God speaks by the Holy Spirit through the Bible, prayer, circumstances, and the church to reveal Himself, His purpose, and His ways
p.44
Share to the group a statement or scripture that resonates with you from today’s reading and a responding prayer…
The statement “knowing God’s voice comes from an intimate love relationship with God” resonated with me because upon reflecting, I realized I would not always characterize my relationship with God as a “love” relationship. However, like any other intimate relationship in which love is present, there is a coinciding heightening in understanding of the other person and recognition of their voice and who they are. This statement challenged me to change how I characterize my relationship with God.
Luke 19: 41-44 “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side “and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation.””
Luke 19:44 ESV
https://bible.com/bible/59/luk.19.44.ESV
On page 44 the author writes about this passage, “They we’re so self-centered and sinful they could not recognize when God was in their midst,” I found this an important passage as it spotlighted an important message in this study… one that relates to John 8:47 “He who belongs to God hears what God says. The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God”. Our own sinful nature and self-centered ways lead to us not hearing Gods will in our lives.
So Lord I pray that you continue to help my heart heal from the inside out and that you lend me the strength to relieve myself of any self-centered ways. I pray I can continue to not read the Bible just to confirm my own goals, but that I read it to learn and build a stronger intimate relationship with you.
From don
The statement that most resonated with me in today’s reading, and even perhaps out of all we have read so far, is this: “God loves you. He wants to have an intimate relationship with you. He wants you to depend on Him when you seek a word from Him. He wants you to learn to hear His voice and know His will. Your relationship with Him is the key to hearing when God speaks to you.”
Wow! So simple, yet so profound. “God loves you.” That’s it. With all the time and energy we spend trying to figure out the best way to hear God, or how He speaks to us, or how to bring all these seeming contradictions make more sense, sometimes we forget this one simple fact… God loves us! He really, really loves us. For some reason- far beyond any comprehension of mine- God desires to be close to me. Me- a foolish, self-centered, prideful sinner, who has spent much of His life scoffing at God and rebelling against Him.
“God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us,” (Romans 5:8).
It seems to me that once we begin to realize the extraordinary implications of this, our own desire for Him grows. We begin to seek Him wholeheartedly, and, in turn, He begins to reveal more of Himself to us. And this is where it would seem that we begin to hear God’s voice.
Lord, our God, thank You for Your immeasurable love and amazing grace. You, who love us so much, You sent Your own Son to die for us that we may live for You! I pray that we would remeber that love, and in turn, respond with faithful devotion to You. Bind our wandering hearts to You, oh Lord, that we may hear Your voice and know Your will.
“Knowing God’s voice comes from an intimate love relationship with God.” Just as it is impossible for me to grow closer to friends, family, or a SO without spending time with them, I can’t expect to grow closer in my relationship with God without devoting time to His word and prayer as two of the main ways the Holy Spirit speaks to me. I find relying on circumstance and the church as more convenient ways to listen, but I miss out on the more personal ways He may speak to me by neglecting the other two. I’m thankful for this group, encouraging me to be more consistent (even if it may be for kbbq) as it has helped me place importance and accountability for this devotional time into my schedule. I pray that i would continue to seek His will and voice through a personal love relationship with God, especially by depending on prayer and His word to know Him more
I always wonder about how do I know if God is really speaking to me. Today the answer is provided – when an intimate love relationship is build with God, I would be able to hear and recognize his voice. There is no formula for solving the code. God speak to his child in different ways and in different circumstances He reveal Himself. Every words spoken by Him is unique and customized so that the child knows it’s the voice of the father. No one can build a relationship with God for us and no one is able to interfere with God’s words. Just as in John 10:14 when Jesus preaches about The Lord is our shepherd and we are His sheep. He knows his sheep, and the sheep that follows him knows and understands His voice.