Good morning ladies and gentlemen! How are you all doing? I hope your day has been going smoothly so far? Before we go into the message, I would like to ask you a question? What kind of relationship do you have with God? How would you describe this relationship? Personally, like I mentioned in the previous post, I see my relationship with God as a love story. The more I get to know Him, the more I love Him. The love I have for God grow each and every single day. Like every relationship, there are highs and lows. But all in all, I know that God has my best interests at heart and He loves me back unconditionally. His love for me is even greater than the love I have for Him. I would like you to define the sort of relationship you have with God. Now, work towards it by communicating (prayer and meditation of the Word). You will see how your relationship with God would blossom.
Today, we would be looking at a very important topic; we are looking at “listening.” I find (from my normal conversations with friends, family and peers) that a lot of people struggle with the art pf listening. Most at times, people hear what you are saying, however they do not listen to what you are saying. To hear someone and to listen to someone are two different things. When I began to write this message, I thought to myself of how our communication skills is with God. Do we as Christians listen to what He tells us or do we just hear Him?
Now, let’s look at what the two words mean. To hear is to have the capacity of apprehending sound. To listen is to pay attention to someone. When you are listening to someone you do not use only your ears, you use your mind and your heart as well. Do you see the difference between the two words? Hearing is simply the ability to identify, understand and recognized sounds that you hear. When you hear something, you are not paying attention to it; when you listen you are paying attention. You understand and decipher what the other person is telling you. When you listen you listen with your heart and with your mind as well. Have you been listening or hearing?
God speaks to us each and every day. Most of us just hear Him and recognize His voice, however we do not pay attention to Him. I asked God what listening means to Him. He said it is the process of recognizing, accepting and understanding His words when the heart, the mind and the Spirit are in sync. Hmm!! These are the awesome things God reveals to me each day that makes me love Him more. Take a minute and read the definition once more!
Let us look at what God is telling us! First of all, God said that listening is a process. This is because of the things you must do (recognizing, accepting and understanding). This is a process because each involves a certain sort of effort from you. Most importantly, listening to God is a processes because He is in constantly communication with you. Every second, every minute, every hour and every day. God is constantly talking to us; do we listen?
I then asked God what then about hearing? He replied, to have the ability to listen you first need to hear. As I thought about it, I realized that what He was saying was right and made sense. Before you listen you must be able to hear the voice talking to you and recognize who is talking to you. This is the beginning of the process of listening begins. One problem that many Christians face is that they cannot hear God’s voice, thus they cannot even listen to what he has to tell them. You may ask how or why this happens? Well, a lot of Christians are busy with themselves that they cannot recognize Gods voice. Others can not differentiate between Gods voice and their own voice. The last group of people can neither identify their voice or God’s. They have dead consciences. Which group do you fall in? if you do fall in any of these categories do not worry. Do not lose hope, God is with you. All you need to do is acknowledge this fault and go to help and ask God to reveal and show you what to do. Hallelujah! It is well.
Let us take a look at the second part of this definition. For listening to happen to have to recognize, accept and understand His Words. We have looked at the recognizing part which is hearing. Now, let us look at accepting His Words. We must accept His words because when we don’t we disregard them. That’s how we as humans work. When we are listening to someone and we do not agree with it, we make our minds up and come into conclusion before the person speaking finishing. This is why God is telling us that to listen to what He is saying we must accept it. When we accept what He is saying, then we can understand what He is saying. Do you realize that when we are carrying out what God has told us to do, we find people think what we are about to do is crazy. Yet, we do not find it crazy. This happens because we have accepted and understood what God has told us.
Lastly, God is saying that our mind, heart and Spirit have to be in sync. This is important so that we can be one with Christ. In this situation, God’s Will prevails and not our humanly nature. Whenever all three “bodies” are in sync, we are fully immersed in Christ. This is the only way in which we can listen to God. If our human senses are heighted, when God speaks to us, we would have so many barriers and doubts, so much so that we would disregard all He tells us. When this happens we will never be able to listen to God.
Listening to God is very important. If you are a Christian we need God’s input in every aspect of our lives. I would like to use this platform to encourage you to put God at the center of everything in your life. When you do so, He is faithful and just. He will never leave you alone. What is life without God? It is no life at all. Make that decision, God is waiting to embrace you with open arms.
Have a wonderful day and let God inspire you!