what they had to sell.  So I locked my storm door and closed all the curtains so they couldn’t look in to see if anyone was home.  I’m glad I did because they knocked, but when I didn’t answer, they jiggled the door. 

Jesus can’t walk right in like my relatives nor force His way in like the salesmen were attempting to do.  Why?  Because for one, He’s a gentleman and doesn’t force anyone to do anything.  He wants our love and commitment willingly.  Second, there is no handle on the door to our heart.  It must be opened from the inside.

Response.  When a person hears Him knocking at their heart’s door, they must respond to let Him in just like we must open the door for a guest when our door is locked.  Just as I did not respond to the salesmen jiggling my door, many people do not respond to Jesus when He knocks or tries to get their attention.  He wants us to come to Him of our own accord.  We need to open the door wide and let Him into our heart so He can do His work in us.  If you shoo Him away, He will go away sad that you didn’t allow Him in.

Jesus doesn’t just knock at the door.  He also calls out to you by name.  He wants you to hear His voice so you’ll know it is Him.  Do you recognize it?

Invitation.  Jesus invites us to have a relationship with Him, but you need to RSVP to that invitation with your own invitation to come in.  When a guest comes to your door, do you invite them inside and keep them at the door, or do you invite them into the living room or the kitchen?  If you stand just inside the door and don’t move any further, it would be like saying, OK, you can come in, but only this far.  But if you invite them into your living area, you are saying, you’re welcome to make yourself at home here.  Let me put on some coffee and let’s talk and share.

Sharing.  Jesus tells us in this verse that when we invite Him in, we can share a meal together as friends.  It’s so much nicer to eat with someone than it is eating alone.  Even if I am the one cooking, it’s still fun to have someone eat with me and enjoy my service.  If I am invited to go out or to someone’s home, it’s even better because I can relax and enjoy the fellowship without the work.

Hearing.  It all starts with hearing the knock at the door.  If we ignore that knock we heard and the voice that calls out to us, and don’t respond by opening the door, we will not have the fellowship with the Lord that is so necessary for our spiritual lives.  Do you hear?  Are you listening?  Then have you responded?

In the next post we’ll learn what Samuel did when he heard a voice.

PRAYER POINT FOR TODAY:
Lord, when I hear Your voice, give me Your strength to be willing to answer Your call and do what You ask.

• Week 1 – temptation
• Week 2 – confession, forgiveness, and fasting
• Week 3 – listening to God and answering when He calls
• Week 4 – God’s love for us
• Week 5 – waiting, anxiety, and trust
• Week 6 – suffering, pain, and struggles
• Easter – resurrection and salvation

“Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message,
and the message is heard through the word about Christ.”
Romans 10:17, NIV

Have you ever wondered how players in a baseball, hockey, or football game could hear the commands of their coach above the noise of the crowd?  I think they would know from training what they are to do in any given situation.  I also think they would have to train themselves to block out the “advice” of the crowd.  If the players listened to the crowd instead of what their coach said, they could make a wrong move.  We need to listen to our Head Coach, not the world.

Source.  When you look for a product or service and ask for referrals, you would consider the source.  If it came from a company or person who had a bad reputation, you probably wouldn’t pursue the object of that referral.  When we hear a voice, it is just as important to make sure that the voice is God’s and not of the world.  So how do we know whose voice we are hearing?

Trace it.  I used to have a ton of tangled cords behind my desk and it was hard to tell which one went to which device.  The only way to figure out which plug was to the printer was to trace it back from the device to the outlet.   We can do the same with voices we hear.  Look for the person who said it, the context, the sincerity, and the background.

Who said it?  Whether it was written, online, or someone actually spoke it, identify who said it.  Is it someone you know and trust?  Are they trustworthy?  Are they tuned in to God?  Where did they get their information or knowledge?  I am very careful when I go to the internet and search a question or explanation, especially when it is in relation to the Word of God.  Here’s a couple things I look at:

• The website itself—the title, who it belongs to, what kind of content is included on that website
• Who promotes the website and the author—Is it someone who is or could be a false teacher?
• Are they using the Word of God or some other source of information?  Are they quoting sources that are not true to the Bible?  Or worse yet, taking it out of context.

How and where did you hear it?  Faith comes from hearing.  Hearing what?  The message.  Message of what?  The Word of God.  It doesn’t say faith comes from hearing and stop there.  What you are hearing is just as important as the fact that you are hearing it.  Analyze what you are hearing.

Ways of hearing.  You might think, only ears hear, so how can there be different ways of hearing?  If you are deaf, you “hear” through your eyes and other senses.  I took a little American Sign Language so I could communicate with those who are deaf.  (Unfortunately it was a long time ago and I’ve forgotten most of it.)  Hearing is a way of communication that travels from voice to ear.  When the ear doesn’t work, signing is an alternative way of communicating that goes from hands to eyes.  Braille is also a hands to eyes alternative communication. 

Aside from hearing with an ear, our eyes are a good way of “hearing” as we read and hear (see) what someone is saying on paper or electronic devices.  Communication in that way is from eyes to brain and ultimately to the heart.

Our approach.  How do you come to God?  Do you come barging in, banging on His door for an answer now?  Do you come quietly and humbly, thanking Him for His work in your life?  Billy Graham once said, “One can approach the Bible with a cold, rationalistic attitude, or one can do so with reverence and the desire to hear God speak.”  If we really want to hear God’s voice, we need to prepare ourselves for coming into His presence.

Recognition.  How do children recognize their parents’ voices?  They’ve heard mom and dad speak to them since the day they were born and even while they were in the womb.  So when they hear their voices, they respond because they know and recognize their voices.  We learn to recognize God’s voice by studying His Word, memorizing it, and hiding it in our hearts.  Then when a voice tries to speak to us that isn’t His, a little warning bell goes off in our mind and heart that says, wait a minute, that doesn’t sound right because it doesn’t match what we know of God’s Word and His heart.  But it will only warn us as far as our knowledge of God’s Word extends.  If we don’t have much of His Word in us, then He can’t use it to warn us.  That’s why it’s so important to hide His Word in our heart and mind.

I hear you!  This is an expression we often use when we are listening to someone give their opinion or experience.  We agree or empathize with them and say I hear you! to let them know that we are listening.  I hope you can say I hear you! to God today.

In the next post we’ll talk about answering the door in response to hearing God’s voice.

PRAYER POINT FOR TODAY:
Lord, help me to hear Your voice through the Bible, sermons, music, and other avenues You choose to speak through. I don’t want to miss what You are saying and I don’t want to mistake someone else’s voice for Yours.

• Week 1 – temptation
• Week 2 – confession, forgiveness, and fasting
• Week 3 – listening to God and answering when He calls
• Week 4 – God’s love for us
• Week 5 – waiting, anxiety, and trust
• Week 6 – suffering, pain, and struggles
• Easter – resurrection and salvation

“Anyone who belongs to God listens
gladly to the words of God.
But you don’t listen
because you don’t belong to God.”
John 8:47, NLT

Today as we focus on listening to God and answering when He calls, a phrase from a Christmas carol comes to my mind:  “Do you hear what I hear?”

Belonging.  My doll belonged to me and no one could take her from me.  In fact, I still have her and she sits on the chest of drawers in my bedroom.  I talked to her in my childhood and pretended she was talking back to me.  We “knew” each other.  The same holds true now with my cat even though she’s deaf.  She knows me when she sees me and recognizes my touch.  When a guest comes, she has to check them out before deciding if she’ll let them near her.

Belonging involves a connection between two or more people or objects.  The beaters in my kitchen closet belong to the electric mixer.  Pairs of things like shoes belong together.  Individuals of a family belong together.  If you are part of a group or organization, you say you belong to it.  How is the connection with God?  Do you belong to Him?

Hearing.  Unless they’re deaf like my cat, everyone can hear the person in the room—or sometimes the neighbor way down the street!  LOL  Hearing just means you have ears and they work.  You hear what the other person says, but that doesn’t mean you’re really listening nor that you’ll respond.  It just means that your ears heard the words.  Some people hear the Lord speaking but choose not to respond.

Listening.  That’s a step above hearing.  Now you not only hear the words, but you’re processing them in your brain and will respond in some fashion.  You acknowledge what your ears hear and prepare to act accordingly.  When you listen, you’re ready and willing to respond to what you heard.

Discerning.  When I hear voices outside or someone comes to my door, I listen to see if I recognize them.  Peepholes are no help when a person covers it up so if I don’t recognize the voice, I don’t answer the door.  That’s how we must be when we hear a voice telling us to do something.  We must discern if the voice is of an authentic person we know, and if it isn’t, don’t answer the “door” (respond to the voice).

Source.  What is the source of the voice?  When I have a voicemail on my phone, if the caller doesn’t say who they are and the message is cryptic or unrelated to anything I’m aware of, I just delete it.  If it is from someone I know or about something I’m involved in, then I know I can trust the source.  With so many spam and fraudulent telemarketers and political callers, it is difficult to know if there is any truth in what they are saying. 

The voice of God does not usually come through sources like newspapers, magazines, and other secular resources, though sometimes God chooses to nudge us through them.  God speaks to us through His Word, the Bible, prayer, other Christians, and Christian publications.  Don’t allow yourself to be influenced or led astray by sources that promote or allow decisions or activities that are not God-honoring and worthy of His blessing.

Unplugged.  Things like cell phones and laptops only work for so long on battery before they need to be recharged.  When I know a storm is heading my way, I plug in all my devices to charge so that if the electric goes out I can still use my devices for a period of time.  That’s especially important when cell phone is your only source of communication in case of emergency.  I always plug my phone in when I go to bed so that it’s fully charged for the next day.  One morning I woke up and my phone was depleted because I discovered that the plug at the outlet had gotten disconnected (probably my cat tripped over the cord and pulled it out).

When we become unplugged from our spiritual source, God, or we never plugged into Him in the first place, we aren’t filled with the wisdom and knowledge He provides and are not drawing on the spiritual source of life needed for this life.  If we aren’t plugged in to the source, we won’t be listening for His voice and won’t hear when He tries to speak to us.

“Anyone with ears to hear
should listen and understand!”
Matthew 11:15, NLT

Faith comes by hearing…more about that in the next post.

PRAYER POINT FOR TODAY:
Lord, help me to listen—really listen—for Your voice. Help me to hear, listen, and understand what You are saying to me each and every day.

• Week 1 – temptation
• Week 2 – confession, forgiveness, and fasting
• Week 3 – listening to God and answering when He calls
• Week 4 – God’s love for us
• Week 5 – waiting, anxiety, and trust
• Week 6 – suffering, pain, and struggles
• Easter – resurrection and salvation

“My sheep listen to my voice;
I know them, and they follow me.”
John 10:27, NIV

This week as we focus on listening to God and answering when He calls, we have an example from the animal kingdom that can teach us a few things.

I like to go different places and take photos that I can use with my blog and devotionals.  So one day I visited the farm of a couple from my church who had sheep.  We know that Jesus used sheep as an example in his parables and teachings.  Let’s find out why. 

Alert.  When sheep hear a voice, their ears perk up.  I walked up to the pen and talked to them, trying to coax them over to the fence, but they just stood and looked at me.  Even the lambs didn’t move towards me.  I would have thought they’d come right to me like little kids usually do, but they didn’t.  When the lady came out to meet me, she explained that they didn’t recognize my voice.  So they just stood and watched and listened.  When you hear a voice, do you listen up and try to discern whose voice it is if you don’t see anyone?

These sheep were in a pen so they couldn’t run away.  When I was little there was a sheep farm behind my grandmother’s house and as soon as I got near the fence, they ran far into the field.  They will not come close to or follow a voice that they don’t recognize.  Oh that we would be like that!  Too often we hear a voice and listen only to find out sometimes too late that it wasn’t who we thought it was.

Familiar.  The sheep also use their other senses.  I didn’t have the “farm scent” on me.  My movements were different than the people they were familiar with.  Nor did I have any food or treats for them.  The lambs stood still by their mama and just watched me until they had a sense of what was going on.  When the lady talked to them, pulled a treat from her pocket, and reached over the fence, they slowly came over to her, still a little hesitant because I was standing next to her.  At first when I tried to pet them, they pulled away, but as I kept talking to them and she gave me a treat for them, they came over to me.

Are you familiar with the voice of our Good Shepherd?  We need to stay close to Him, learn His ways, His words, and know when it is Him speaking.  Sheep easily go astray when they are not paying attention and then find themselves in trouble, needing rescue of the shepherd.  That’s probably where we get the saying from:  “The grass is always greener on the other side.”

Know.  The sheep didn’t know who I was.  They’d never seen me nor heard my voice before.  But the lady of the farm was someone they had seen, heard, and touched before.  They knew she was kind to them, fed them, and let them out to run in the pasture.  One article I read on the internet said that sheep are emotional which is why they come to someone they know and flee from strangers.  They get stressed out just like us humans.

When we know our Shepherd, we know not just His voice, but what He looks like, and we know His touch.  We don’t know exactly what Jesus or God looks like physically, but we can know His characteristics, His personality, and His loving, healing touch. 

Trust.  The sheep didn’t totally trust me at first and only a couple of them actually came close enough for me to pet them.  They trusted the lady, though, and went to her.  Do we trust Jesus to lead us in the right paths?  Do we trust Him with our problems, our finances, our families, our future?  He knows all about us and wants us to trust Him with everything.

Sheep were treated as prized possessions in Biblical times.  Unfortunately today we tend to use the adjective dumb to describe sheep.  They’re not so dumb, though, because they know their shepherd and trust Him.  Can we say the same?

Follow.  When the mama sheep finally came to me, then the lambs came right over.  They trusted their mama and followed her lead.  Are you trusting the Good Shepherd to lead you?  Then follow Him…as the chorus goes:

Follow, I will follow thee, my Lord,
Follow ev’ry passing day
My tomorrows are all known to thee,
Thou wilt lead me all the way.

Jesus knows who are His sheep.  You may think you know and are following Him, but if He doesn’t know you, that’s a problem.  Make sure you belong to the Good Shepherd and are following His lead.  More about that in the next post.

PRAYER POINT FOR TODAY:
Lord, I want to be a good listener and a good follower, careful like sheep, and discerning. Please grant me the ears to hear and other senses to recognize Your voice.

• Week 1 – temptation
• Week 2 – confession, forgiveness, and fasting
• Week 3 – listening to God and answering when He calls
• Week 4 – God’s love for us
• Week 5 – waiting, anxiety, and trust
• Week 6 – suffering, pain, and struggles
• Easter – resurrection and salvation

“Be still, and know that I am God.”
Psalm 46:10

This week we are focusing on listening to God and answering when He calls.  (Yes, I know it’s Wednesday.  The season of Lent begins on a Wednesday so that’s when the new “week” for this Lent series begins.)  We will not be discussing talking to God because we can’t talk and listen well at the same time and this week is about listening to God.

Being still is hard for those of us who are always on the go.  My grandmother wasn’t still for one minute until she died at 94.  She always had to be doing something.  I’m the same way.  When I sit to watch a movie, I prefer to be doing something with my hands.  When waiting at a doctor’s office, I read.  It’s good to make use of down time from our normal activities, but it doesn’t allow God to be easily acknowledged and heard.

When I had a screened-in porch at my previous home, I enjoyed sitting on my porch swing and watch the clouds go by.  It was often at those times that I felt the Lord speaking to me because other than the motion of swinging, I was still…and listening.

Here are some other verses that encourage us to be still before the Lord:

• “The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.”  Exodus 14:14 (NIV)
• “The Levites calmed all the people, saying, “Be still, for this is a holy day. Do not grieve.”  Nehemiah 8:11 (NIV)
• “Be angry, and do not sin. Meditate within your heart on your bed, and be still.”  Psalm 4:4 (NKJV)
• “Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him.”  Psalm 37:7 (NIV)
• “Then she said, “Sit still, my daughter, until you know how the matter will turn out…”  Ruth 3:18 (NKJV)
• “He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm.”  Mark 4:39 (NIV)

What does “be still” mean?  First, it does not mean “relax, God’s got this”.  Sometimes being still can be done while on the move.  Sounds like an oxymoron, right?  Not at all when you understand what be still means.  In Hebrew if you put those two words together, it translates to surrender in order to know.  That doesn’t mean you stop everything you’re doing and stand or sit still, although sometimes that helps us focus.

Be:  Surrender.  In order to surrender, you need to make a conscious decision to focus on something other than what you were.  Often I need to get up, walk around, and then come back to what I was doing with a fresh set of eyes, especially if I’m doing difficult word searches or writing…things that take concentration.  Why do I get up?  I need to refocus so I can surrender my mind back to the task at hand.

Still:  In order to know.  Look at the few verses I listed above.  What are the reasons for being still?  Here are my thoughts on the reasons in those verses respectively:

• So you will know that the Lord will fight for you.
• It’s a holy day and being still has a calming effect.
• Meditate and resolve anger.
• Learn to wait patiently for the Lord to lead.
• Wait until you see what the Lord does before you move on.
• So you can experience nature and God’s commanding authority over it.

There are many more verses that talk about being still…and know that He is God.  In these few reasons I suggested from those verses for being still, they all point to knowing God.  For example, when we know that the Lord will fight for us, we will learn to trust Him more.  Try being still for a few minutes and see if your mind and body slows down and gets calm.  If you meditate on God’s Word and do what He says, things will go better for you.  Ah, patience!  You have to wait in line at the bank or the store, so wait on the Lord as well.  He will move in His time.  God has authority over nature and there’s a lot we can learn from nature when we take time to be still.

Knowing God can only truly come when we are still long enough to hear His voice and look for how He is already working in our lives.  If we keep striving and being busy with all kinds of things that occupy our minds, it will be difficult to hear from God.  Be still and really listen for God just as you would if you were straining to hear the conversation with a friend in a really noisy place.  Be as anxious to hear from God as you are to get that text, email, or letter from a friend whom you haven’t heard from for a while. 

Next we’ll talk about the example of sheep and see what their listening skills are like.

PRAYER POINT FOR TODAY:
Lord, help me to make time to be still and wait on You so I can hear Your voice.

• Week 1 – temptation
• Week 2 – confession, forgiveness, and fasting
• Week 3 – listening to God and answering when He calls
• Week 4 – God’s love for us
• Week 5 – waiting, anxiety, and trust
• Week 6 – suffering, pain, and struggles
• Easter – resurrection and salvation