Once the Pharisees and Sadducees went to Jesus and asked Him if He is really the Son of God, the One that was prophesied about in the Old Testament, and if He is, then let them know about that so they will follow, believe and trust in Him. In fact it was extremely easy for Jesus to just say an “Yes” but instead of replying to them, Jesus answered their question with another question asking them their thoughts about John and his baptism.

John had already preached to them details about Jesus, and when Jesus asked them if the baptism that John gave was from heaven or men, they could not decide what to tell Jesus. Since they could not acknowledge from which place did John’s baptism come from, and so neither did Jesus reveal His identity to them.

Jesus withheld His true identity from them that He is the Messiah since they were not willing to understand, accept, and submit to John’s message and honor the baptism of John.

So often the one thing that stops us from experiencing God in a very personal, intimate and real way and stops God from speaking to us is our lack of submission, celebration, and receptivity to those other voices who are speaking about God.

We may not necessarily have had an encounter with Jesus yet but are we willing and receptive to the people who have had an encounter with Him? John the Baptist had an encounter with Jesus. If we are not willing to listen to John the Baptist and understand and receive his baptism and yield ourselves to the teaching and message that John is giving us, then we are disqualified to receive the revelation of Jesus Himself.

We need to receive from people before we can receive from God. In Apostle Paul’s life, Jesus wanted him to wait till a man called Ananias would come and lay his hands upon him and then he would receive sight, deliverance, and freedom, and after that, he will be used, baptised and restored.

Let us identify those voices over our lives who have had an encounter with God and have deeper and personal relationship with God and let us honor and celebrate them and receive from them continually and consistently and wait and watch how the revelations of God that they have been receiving will become public and automatically become our revelations also.

The more we are receptive to those voices, the more we will be receptive to the voice of God in our life.