Free of Stubbornness

Transcript

Good morning and greetings in Jesus name! Welcome to this amazing new morning! Today, the word, the voice, and the revelation of the Lord are very near to us, it is very close, at hand. Every time we open up our hearts and let the Lord speak to us, every time we open up our bibles and engage with the word, reading and loving the word, and allowing God to speak to us, we are receiving a revelation, a touch; a very tangible, a physical encounter with the Lord himself. Because the word is God! Not that God just gives us his word and stands at a distance! No, when we receive the word we have received God. But the question really is how do we respond to the word and voice of God?
Let’s hear what the Holy Spirit is speaking to us this morning! The author of Hebrews writes this in Hebrews 3:7,8.
So then, as the Holy Spirit says, if you hear God’s voice today, then do not be stubborn as your ancestors were when they rebelled against God, as they were that day in the desert when they put him to the test.
The Holy Spirit is reminding us of that generation that travelled from Egypt to Canaan and they had to go through a wilderness, a season of testing and trying, a desert phase in their journey, in their pursuit of their promised land. But the amazing thing about this desert or wilderness experience was that God was very close to them. His presence was felt 24 hours a day; 12 hours it was a cloud in the sky, the next 12 hours was a pillar of fire with them. So, they never had a moment when they didn’t experience the tangible manifestation of God’s presence, power, protection, and provision. To add to it, they had a Moses who was representing God’s heart, voice, word to them.
Whenever there was a confusion or a dispute or lack of clarity in any issues, they could go to Moses because Moses will take it to God and hear God for them and bring the voice of God for them on a daily basis. On a regular basis, on a need-to-need basis, the word and the voice of God were available for them. Yet, the bible says this generation of Israelites were stubborn, stuck to their ways. They did not allow the word, the voice, the presence of God to mould them, to change them. They continued to remain in their ways.
That is why the writer of Hebrews is reminding us. Today, if you have access to God’s voice, if you have a revelation of who God is, if the Lord is speaking to you today, if God is providing for you, if his presence is available for you today, then kindly refrain from responding with a stubborn heart.
I remember growing up as a teenage boy and desiring to hear the voice of God, and I used to think “if only I can hear the voice of God everything will be easy, then I will always obey him, then I will always walk in his ways, then I will never make a mistake ever again in my life. I was in the pursuit of hearing the voice of God, understanding the manner that God speaks to us. But what I discovered is that even after I could hear God, even after I could understand his will, there was a stubbornness in my own heart that would refuse to always submit to that voice, that would always try to do things my own way. So, hearing God’s voice was in itself not the solution, but obedience to the voice of God, responding with humility to the word of God, responding with an earnest desire to put into action everything God is speaking, that was what was necessary.
That is why the writer of Hebrews is warning the New Testament Christians. He says, “it’s good that you hear the voice of God today, it is good that you have access to the holy of holies, it is good that you have a revelation of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, but my real question is “do you have a stubborn heart when you respond to that voice”. If you do, then today you need to get rid of that stubbornness. He also explains to us the consequences of this stubbornness. It says because of their stubbornness they rebelled against God and they put God to test; they tried God, they fought God, they continued to oppose the ways and the manners of God, all because they had stubborn hearts. But we thank God for the presence of the Holy Spirit who helps us with our heart condition, in our weaknesses, with our stubbornness, to get rid of the “me”, “I”, “my way” factor.
If we can just yield ourselves to the Holy Spirit this morning, we will receive strength to let go, to humble ourselves, strength and grace to understand God’s ways and to surrender ourselves to the ways and the manners of God.