Post #2. God is Speaking

I have a strong faith.  And I believe that God speaks to us.  I believe this because He says He is our Heavenly Father.  If He is our Father, then He loves us and cares for us. I know this because I am a father and I love my children.  I love them more than I can explain.  Because of this analogy, I know God loves us more than we can comprehend – more than we could ever love or understand.   

In Matthew 7:11, Jesus says, “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!”

James 1:17 says, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.”

And if this is true, that God loves us and wants to give us good things, then He speaks to us and guides us, and yes, disciplines us, just like any good father would.  It is the most basic thing a loving Father would do for His children.  

How does He speak? 

Well, since God is spirit, then He speaks to us through our spirit.  He made us spirit and flesh.**  Our flesh is easy, broken, one-dimensional, fallible, and thinks only of the present and what will satisfy itself.  Our spirit is unique, God-breathed, complete in Him, and aware of the eternal.  This dichotomy is the primary struggle of our lives on this earth.  However, as we learn to hear God’s spirit speak to our spirit, we can begin to align ourselves with the primary messages of God’s Good News: to love Him and bring Him glory, and to show His love and glory to all mankind.

God is speaking.  I want to know more about hearing from Him.  Reading His written Word, the Bible is a great place to begin hearing from Him. Not only is the Bible rich with great wisdom and instruction, but it is filled with stories about God interacting and speaking with people who were following Him. And I don't believe this is just for the special few - something we can only read about. That would just be cruel (as author John Eldredge says). I believe it's for us to experience too.

What do you think this looks/feels like in your life? When I do hear from God, I want to act. The time is now.  No regrets.


**  To say that we are created as flesh and spirit, is taken primarily from Genesis chapter 2 verse 7.  “Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.”  The Hebrew word for breathe in this verse is neshama.  It is a rich, deep word often translated as breath, life, spirit, soul.  No other thing in all of God’s creation was endowed with both flesh (formed from the dust of the earth) and God’s spirit (His breath of life). Kinda cool. 


Comments

  1. JabrumFebruary 4, 2024 at 9:20 PM

    Leroy,
    Certainly a great topic that made me think about the similarities of fatherhood and my relationship with our Heavenly Father. God is an all loving, full of grace and always forgiving Father. Those are what I strive for as a dad, but I fall short (daily) and, yet, our Father in Heaven never has nor ever will fall short in love, grace or forgiveness (or anything else for that matter). He is the perfect example of a father. When Jesus walked the earth, he was the perfect example of how to live on earth. We will never reach perfection (or even close to it) and God knows that. Sin is the antithesis of God and according to the Bible, we can not live in eternity with God as sinners. However, via extraordinary grace, God sent His only Son to earth to die on the cross for all our sins, past, present and future so we can live in eternity with God. The Bible is very clear that we must do 2 things to receive the greatest gift mankind has ever received: the gift of eternal salvation: 1- admit you’re a sinner; 2- believe that Jesus is your savior.
    We are so lucky to live in an era (post Jesus’ sacrifice) where the Bible gives us clear instruction on the the way to eternal life in the presence of God via the Gospel outlined in the New Testament.
    I sure did go down a rabbit trail there! Looking forward to our meeting this upcoming Sunday morning!

    -Shaggy

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