Day 5: God Speaks and Requires A Response

When God Speaks: How to Recognize God’s Voice and Respond in Obedience

^{Luke 6:46} “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and don’t do what I tell you?

Have you ever had someone ask your advice, you tell them what they should do and they never do it? And then they ask again? And again?

I wonder if that is how God feels sometimes. We ask Him to speak to us, beg Him to speak to us and then – we do nothing about what He has told us. Except ask again that He speak to us.

Blackaby used the parable of the seed sower today, from Luke 8:4-15, to describe the conditions of the heart in response to God speaking. What is the condition of your heart? Is your heart such that you can hear when God speaks?

• Well trodden path (Luke 8:5, 12)

  Has the effects of your everyday life worn your heart down so far that there is nothing there to absord God’s words? Has your heart been desensitized by the internet, television, radio, movies, books or your job that you have no room for anything new? How do you expect God’s word to penetrate your heart if it is in this shape?

• Rocky, shallow ground (Luke 8:6, 13)

  When God speaks, is your heart so shallow that you hear it only fleetingly, nothing there to catch it? Do you attend church or bible study and nothing sticks?

• Thorny ground (Luke 8:7, 14)

  Have you ever heard God speak to you but soon forgotten it? Is your heart full of the cares, riches or pleasures of life? So full that even though you hear God speak, the words seem to disappear like a thief in the night?

• Fertile soil (Luke 8:8, 15)

  Are you hearing God speak and it is producing fruit? Jesus said that the first three conditions of the heart produce no fruit. Is your heart open wide, ready to absorb the truth that God reveals to you? And then ACT upon it? That is what is required to hear God speak.

One other thing that he noted today was that if I haven’t heard God speak in a while, I need to reflect back and meditate on the last thing that God spoke to me. Did I do it? Or was my heart in one of the three conditions that produce no fruit. Perhaps God is waiting for that word to be acted upon, so that He can reveal yet another aspect of His ways to me.

How do I know that God is speaking and not Satan? That is an easy one. If my heart is in the condition of fertile soil, the Holy Spirit is controlling my life. If the Holy Spirit is controlling my life, I am so tuned in to God’s voice that I can recognize it immediately. I am so tuned in to God’s voice that I will follow no other. As Jesus said:

^{John 10:27} My sheep listen to my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.

I think that todays study finally taught me what Luke 6:46-49 actually means. I suppose that it is because as a child I just repeated the nursery rhyme about it over and over. Somehow, that DOING part never made it into the song.

Jesus said that to everyone who “listens to His words” AND “puts them into practice” He will reveal Himself. Amazing that I just today figured that out.

^{Luke 6:46–47} “Why are you so polite with me, always saying ‘Yes, sir,’ and ‘That’s right, sir,’ but never doing a thing I tell you? These words I speak to you are not mere additions to your life, homeowner improvements to your standard of living. They are foundation words, words to build a life on.
^48–49 “If you work the words into your life, you are like a smart carpenter who dug deep and laid the foundation of his house on bedrock. When the river burst its banks and crashed against the house, nothing could shake it; it was built to last. But if you just use my words in Bible studies and don’t work them into your life, you are like a dumb carpenter who built a house but skipped the foundation. When the swollen river came crashing in, it collapsed like a house of cards. It was a total loss.”