Responding to God

Transcript

Greetings in Jesus’ name! Welcome to this beautiful new morning and week. Today, I hope that the Lord will speak to you, He will reveal His heart and His will for your life, and when He does; how you respond back to Him, how you react to the voice of God, how you react to His instructions is very key in determining how successful you will be in keeping those words.

Some of us, we listen to the word of God, we read the Bible every day, we listen to podcasts or to sermons, and we understand the heart and the mind of God. Yet, the way we react is very cold, the way we react is sometimes even the opposite of how we were supposed to react. In the Old Testament, there were so many prophets who would be hearing the voice of God, and they would relay that voice to the people and to the nation, one such prophet is Jeremiah.

The Bible says in Jeremiah 36: 24, ‘The King and all his attendants who heard all these words, showed no fear nor did they tear their clothes.’ The context is that they are reading the scrolls that are written by Jeremiah and Jeremiah is dictating it and another scribe is writing everything down and they are reading this scroll and as they read this scroll the natural reaction that they would have had to have was one of fear. The fear of God, a fear of the future, a fear of the enemies, a fear of these prophecies coming to pass. And yet, the Bible says, they showed no fear.

The other response that they should’ve had was one of repentance because of which they should’ve torn their clothes and sat in ashes in the presence of God. That’s what King David did when the prophets spoke to him and said, “You are sinning! You are hurting! You are that man who is stealing!” And yet, this king who is reading what Jeremiah wrote, who is understanding the heart and the mind of God, the Bible says that there was absolutely no repentance, there was absolutely no change in his heart, there was absolutely no change in his physical posture and that showed that the word of God did not really affect him.

My hope, my prayer today is that every time God will speak to us, we will respond back to Him. There will be a constant response, a constant reaction, a constant change on the inside and even on the outside. It’s not just enough that we think good about what God has spoken to us inside our hearts but on the outside, as well. There has to be a fear on the inside and tearing of clothes on the outside. God was expecting these two dimensions to change for the King and his attendants who heard the word of God. The Bible says, there was no fear of god inside their hearts nor was there a tearing of clothes on the outside. So, I hope today when we read the Bible, today when you listen to my voice on this podcast, today when you are intentionally listening to the voice of the Holy Spirit there will be a change in both these realms. A change will be there, a change will be visible on the outside for your friends to see, for your family members to witness, and for your classmates to see and understand that there is a constant evolution that you are going through.

There has to be a visible, physical change on the outside and parallelly there has to be a change of posture inside your heart. A Fear of God needs to grow on the inside, and a deep love and devotion to His voice and His presence and His instructions need to grow on the inside. We are not reading the Bible or listening to God’s words for information, we are not just reading it so that we get a better idea or a better revelation, we are reading it so our lives can be transformed and that we can be changed, we can be molded into a new person. When we have that expectation in our hearts, the Lord will speak to us deep mysteries, He will open up the root cause of some of our problems, some of our behaviors, some of our issues, some of our attitudes, and the Lord will bring to light those root issues that need to be dealt with.

And today, when the Lord speaks to you, you have to respond with a vigorous change, with immediate effect and we need to look at areas where we can obey His instructions and as we take these steps of faith, there is a grace being released so that we can obey the voice of God, there is grace being released so we can walk in His ways, there is grace being released so that we can represent Him on the Earth, there is grace being released even for us to teach His word, His voice to others. How can we devalue what God is speaking to us and yet, expect to be used by God to minister to others, to minister His voice, His heart, His love, and His word to others?

Today we are not just supposed to receive the word of God, we are also supposed to be the carriers, the representatives, the spokespersons for the word of God to the ends of the Earth, and when you respond correctly to the word of God yourself when you speak when you release the words to someone else, they will also begin to respond to the word of God with the same rigorous affection, with the same immediate response and obedience, that you responded to God with.

If you agree with me, let’s pray together. ‘Dear Jesus, we want to see a change on the inside and on the outside when we hear your words, a fear, a change, a solid holy, reverential, respectful fear on the inside and tearing of clothes, changing of lifestyles, breaking the old wineskin so we can have new wine, let that also be seen on the outside. We thank you for the grace that is to be obeyed and that is to be successful in doing your will. In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen.‘