Prayer
Briefly prepare your heart in silence, and ask the Holy Spirit to awaken your sense of anticipation that God is about to speak to you through His Word. Then, before you read, I invite you to pray this prayer based on Psalm 119:18.
Lord, open my eyes and ears
that I may see and hear
Your gentle whisper
in the Word..
Amen.
Reading
Today we once again pick up the interaction between Jesus and a group of Jewish listeners. Initially John said that they had come to believe in Jesus (John 8:31), but as we have followed the conversation it has become increasingly apparent that their “belief” was actually on very shaky ground. It may be helpful to read through from v.31 again, to refresh your mind on the context.
In v.47, having just asked them why they do not believe Him, Jesus says:
47 Whoever belongs to God hears what God says. The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God.’
Do you want to hear God? Do you want to receive His revelation of the truth? Do you want His guidance in your everyday life? Then give yourself completely to Him in love and surrender. Spend time alone with Him every day. Pay attention to His presence. Express your desire for Him and for His voice of truth. Open your heart and mind to His presence and to His gentle whisper. But most of all, every time you receive an inkling of what He desires you to do, do it as soon as humanly possible. And if you do, you will find that His voice seems louder and clearer the next day.
it is as though giving ourselves to God in careful listening and swift obedience opens our spiritual ears. It attunes us increasingly to His voice. Do you remember the days you used to tune your radio by turning a dial that moved a solid line along a bank of numbers indicating the frequency? Sometimes you would speed past a channel and hear it clearly for a brief moment before going past it. To hear it clearly, you would have to reverse the dial carefully until you heard the static begin to clarify, and then the channel would slowly but surely come through clearer and clearer. Once it was crystal clear, you would stop turning the dial.
Let’s apply that idea to the spiritual discipline of hearing God’s voice. Every time we listen attentively, receive a sense of God’s voice breaking through the static of our hearts, and then respond to that voice with obedience, we are “shifting the dial” closer to the heart of the “channel”. We will find that the next time, the “signal” (God’s gentle whisper) will become clearer. It is not that He has started speaking more clearly. It is just that we have trained and attuned our spiritual ears more to hear Him.
So give yourself to the LORD today. Take time to be with Him in silent, listening intimacy. Commit your day to Him in prayerful surrender. As you pray, be attentive to the whisperings of His Spirit within you. And then be courageous enough to take that small step of faith-filled obedience in response to His voice.
Contemplation
Please take time to ponder what Jesus has commanded us. Turn this declaration over and over in your mind. Keep it in mind throughout the day and live in step with Your King, Jesus.
As a disciple of Jesus Christ:
- I will choose to give myself completely to Him
- I will tune my heart to be constantly attentive to His voice.
Holy Spirit, open my ears that I may hear the beautiful whisper of my Saviour’s voice. Amen.
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