14 July 2014

ARE YOU LISTENING AND LOOKING ?

By John Ollis

In the last two blogs I have highlighted the ways God wants to talk to us EVERY DAY, through the Word of God (The Bible) and the still small voice within.
God chooses many other ways to speak to us as well, you may have received a vision or had a dream that God used to speak to you. You may have had a Christian friend who knowingly or even unknowingly said something that became a real word from God to you.
The other SPECIAL WAY God wants to speaks to us on a regular basis, is in your weekly Bible Study group, and especially through the preaching of God’s word on a Sunday.
1 Peter 1.23 descibes the Word of God as a seed, so here is something I encourage you to do on Sunday morning, either in your Quiet Time, or as you are driving to church, make sure the garden bed of your heart is prepared (no weeds, no unconfessed sin) to receive a word from God through the preaching.
I encourage people to take notes during the preaching, we remember more if we write it down as well, but when the preaching starts, pray a simple prayer, “Lord talk to me through your servant today. Speaking personally, many times the Lord has spoken to me through the preaching even though what the Lord said was not really the message the preacher was seeking to communicate. At the end of the preaching, pray “Holy Spirit water this word in my heart and let it bring forth a harvest in my life. Even the poorest preacher can be God’s channel to speak to us, we must keep our attitude right, remember God even used Balaam’s ass to speak into a situation.
The Bible is also called the Bread of Life and every sermon can become a 3 course meal, as you let the Holy Spirit speak to you. The Lord has spead before us a table overflowing with the very best food for our soul. Let us eat up heartily.
You know my favourite verse is the words of James, “We have not because we ask not”. Let us ask regularly “Lord increase my hunger for the Word of God. Lord I want to be a glutton and consume all you have for me”.
As I said in the last blog, not only must we hear, but must obey the Word, again we must not just be hearers but DOERS of the Word.
Just as we can have have 20/20 vision may we have the equivelant in our spiritual hearing.
God bless you abundantly. Would you like to share with me what the Lord is saying to you, generally the word is not just for you, so share it around.