We Should Listen, Too

God has spoken to humanity in a way that all of us can understand.  Some of them listened and even wrote it down.  This makes their encounters with God available to us.  We can read their stories.  We can learn how they interacted with God.  We can find how God patiently worked with them and when God drew the line and said, “Enough!”  We can see what it looks like to walk together with God.  Not only can we watch them listen to God through their stories.  We should listen, too.

When God came to be with us as one of us, Jesus listened to God through the Scriptures.

"THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD IS UPON ME, BECAUSE HE ANOINTED ME TO PREACH THE GOSPEL TO THE POOR. HE HAS SENT ME TO PROCLAIM RELEASE TO THE CAPTIVES, AND RECOVERY OF SIGHT TO THE BLIND, TO SET FREE THOSE WHO ARE OPPRESSED, TO PROCLAIM THE FAVORABLE YEAR OF THE LORD." And He closed the book, gave it back to the attendant and sat down; and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on Him. And He began to say to them, "Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." (Luke 4:18-21 NASB)

How about you?  Do you read the Scriptures?  Do you listen to God, too?

They Wrote it Down

God spoke to people in a way that they could understand.  Those people listened to what God had to say.  Not only that, God told some of those people to write down what they had heard…and they did.

Then the LORD said to Moses, "Write down these words, for in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel." (Exodus 34:27 NIV)

I’m thankful to God for telling them to write it down.  I’m grateful for them and their faithfulness in the writing.  It’s not like they could just go to the local office supply store for some paper and ink to print out the blog post they had written that morning.  No, the writing process to time and effort.  They had to want it.  To preserve it for thousands of years, they had to know that God wanted it.

Moses was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights without eating bread or drinking water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant--the Ten Commandments. When Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the covenant law in his hands, he was not aware that his face was radiant because he had spoken with the LORD. When Aaron and all the Israelites saw Moses, his face was radiant, and they were afraid to come near him. (Exodus 34:28-30 NIV)

I’m glad they wrote it down because so many of us are afraid to draw near to God.  Just like Moses’ day, many people are afraid to enter the doors of a church building.  They don’t want “the roof to collapse,” or “the place to burn down.”  They don’t want to draw near people of God because people of God are “Holier than thou,” or worse yet, “hypocrites.”

But Moses called to them; so Aaron and all the leaders of the community came back to him, and he spoke to them. Afterward all the Israelites came near him, and he gave them all the commands the LORD had given him on Mount Sinai. (Exodus 34:31-32 NIV)

I’m glad those people of God in the past wrote it down, though.  I’m glad others overcame their fears enough to draw close and listen, too.  I’m glad that they preserved those writings for those thousands of years.  Because of their faithfulness, we get to hear the stories, too.

When Moses finished speaking to them, he put a veil over his face. But whenever he entered the LORD's presence to speak with him, he removed the veil until he came out. And when he came out and told the Israelites what he had been commanded, they saw that his face was radiant. Then Moses would put the veil back over his face until he went in to speak with the LORD. (Exodus 34:33-35 NIV)

How about you?  Are you thankful that God spoke to people in a way that they could understand?  Are you grateful for those people writing down what God said?  Do these stories help you draw near to God, too?

People Listened

When God Created the heavens and the earth, God spoke all things into existence.  Not only did God speak all things into existence, but God spoke to the first created being as well.

The LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him." (Genesis 2:18 NIV)

Sometimes God spoke simply to tell humanity what God was doing.  Other times, God spoke to people to let them know how Creation would work.  God could have just as easily said, “You must eat food and drink water or your will die.”  Or, God could have said, “You must not jump off that cliff over there, for when you do you will certainly die.”  God didn’t say these things, at least as far as we know.  God did, however, still give a warning and a command.

And the LORD God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die." (Genesis 2:16-17 NIV)

Here’s the beauty of the arrangement: God spoke in such a way that people could understand what God had to say.  Not only did they understand, but they listened.  They remembered.  They took God’s words to heart.

The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, 'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.'" (Genesis 3:2-3 NIV)

How about you?  Do you hear what God has to say?  Do you understand God’s meaning?  Do you listen to God and take God’s Words to heart?

God Speaks

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. (Genesis 1:1-3 NIV)

When God created the heavens and the earth, God build into the design a whole host of things for us to discover, learn, and understand about our Creator.  Perhaps the most powerful part of God’s creative acts, however, were the moments when we read that “God said.”

And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. (Genesis 1:3 NIV)

And God said, "Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water." (Genesis 1:6 NIV)

And God said, "Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear." And it was so. (Genesis 1:9 NIV)

Then God said, "Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds." And it was so. (Genesis 1:11 NIV)

And God said, "Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years, and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth." And it was so. (Genesis 1:14-15 NIV)

And God said, "Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky." (Genesis 1:20 NIV)

And God said, "Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: the livestock, the creatures that move along the ground, and the wild animals, each according to its kind." And it was so. (Genesis 1:24 NIV)

Then God said, "Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground." (Genesis 1:26 NIV)

Then God said, "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. (Genesis 1:29 NIV)

I don’t say that these statements are the most powerful because God has the ability to simply speak things into existence.  While I recognize the power behind that, God has shown us that God doesn’t even need to speak to bring something into existence.  God formed human beings from the dust of the ground without a Divine Word (Genesis 2:7).  No, the real power is in the fact that God chooses to speak in the first place.  “God says,” means that others who are not God can listen.  Others who are not God can understand.  Others who are not God can comprehend, in part at least, the mind of God.  God chose to say so God’s creation could hear.  God chooses to communicate in such a way that reaches out to us.  God wants to build a relationship with us.

How about you?  What do you think about when I say that “God speaks?”