The Voice of God
Life is great when we walk according to the commands of God our master. We are no way less than successful when we have the potential to listen to our master’s voice and follow it through. The truth is that our master does keep talking to us all the time. But are we sure of our master’s voice? Many a times we fail to rightly discern His voice.
Once when Jesus had His prayer answered by the Father, a voice came from heaven saying, …“I have both glorified it and will glorify it again” (John 12:28). This statement was very clear to Jesus but for those standing around him, they had their own assumptions. “Therefore the people who stood by and heard it said that it had thundered. Others said, “An angel has spoken to Him”” (John 12:29). Only Jesus was able to hear the voice of the Father clearly but. But it sounded different to everyone else. For some, it was extremely variable as they heard a thunder. But the truth is that the voice of God had appeared for everyone standing there.
Even unto us, God our Father keeps talking and resounds His voice without ceasing. Yet we mistake or misinterpret His voice justifying our own assumptions. Most of the times our self conviction makes God sound different, as of those who stood by Jesus and heard a thunder. It seems like there is a great mismatch in the wavelength between us and our Father. But Jesus said, “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me” (John 10:27). We are His sheep and we know that He is our shepherd (John 10:14). Only when we know Him, we can identify His voice. The scripture makes it very clear that if we do not know Him, we do not know His voice and hence we cannot follow Him. So how do we know Him?
A shepherd and the sheep are two different species when taken into consideration. Yet the communication between them is very strong. The sheep seldom misses the command of the shepherd. This is because, the sheep knows it’s shepherd and his voice very well. The Bible says “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God” (I John 4:7). To be understood more precisely, it says that those who are born of God, is of love and knows God. Unlike the shepherd and the sheep who are different species, those who are born of God do not differ from Him. They will know Him and will identify His voice. But “He who does not love does not know God, for God is love” (I John 4:8). To know God, we at the first place need to know what is love and what kind of love God is of.
“In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (I John 4:9-10). We received the love of God while we were still sinners and not as a return for our love towards Him. It was He who first loved us. This is Godly love. “Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another” (I John 4:11). With such love, we ought to love others. Love without any expectation; love for hatred and evil.
If this is God’s command and desire for us, He has already put that potential in us. God does not extract from us that which we don’t possess. “…the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us” (Romans 5:5). If we find it hard to love someone, it doesn’t mean that we don’t have it because the word of God does not lie. It is the deception of the enemy that stops us to love certain people. He makes us believe that we are unable to love because we don’t have it. But the truth is that Love has been poured into us by the Holy Spirit. Only if we know and believe this, love comes out of us. Otherwise we get trapped into the deception of the enemy leading to misinterpret the voice of God filled with love. We end up having our own assumptions on the voice of God concerning those we find hard to love. “No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in Him, and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit” (I John 4:12-13).
We who are born of God are made of love, because God is love. Unless we know that we are made of love, we cannot show it. When we give out what we received from God, we match His wavelength and nothing can stop us from hearing and rightly discerning His voice.
