We are all familiar with the Scripture, “Be still and know that I am God.” It is difficult to know His voice when our head is full of our thoughts, our voice. It requires a stilling of our voice, getting quiet. And I have found in my lifetime, and I have been in the Lord since 1949, probably seriously since about 1962 or 1963, that it is still the most difficult discipline in my life, getting quiet, stilling my voice. And you really cannot tell His voice from your voice if you are speaking. He sounds like you. It’s a still small voice, it is not as if it is a voice y0u recognize as different from your own. There are some characteristics to His voice, though. Usually He speaks when you are not speaking and it usually comes in a way that you recognize that you did not think that this voice was something that you produced. But you cannot hear Him if you are speaking.
Remarkable Miracles –
There is a book that I am recommending to you called Remarkable Miracles by G. C. Bevington. It is the story of this “bare foot” preacher ministering up and down the Ohio River valley around the first part of the 20th Century up to about 1940. The uniqueness of his ministry was that he learned at a young age that when he got down to pray, he didn’t get up until he heard. Sometimes he might be down for an hour, two hours, two days, a week. But it was his practice not to get up until he heard. And out of it came a life of really walking in the leading of the Lord and learning His voice. One of the things Bevington shares in his book is that one of the most difficult things about hearing God is getting quiet.
We are going to try and go through that little discipline as we prepare to understand this next teaching and just ask the Lord to help us quiet our own voice, quiet our own thoughts. And many of our thoughts when we are reading someone’s teaching are thoughts of judgment, that is, we are judging what we are reading. And even though we may be judging in a right way, with righteous judgment, it gets into unrighteous judgment when, in perceiving or discerning out of what we are reading and what we are seeing, we judge down, we condemn, we hold the writer, the perpetrator, as less than. And it’s important that we listen and discern and filter it by way of the Holy Spirit.
But we need to be very careful how we judge what we are hearing or reading, because sometimes it is God speaking. And we need to say, “Lord, if you are speaking, let me hear it.” But the most important point is your coming to a place of quietness. A part of the discipline of listening to one another is listening for Him, and learning to discern His voice from any other voice. And, if you are listening to the Lord, or if you are quiet, listening for Him, the author or speaker may be missing Him and you, the reader or listener, may be hearing Him. I, as the writer, might be off and you’ll still perceive what is true; God will correct it for you, help you understand it. Perhaps you are doing that now, consciously or subconsciously, but I am speaking it, I am saying it to you so that you can give some thought to it and you can discipline yourself in your own listening.
I just discipline myself Lord; I listen to you only. Lord, I present to You a heart that is willing to do what you are speaking to me. Lord, I will enter in.
Do you know that text in Luke 11:52 that reads, “The one who enters in shall know?” It’s not entering in that steals knowledge, or that keeps knowledge from coming. I go through those disciplines often. When I do not go through those disciplines, I am taken by how little I hear. When I go through those disciplines, I am always encouraged by hearing Him.
Lord, if the reader does not know how to get quiet and You know where each one of us is, I’m asking, Father, that beginning now, You teach the discipline of quieting our own voice so that we might hear You. Teach us how to come to stillness, Lord, and how to incline our heart and lean our ear in Your direction.
O my soul and all that is in me, that we would come under the reign of the Lord our God. O my soul and all that is within me, be still and know the voice of God. O my soul and all that is within me, will to do what our Lord speaks. O my soul and all that is within me, decide to follow the Lord our God wherever He leads.
O Lord we, with joy, yield our reign. O Lord, we, with joy, yield our will. O Lord, it is with joy that we ask for Yours, both Your reign and Your will ruling in our heart. Teach us, heavenly Father by Your Holy Spirit and Your divine Word. For we with intent come under Your reign. It is our desire, Father, because of what You have put within us; it is our desire that our Lord Jesus, the Christ, be fully formed in us. O heavenly Father, it is our desire that we would be among a people who have made themselves ready.
I thank You, heavenly Father, for what you are going to do in my heart as I read these words. I thank You, in Christ Jesus. Amen.
A Revolutionary Gospel 