Good Morning Everyone,
Our theme for this month: “Enthusiasm”
Our Bible verse for today: “Call to Me and I will answer you and tell you great and incomprehensible things you do not know.” Jeremiah 33:3 (HCSB)
Our thought for today: “Hearing from God increases your enthusiasm for God”
Has God ever spoken to you? If you’re a Christian then the answer is “Yes He has”. Maybe you didn’t recognize His voice, maybe you didn’t realize He was speaking to you, but He has spoken many times and in many ways.
One of the greatest truths in the Bible is that God wants to be heard and understood by His people, and He does communicate with us. But when it comes to hearing and understanding God our problem tends to be twofold. First, we either don’t understand how God typically speaks to us and therefore we aren’t paying attention to Him in the right ways. Or, we do understand how He normally communicates with us but we just don’t put forth the time and effort to listen.
Although God can speak to us in an infinite number of ways, including through a burning bush (Moses in Exodus 3:4), or even through the mouth of a donkey (Balaam in Numbers 22:28-29), as Henry Blackaby teaches in the Bible Study “Experiencing God”, the way God typically speaks to us in our day is through the Bible, through prayer, through the circumstances of our lives, through the counsel of trusted Christian advisors, and through the testimony of the church. (I would add to that through sermons and music as well.)
If you will bring your issue or situation before God and patiently and prayerfully seek to hear from Him in those ways He will, overtime, communicate His answer to you, usually in two or three of those ways, sometimes all of them.
Dr. James Dobson, of Focus on the Family fame, has used this prayer for most of his life when he was seeking to hear from God: “Lord, I need to know what you want me to do, and I am listening. Please speak to me through the Bible, prayer, circumstances, friends, and the things that I read.” (Now listen and pay attention in those ways).
What does all of this have to do with our theme of “enthusiasm”? Well, if you’ve ever heard from God, and you knew it was Him speaking to you, then you already know the answer to that question. Few things will boost your enthusiasm like knowing for certain that you just heard from God!
Hearing from God increases your enthusiasm for God. It’s just a matter of understanding how He usually speaks to us, and then putting forth the time and effort to listen in the right ways. I encourage you to spend some extra time today listening to God.
God Bless,
Pastor Jim
Oak Hill Baptist Church 