Notes taken from my Tuesday morning Heart to Heart bible study, taught by Elizabeth Mahusay.
This week we learned “To Clearly Hear the Voice of God”… Sounds good already huh? We studied the passage of 1 Samuel 3:1-19 when God calls Samuel. We had 3 points to cover, 1. The Rarity of God’s Voice 2. The Recognition of God’s Voice 3. The Response to God’s Voice.
Let’s start with “The Rarity of God’s Voice”. First off, we need to ask ourself a few questions. What would make God’s voice rare in my life? What’s consuming my time? Am I prepared to hear Him? When our lives are filled with so many THINGS, there’s no room for God’s voice. As human beings, wives, husbands, moms, dads, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, sons, & daughters, we focus on the people of our lives. When we become busy with people and stuff, we aren’t prepared to hear from God. Samuel was prepared to hear from God. In verse 3 it says that Samuel was lying down, not asleep, but lying down. He was ready, with no distractions, he was making room. The first truth is that we must choose to make room for God’s voice in our life.
Part 2 is, “The Recognition of God’s Voice”. In verse 4, God calls to Samuel and Samuel said, “Here I am.” In recognizing God’s voice we must be aware of the hinderances in recognizing Gods voice and the Helpful hints or habits in recognizing His voice.
Our hinderances are when we are quick to run to people we know better… People we know better than GOD. Our relationship should be so strong with the Lord that we KNOW Him better than we know our best friend. Do you know Him like that? I don’t. But I want to. So that means staying the the Word & learning more about WHO HE IS. Another hinderance is our lack of obedience to what He has already revealed. God called Samuel 3 times before Eli realized it was God calling him. If you read all 19 verses you will see that God is calling Samuel and Samuel thinks it’s his father Eli calling to him & each time, Eli says, no son, it wasn’t me who called you. Now, Eli was the high priest of that time & this shows that he was ignoring what was going on with his son. So finally Eli tells Samuel, it is the Lord who is calling you, go back & lay down & wait for Him to call you again. If we choose to ignore Him, we are not in obedience to Him. The last hinderance is the lack of knowledge of Him. Here again, we have to get in the Word & I am so guilty of not being in the Word daily, so my prayer is that I will develop a hunger for Him and His Word.
Helpful hints & habits in recognizing God’s voice. 1. Be in the Word, replace the bible with any other reading materials (for entertainment) 2. Listen for God’s relentlessness! in vs. 4 He called, in vs. 6 He called, in vs. 8 He called & in vs. 10, He called & stood, He was not messing around. He will pursue you for you to hear Him!! Has there been a particular person or situation that KEEPS coming to mind? That’s Him. Listen. 3. Cultivate a desire to OBEY the voice of God. Sometimes we don’t listen because we don’t want to hear what He has to say ( to reveal sin) Samuel was obedient to the call of his name and he was prepared to listen. 4. Know God’s voice better than competing voices. This is a hard one for me!! I have made entire situations come about because it’s what I thought I heard. What I was hearing was MYSELF & I was wrong! The best way to hear him is through His Word. Just read through some passages, some familiar texts & see what “jumps off the page”, that’s when you know He is speaking. Also by being still and waiting. Praying continuously. See His work in your circumstances. The Truth in this section is “don’t go voice hunting more than God hunting”.
The last section is “The Response to God’s Voice”.
1. Anticipate God to speak. Listen.
2. Head God’s word or words.
3. Speak His truth no matter what the earthly consequences.
4. Guard against complacency.
With all of these teachings, we must believe that God can render change when we think change is impossible! Choose to be obedient when He is speaking. ANY disobedience will hinder me hearing God’s voice.
Our Life Application for this week is to 1. Complete our reading in our “Praying with a Purpose” book, which we started Monday, Feb 1 and it’s every day for 28 days… 2. Schedule to commit to pray 3 times a day, morning, noon & evening. 3. During one of those 3 prayer times, write your prayer out to the Lord rather than just saying your prayer. Leave space to go back & record any scriptures that came to mind, if there is was any sin revealed & if anything happened in your circumstance where you saw God working.
Okay, that’s it! Have a great prayerful week!
Melissa
