Tag: A Word for Wednesday

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As One Speaks to a Friend

“The Lord would speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend.”— Exodus 33:11

Who is the one person in your life you can talk with more freely and openly than anyone else? What is it about this person that makes it so? Is it their compassion, relatability, or listening skills? Are they encouraging, insightful, and honest in response? Or perhaps he or she also knows when just to be with you and to say nothing at all. Whatever their helpful character traits, I’m guessing he or she is a friend—perhaps a relative or a spouse, but foremost a friend. Likewise, I think hearing God through prayer starts at friendship.

God is our friend. It is striking, how often Jesus called people, “friend.” To the healed paralytic: “Friend, your sins are forgiven.”1 To the many thousands gathered to hear him: “I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid . . .”2 In His parting words to His disciples, Jesus said, “You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants . . .  Instead, I have called you friends.”3 Even to Judas as he betrayed Him, Jesus said, “Do what you came for, friend.”4 And as friends eagerly welcome conversation and delight in it, so it is that God invites us, His people, into prayer: “Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.”5

Our friend is God. This One who calls us friends is also He who calls Himself, “I AM.” He is just, so His responses are right, and He is spirit, so He speaks to our soul. So, perhaps like Paul you have presented your requests to God through prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, and experienced in silent reply “the peace of God, which transcends all understanding.”6 Maybe with fellow believers you have pursued God’s will in a matter through prayer and, like the early church leaders, sensed a resolution that “seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us.”7 It was while Peter was in prayer that God prepared him—both through a vision and then specific directions—to share the gospel with the Gentiles.8 God is love; He will answer as one speaks to a friend. God is sovereign, so He speaks with power, authority, and always as He wills. Then no matter how He chooses to reply, ours is to trust, to wait, and to listen for our friend, our God.

“I call on you, my God, for you will answer me; turn your ear to me and hear my prayer.9 Speak, for your servant is listening.” 10 Amen.

1 Luke 5:20
2 Luke 12:4
3 John 15:14-15
4 Matthew 26:50
5 Jeremiah 33:3
6 Philippians 4:6-7
7 Acts 15:27
8 Acts 10:9-23
9 Psalm 17:6
10 1 Samuel 3:10

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The Bible Is Changing Me

“The Bible is changing me,” observed our dear friend. Exploring God through weekly study and discussion had led her to experience Him also through prayer and reflection, and the change from the inside out was clear. We share her joy. Hers is a relatable story, for isn’t it true that the more we delve into the pages of Scripture—sensing its truth, absorbing its wisdom, and drawing nearer to the God who speaks it—the more it changes us? Peace uproots fear, and meaning supplants futility. Despair withers beneath blossoming hope, and truth liberates us to love. How is it that the Word penetrates layers of opinions and worldviews to reach and change the very core of our being?

Through the Word, the Spirit speaks truth into our soul. On the night of his betrayal, Jesus prayed to the Father on our behalf, “Sanctify them [make them holy] by the truth; your Word is truth.”1 He promised his followers, “when . . . the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears.”2

Through the Word, the Spirit speaks life into our soul. “The Spirit gives life,” wrote Peter, “for you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.”3 As Jesus taught, “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh provides no benefit; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit, and are life.”4

Through the Word, the Spirit speaks guidance into our soul. “The word of God is alive and active”—we sense its accuracy and precision as it “penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit . . . ; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.”5 The Spirit exposes our sin,6 not to leave us there in hopelessness, rather He lovingly meets us wherever we are to turn us and guide us in His ways and for His purposes, for “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”7

“The Word of God . . . is indeed at work in you who believe,”8 wrote Paul. For the Spirit of God speaks to us through the Word of God. Then may this be our living testimony every day: “the Bible is changing me.”

So is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it. Isaiah 55:11.

Father, open your Word to us that we may hear You; open our hearts and minds to Your way, Your truth, and Your life. In Christ the living Word we pray. Amen.

1 John 17:17
2 John 16:13
3 1 Peter 1:23
4 John 6:63 (NASB)
5 Hebrews 4:12
6 John 16:8
7 2 Timothy 3:16-17
8 1 Thessalonians 2:13

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Our Purpose and God’s Voice

“Did you ever just know something?” I asked a missionary friend who had returned to the U.S. for a welcome respite. We were talking about the ways God speaks to people, and I was curious as to how he had experienced hearing God. “Yes,” he replied, “I do have that, and it’s growing in frequency the more I learn to discern the voice of the Spirit and the more I learn to try to keep in step with Him.” His was the testimony of relationship, for as we saw in last week’s post, we hear God as we draw near to Him. Over time, we open up more broadly, reveal ourselves more deeply, and grow in gratitude of this precious gift of friendship.

Yet there is order and purpose in our relationship with God, much like that of a parent and child. Hearing God then is also a matter of aligning with—and submitting to—His sovereignty. As my friend put it, we “keep in step with Him.” Jesus knew well His mission of submission: “to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work,”1 so to seek the Father’s direction, Jesus “often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.”2 How do we know He heard the Father? We know it through His own words: “whatever I say is just what the Father has told me to say.”3 We know it also through His deeds, for as He himself said, “I do exactly what my Father has commanded me.”4 Jesus sought God, Jesus heard God, and Jesus obeyed God.

So, what is our purpose; to what end might the Spirit speak to us? In his book, The Purpose Driven Life,5 Pastor Rick Warren posits five purposes for God’s people: we are planned for God’s pleasure, formed for God’s family, created to become like Christ, shaped for serving God, and made for a mission. In my mind, these five coalesce into one overarching life purpose—we are here to glorify God. Through Isaiah God cries out, “Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the ends of the earth—everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.”6 Then when the Spirit speaks to us, we will recognize our purpose in His voice—to bring glory to God. Then may we “keep in step with Him” today.

When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth . . . He will bring me glory by telling you whatever he receives from me.—John 16:13-14 NLT

“Yours, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, for all that is in the heavens and in the earth is yours. Yours is the kingdom, O Lord, and you are exalted as head above all.”7

1 John 4:34
2 Luke 5:16
3 John 12:50
4 John 14:31
5 Rick Warren. The Purpose-Driven Life, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan).  
6 Isaiah 43:6-7
7 1 Chronicles 29:11 ESV