Header Graphic
Devotions > Listen, He Wants to Speak


22 Dec 2011

 

John Wesley once said “God does everything by prayer and, and nothing without it.”  Perhaps it was because of intense times of prayer that Jesus could declare that He did everything the Father commanded and nothing that His Father did not command.  

If we are to cooperate with the conforming work of our Father, we must develop the art of listening in our “talks” with our Father, listening for His direction.    We will not accomplish anything of value in the eyes of heaven unless it is in entire obedience to the specific direction of our Lord.  While we often muse and sometimes grope for God’s plan for our lives we must more often ask the real question ….. what is my part in God’s plan forHis creation, for His Bride, for His eternity?

God has adopted us into His family and has given us a very minor role in the family business.  We are minority partners with no executive voting rights.   Nevertheless, we have an unquenchable appetite to be filling the role of vice president of “Something Important.”   God does not have vice presidents.  He does not need vice presidents.   Since when did clay give orders to anything?

One of the most important roles of clay is to pray.   I have no idea why God set up His praying plan as He has, but prayer is really our main “Something Important.”    God provides to us important prayer requests, desires on His heart, by His Spirit or His word or through other means.   This of course occurs only when we listen and seek His face.   Then after we pray in accordance with His will He delights in answering our prayers.

 In 2 Chronicles 7:14 the first thing God instructs is that we should humble ourselves.   Recently the Spirit provided a reminder that we do not really listen well until we have humbled ourselves.   Humbling ourselves is perhaps one of the best means of preparing for the practical practice of listening.  Conversely, we might conclude that to pursue the position of vice president of “Something Important” is counterproductive to hearing the voice of God.   Further we might postulate that the humble heart is near to the point of obedience even before God’s direction is received.

Could I ask you to do a very brief self-evaluation?    Here are three simple questions.

  1. Do you believe that God does everything by prayer and nothing without it?
  2. How often in the past two days have you ask God for wisdom?
  3.  In this time have more of your important choices been directed by your thoughts or by His?

                                                        

Every man or woman who has been mightily used by God has been a person of peculiar prayer.   We can only be mightily used when we are in sync with the work and will of our Father.   There is only one way that we can get in sync with our Father; we must take time to be with Him and seek to hear His voice.    

Listen carefully for His voice.   Can you hear Him say to pray?   It seems He is saying we should pray for His kingdom to come and His will to be done on earth, in the USA, in 2012.   Can you hear Him?

It is my prayer for each of us that in the coming year our hearing would be clearer and our hearts would be nearer to the Creator and the only Savior of this World.   Merry Christmas! 

Jeff Williams