Following our devotion from yesterday, I was blessed to share with someone how God speaks to me many times through promptings and conversations with people about necessary growth. Fellowship with God through prayer and fellowship with Believer’s has been one of the foremost ways I have heard the voice of God lately. I might ask you, how have God so powerfully and lovingly been speaking to you?
As I continue reading through Mark Batterson’s book, Whisper, he is detailing the necessity of us allowing God to make our lives holy ground, by growing in our devotion and intimacy to Him. Consider the following points he makes:
Holy Ground
“When I survey Scripture, I see God showing up in strange places, at strange times, in strange ways. And I don’t think anything has changed. God certainly won’t contradict Himself, but He is still predictably unpredictable. He still turns appointments into divine appointments. He still uploads desires, opens doors, and inspires dreams. He still speaks through promptings and people and pain. And just as He did for Moses, He can turn any patch of ground into holy ground”.
Whoever Has Ears
“When Jesus declared, “Whoever has ears, let them hear”, the Jewish ear would have heard hints of Psalm 40:6: “My ears have you opened”. The Hebrew word for “opened” is archeological, meaning “to excavate” or “dig through dense material”. I believe the way we do that is with our inner ears. But the word for “opened” can also be translated “to pierce”, which has led many Bible scholars to believe that David was tipping his hat to an ancient ritual outlined at Mount Sinai. After serving a six-year term, a Hebrew servant was set free in the seventh year. However, if the servant loved his master so much that he did not want to opt out of his servanthood, he was given the option of pledging allegiance to his master for a lifetime. How? By a sacred ritual that involved a pierced ear: “He shall take him to the doorpost and pierce his ear with an awl. Then he will be his servant for life”.
“Has your spiritual ear been pierced? Is your inner ear consecrated to Christ? Is the still small voice the loudest in your life? That Latin word for “obey” is obedire, which means “to give ear”. Obedience starts with a pierced ear…It’s obeying His whispers, even if a thousand people are screaming something different. “Tell me to what you pay attention, said the Spanish philosopher Jose Ortega y Gasset, “and I will tell you who you are”. You will eventually be shaped in the image of the loudest voice in your life – the voice you listen to most”.
“Solitude is one key to hearing the voice of God, no question, but it needs a counterbalance. Hearing the voice of God is not a solo sport; it’s a team sport. And one of the best ways to hear His voice is to get around those people who do. Is there someone in your life who seems to hear God more frequently, more clearly, than you do? Get as close to that person as you can. You might just hear, or overhear, the voice of God!”
Now that you prayerfully have the urge to discern how God might be speaking to you through promptings and people (as I mentioned at the beginning our today’s devotion), let’s consider some points from Alan Hirsch in his book, Untamed.
Right View of Jesus
“To get the right view of Jesus is profoundly important both for mission and discipleship, particularly when ministering to those who don’t fit our cultural stereotypes. Jesus must be freed in order to relate to all people; if He isn’t freed, the incarnation fails to make sense. Jesus refuses to be put in any of our boxes. He doesn’t – and never will – represent one individual over another, or the majority of the population over the minority…That’s the whole point of the incarnation: He became human in order to fully identify with each and every one of us”.
Holiness of Jesus
“What it is about the holiness of Jesus that causes “sinners” to flock to Him like a magnet and yet managed to seriously antagonize the religious people?…Why does our more churchy form of holiness seem to get it the other way around – to comfort the religious and antagonize the sinners?”
“The holiness of Jesus, it seems, is a redemptive, missional, world-embracing holiness that does not separate itself from the world, but rather liberates it”…way beyond mere morality…deeply concerned with both personal liberation and social transformation”.
The last portion of reading I did through Untamed before typing this devotion, ended with the challenge to examine our lives and see God’s presence in them. Holiness isn’t about being morally upright, but rather being like Jesus as he brought peace and healing to the lives of those around Him. May we endeavor to live extraordinary lives, by examining ourselves and pursuing Christ with passion.
“There is a demand by “the crowd”, the mass of people, to live an ordinary, unexamined, and passionless life in which God is essentially irrelevant, and yet they want this life to be regarded as Christian”. – Peter Vardy, British philosopher
Blessings in Him,
Pastor Michael Miano