Listening

So this has been something huge God has been teaching me lately; the importance of listening to God's voice. I have always been the one who usually does all the talking in the relationship, but just recently the Lord has said, Matt, be quiet. It has been a struggle for me to sit and listen to what God wants to say, but I am going to share some ways that God has reached me and some ways you can also listen to His voice more clearly.

Now the first thing is first, I will be honest, I have been fearful in the past, and still can be of wanting to hear exactly what God says. Why? Well because usually what He tells us to do is out of our comfort zone, but if you truly want to follow the Lord with all that you have, then it is so necessary to listen first. Yes, it is scary that the Holy Spirit wants to take over your entire life, all your plans, all your dreams, all your comforts, he wants to take all of it and lead you in everything you do. But, this is so awesome! For real, God has some amazing plans for each and every one of our lives and it is worth it. He promises us this all throughout scripture, and we know that our God is faithful.

Listening...First thing is first, when I am not hearing God's voice it is always because I am distracting my mind with other things. And usually this is because I am worried about something. We must seek peace. We must allow God's presence to give us rest no matter what we are going through. Psalm 34:4 "I sought the Lord, and he answered me; he delivered me from all my fears." Psalm 50:14 "Call upon me in the day of trouble, and I will deliver you"
Seek Him out. Cry out to Him, read His word, pray genuinely from your heart. God desires for you to have rest in Him.

To listen to His voice we must first know this, which is huge, No thoughts are random. "We take captive every thought and make it obedient to Christ." 2 Corinthians 10:5. Don't hesitate to write down every thought you have as you are listening to the Lord. Spit it out. If you hear something that does not make any sense, don't sit there and go, huh?, ask God, what does this mean? He will tell you if He so desires. 1 Corinthians 2:12.

Another way most of us can hear God's voice is when we feel a tug on our hearts. He will whisper, "Go talk to so and so", and we will say oh no my mind is just telling me that. Think again. Like I said, No Random Thoughts. We must take every thought captive. If you ignore the first call, usually He will begin to tug on your heart, and way too often we do not respond.

Let's not become numb to God's voice. By listening to the Lord we can learn so much more about Him and we can find so many more answers. He does not want us to be searching after Him aimlessly. That is why He has sent us The Counselor(Holy Spirit). He is our Teacher and guides us in God's will.

Well, I hope this helps with anyone who has been struggling listening to God's voice, or maybe you have never realized the importance of this. I have gone through so much of my life always talking away and never just sitting still and saying God, I am here ready to listen to You.

One

Hey so it has been a long time since the last post, but here is a fresh new one.

Have you ever noticed how when you hang with someone a lot, sometimes you will have those awkward moments when you both say the exact same phrase at the exact same time. Yeah...I am sure you guys have all experienced this. It is like you and your friend even start to share the same thoughts. When you both witness something unusual, you immediately look at each other and don't and communicate without even speaking a word, then the laughter breaks out. You are both with another one of your friends and one of you says something that does not make any sense to that poor helpless friend, but you both find hysterical. Your opinions become their opinions. When their heart breaks, your heart breaks. Their emotions strongly effect your emotions. It is like you two are becoming one.

Do you find yourself experiencing similar situations as the ones above with Jesus Christ?

Jesus prayed to his Father "I have given them (all believers) the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me" (John 17:22)

Jesus clearly states that we are to become one with Him, but how do we become one with Him? I know so many times I know I am not thinking what Jesus would be thinking, or even doing what Jesus would be doing. I have come to realize though, that the only way we are going to become just like Him, sharing the same thoughts and desires, is if we completely saturate ourselves in the Holy Spirit through His Word and through prayer. 

First off, how in the world can we know our God if we are not reading His Word. From the Bible we can learn so much about Him and His plan for our lives and how He acts and how He responds, what He wants from us and just who He is. 

Also, we must communicate to Him through prayer. Prayer has been the most difficult thing for me throughout my life as a believer. I have always struggled bringing myself to complete silence with my Savior and pouring out my heart to Him. We expect to grow in Him and become like Him, but how will we ever do this if we are not seeking Him with all our hearts. Jeremiah 29:13 says, "You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart." This is what is hard for me because there are just so many distractions that keep me from truly seeking God with my complete focused heart. 

If we are not seeking Him, we are not finding Him, and if we are not finding Him, then we are not hanging out with Him, and if we are not hanging out with Him, then there is no way we will become one with Him. 

I think the thing I have been learning the most is that God will respond to us. "The Lord will hear when I call to him" (Psalm 4:3). We can encounter the living God when we call upon His name. And how are we to know Him if we are not encountering Him. 

And let us do all this and be brought to complete unity with the Lord so that the world may know that Jesus Christ was sent by the Father and that He has loved just as His Father has loved (John 17:23).

"Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit." (2 Corinthians 3:18)

We start to become one with Christ when we begin to think like Him, plan like Him, feel like Him, and act like Him.

Christ Above All

How important is your relationship with Christ to you? 

Do you prize Him above everything else in this world? Is He the center of your life personally?Could we say "I don't care what I lose in this life, even if it is my own life, because Christ is all that matters to me"? 

Paul truly prized Christ above all else in his life, "What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things." (Philippians 3:8) 

Right before this verse Paul said how he had more reason to boast in his flesh than anyone. He said he was so "righteous", yet he found all that he had to be loss compared to knowing Christ. 

I am just realizing how important our relationship with Christ really is. I am realizing how all the people that I know here on earth are only temporary. All the relationships, all the "things" that I have here(and that is everything). There is a purpose for those relationships though. And that is what I talked about in the last post. How we admonish and teach one another to build up each others' faith. 

The people in our lives are here to lift us up and hold us accountable in our relationship with Christ to help us become closer to Him. And we do the same for others. This is why it is so important not to "love the world or anything in the world" (1 John 2:15). 

Christ is everything. Our personal relationship with Him is all that matters when it comes down to it all. "I consider everything a loss compared to knowing Christ". Everything. 

It is when we begin to realize the temporariness of all that is here in this world and the importance of our personal relationship with Christ that we "forget what is behind and strain toward what is ahead... the goal to win the prize for which God has called us heavenward in Christ Jesus" (Philip 3:14)

John Piper says it well, "Whenever something is of tremendous value to you, and you cherish its beauty or power or uniqueness, you want to draw other's attention to it and waken in them the same joy. That is why Paul's all-consuming goal in life was for Christ to be magnified. Christ was of infinite value to Paul, and so Paul longed for others to see and savor this value. That is what it means to magnify Christ-to show the magnitude of his value."

We Proclaim Him

Hey guys so I felt led to share this passage with you today.

Colossians 1:28 "We proclaim him, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ."

Now there is a lot to get out of this one sentence, but I do believe that this verse displays very well our purpose here on earth. 

"We proclaim him [Christ]" But how do we proclaim him? 

"admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom" 

Okay. What does that mean? Well let's look at some other scripture to get a better understanding. 

First, we know that to teach and admonish means to tell others about Jesus and the gospel and hold them accountable for what they learn. But how do we do this the way Jesus would have done it? What does it mean to teach with all wisdom? 

James 3:17 says, "The wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere." 

Wow! That is a lot! No wonder it says, "Blessed is the man who finds wisdom... for she is more precious than rubies; nothing you desire can compare with her... her ways are pleasant ways and all her paths are peace." (Proverbs 3:13) 

Man okay so we know that we must teach with wisdom; that is very important. And then we cannot miss "admonish and teach everyone". Now that is a big deal because this does not mean just proclaim Christ to the believers, but he is saying to proclaim Christ to the believers and the non believers. 

And by doing this "we may present everyone perfect in Christ". Perfect? Yes. If we look at verse 22 it says, "he has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish". 

Perfect.

But only "if you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel". 

Are we teaching and admonishing believers and non believers as we go through our walk with Christ? Are we proclaiming him? Are we helping on another build up each other's faith daily? What do you guys think? Does this passage describe the path of your life?

First Post!

Hey guys so I created this blog for those who want to know Christ more intimately. Maybe you are just seeking answers to certain questions or maybe you just want some kind of a start to help you grow in your quiet time. You do not know where to open your bible or you just want somewhere to talk about what you just read.

I am going to post questions on here to start discussions and most entries I will post a devotion with to get you thinking about things or maybe even teach or confirm something. I want this to be a place where you can grow in your relationship with Christ. My prayer is that you will learn something from these devotions and God will speak something to you through them.

ANYONE CAN COMMENT! You do not have to be a member to leave a comment so please leave your thoughts.

To start off this first one I will talk about the title of the blog and why I chose this title.

The title of this blog is James 5:17. A passage that we must constantly remind ourselves is true, because all of the great Godly people in history like Elijah and Moses and David and Paul were all simply human beings filled with the Holy Spirit. We must remember the words Jesus spoke to His disciples in John 14:2 "I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these."

This means that we have so much potential. So many times we will doubt what God can really do through us. The God we serve today is the same God that worked through the lives of these men thousands of years ago. "Jesus is the same yesterday and today and forever" (Hebrews 13:8). We can be as influential as these men of the bible and have just as much passion for Christ as they did.

Jesus said, "You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you" (Acts 1:8). We have power from the Holy Spirit, power that Jesus said can do greater things than those that He did while He was here on earth.

We need to trust these words that God gives us and not to "let anyone look down on you because you are young" (1 Timothy 4:1). He tells us that "it is good for a man that he bear yoke in his youth"(Lamentations 3:27). Meaning we have so much potential.

Right here. Right now.

God wants to use us to "go and make disciples of all nations" for His glory (Matthew 28:19). And we are more than capable of doing so by God's power and allowing Him to work through our lives.


I hope this either wakes you up or reaffirms the path that you are on right now. Do you realize that right now in your life you can make a huge difference? We don't have to wait until we're older. Do you believe that Elijah was a man just like us?