Listening Intentionally to God
By Patsy Cameneti
Hebrews 4:7 (NLT) So God’s set another time for entering His rest and that time is today…”
Human beings are known all over the world for procrastination. A lot of us put off till tomorrow what we could easily accomplish today. Procrastination, as bad as it is, is not the main issue; the real danger in procrastination lies in beginning to worry about “tomorrow”. Worry is a habit that so many people have engaged in one time or another. People worry for varied reasons but the end result is the same, it accomplishes nothing! Jesus spoke extensively about how needless it is to worry and why we should avoid it.
In Matthew chapter six, He told us not to worry about anything, rather to “seek first the kingdom of God” and everything required for life, such as food, clothing, housing, etc will be ours for the asking. Worrying about tomorrow is a futile exercise and we are expressly told not to do it by our Lord.
I just had a birthday in April, I turned 62 and I’m happy to be alive in this hour. During my time of prayer on that day, I asked the Lord, “Lord do you have a word for me about this year of my life. Is there something you have to say to me, that maybe you have been saying and I have not been listening?”
And He gave me two words: “Trust and Respond”. There’s an old song we sing:
“Trust and obey for there’s no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.”
The word He gave was “Trust and Respond”; in other words, don’t just listen to what he says but respond and act!
The word He gave was “Trust and Respond”; in other words, don’t just listen to what he says but respond and act!
Beyond not worrying about tomorrow, we should also not regret our yesteryears. We shouldn’t have regrets about yesterday, be sorrowful or fret about what didn’t happen in the past. We should understand that we cannot undo yesterday. This chapter we read in Hebrews uses the word “Today” and we are also going to look at a few chapters.
Just under your breath, say to yourself right now- “Today, not tomorrow, not yesterday, TODAY!” It’s today that matters! Therefore, we shouldn’t lose the energy for the day by obsessing about tomorrow and regretting about yesterday. There’s a wonderful gift that happens every 24 hours when we get a new day, and there are wonderful things that happen in day blocks!
In the prayer that is commonly known as “The Lord’s Prayer,” notice Jesus didn’t say: “give us this day, all the bread we need for the rest of our lives”; no, He said: “give us this day, our daily bread” (Matthew 6:11). He didn’t even say “give us tomorrow the bread we need for tomorrow”. He said, “give us today, the bread we need for today.”
Think about the mercies of the Lord, how often are they new? The Bible says ‘every morning’ (Lamentation 3:22-23). We need His mercies every day and thank God, they are new every morning! If we take advantage of it, it keeps us in a non-toxic spiritual state where we are free from burdens and the guilt of yesterday. The mercies of God are new every morning and great is His faithfulness.
Let’s refer to our opening scripture again. The Bible says, “So God set another time for entering His rest and that time is today…”
Thus, to enter into His rest, we can look at the different examples that were used from this chapter and the chapters before. This chapter tells us that He rested from His works at the end of creation. He came to a place of rest when everything was finished (verse 4), and then He used this terminology-“rest” interchangeably with the land of promise or the Canaan land where Joshua took them into. It was called ‘rest’ (verse 8).
It was a land of blessing; it was a land that was provided for them and the Bible calls it “rest.” So God’s works that are prepared and His promises are called “Rest”. Not only are His finish of creation and Canaan land called “Rest”, this verse of scripture tells us that there remains this rest for us (verse 9). God’s rest not only pertains to Israel or the end of the six days of creation but also to us. While everything else is in constant motion, while the earth orbits, while seasons change, while things come and go, God and His will remain the same. This place of rest is a place of His established works and we don’t have to wonder if tomorrow is going to change His mind. We know today that His word is true and we know that He will not change.
Now, the question arises, how do we enter this rest?
Let’s read further; Hebrews 4:7-11
What these verses that we have been looking at are saying is that, when we hear His voice today, we are not to harden our hearts. You know words are like containers, the word of the Lord is a container and what’s in that word has faith to bring it to pass. Sometimes that word gives us comfort and peace, other times, it gives us direction and correction, again, it tells us the next steps to take.
Notice that the people of the Book of Acts acted on the word to get the results they got. We are to act on what God tells us; because even if you take what God tells you and frame it beautifully, as long as you don’t act on it, you will not reap the benefits of the word.
Therefore, the first step is to act on whatever word God speaks to you.
Secondly, respond to situations with God’s Word.
At the temptation of Jesus in Matthew 4, we saw that Jesus didn’t respond to the devil by turning stone into bread for instance. He responded instead to the word of God. What we can see from that example is that no matter what may be coming against us or whatever voices may be speaking to or against us, we are not to react or respond to them. Rather, we are to respond to the word of God.
Responding to the word of the Lord causes us to speak the right words to those voices. We don’t argue with the devil, Jesus never did. In all of his interactions with the devil, He never bothered to argue. He simply declared “It is written, man shall not live by bread alone but every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” (Matthew 4:4). Here, Jesus equated the Word of God to manna that came from heaven (John 6:58). How often did this type of manna come? It came every day, fresh from heaven. So how often does God talk to us? He talks to us every day. Some people expect God to talk to them only when they go to Church, of course, God talks to us in Church and we should expect Him to talk to us in Church, but that’s not the only time He talks to us. God talks to us every day and we should be responding to His words. If we are not responding to the word of the Lord, we are responding to something else and if we’re responding to something else, we are not harkening, but rather hardening ourselves to the voice of the Lord. He says: “today… don’t harden your heart” (Heb. 4:7)
Consequently, If we hear His voice and respond to it, it will cause us to have this amazing interaction with God and not only that, He also infuses us with Himself.
Hebrew 3:7 again says. “when you hear his voice today, don’t harden your heart”. The word ‘hear’ in the dictionary means ‘to receive information by the ear or otherwise.’ It means ‘to listen with favour or accent or compliance.’ So, we hear His voice when we receive information and we are in the position to accent to it, or comply with it or respond to it.
Let’s look at some examples of people who responded to God in the Bible:
Moses was an example of a man who heard from God (Exodus 3). God spoke to Him from the bush. He wasn’t expecting it but was just minding his business, just tending his sheep. But the burning bush caught his attention and when he turned to it, God spoke to him. Moses heard it and he paid attention and responded (verse 3-7). If at any point Moses had quit responding, the conversation would have ended and what we know today as the book of Exodus would not have been finished, it would have stopped right there. We have the book of Exodus today because Moses responded to God. God wants people to respond to Him.
Peter is another example. In Acts, chapter 10, he went up on the rooftop to pray. While there, he had a vision, a voice spoke and Peter heard it. God gave a pivotal instruction to him, that three men will come from Cornelius’s house to look for him and he was to go with them (verse 19). These were Gentiles whom Jews had no dealings with. Peter was a Jew, but what he heard from that rooftop changed everything in God’s interaction with human beings.
So far, we have been talking about how to hear God. Let’s take a look at listening to God.
Listening is different. The dictionary defines it as to ‘’wait attentively for a sound, usually followed by ‘to give attention with the ear”.
Proverbs 4:20 tells us “my son…incline your ear unto my sayings”. In other words, to “listen” on purpose. In Moses’ case, he was taken by surprise, but Peter wasn’t. We should always remember that God talks to us on a daily basis, so don’t expect Him to take you by surprise. Instead, be deliberate about listening to him, incline your ear and listen.
God wants to talk to us, so let’s listen intentionally, let’s incline our ears, let’s lean in, let’s give our ears to listen to him! What you give your ear to, and what comes in your ear gives you faith and boosts your faith. It connects you to the divine nature of God. What comes in your ear gives you the road map to escape the traps of the devil and the corruption that is in this world. What comes in your ear when you incline it, enables you to fellowship with the Almighty God, your heavenly Father, your blessed Redeemer, and the beautiful Holy Spirit! If you’re having a conversation with someone for instance, and you’re disinterested, you’ll realise that you don’t necessarily lean in, sometimes you even lean back and turn your head away. But if a lot of voices are speaking at the same time that someone is saying something very important to you, you get a little bit closer and you give your ears. You lean in!
Can God speak amidst the noise and rubbles? Yes, He can, but sometimes it’s hard to hear at those times because of distractions. So, find a quiet place and a quiet time. Jesus said, “…go into your closet and shut the door…” (Matthew 6:6). There’s something that happens when you shut things out and move in to not just hear what ‘may happen’, or whether or not God will talk, but to ‘listen’ on purpose and you will hear God talk every single day.