Category Archives: hearing God

James: Do What It Says!

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(Today is James 1) 

“Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.”
‭‭James‬ ‭1‬:‭22‬ ‭NIV‬‬

In America, we have ample opportunity to “listen to the word.” We can download the Bible to our phones. We can freely attend church without fear of persecution. We can tune into countless podcasts that talk about the word. We have Christian TV, Christian Radio, Christian entertainment —movies, concerts, etc.

We could listen to and or attend every single thing I have mentioned and walk away unmoved by it. Why? Because we refuse to act upon what we have heard.

This is not the relationship that God desires for us to have with Him! 

“But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do.”
‭‭James‬ ‭1‬:‭25‬ ‭NIV‬‬

We are to “look intently” and to “continue in” the Word. We are to “not forget what we have heard, but DO IT.”

Our encounters with God’s Word are to be taken into our heart and His Word is supposed to make a change in our lives. The Life the Word produces through our obedience is supposed to eradicate the death our sinful choices have brought. The Truth we are receiving is supposed to expose the lies. The Word will produce freedom where captivity to sin has abounded. The Word will bring blessing in all we do.

Why do we choose to stay in the pattern of our own ways when we hear the Word speaking the way to go?

Don’t merely listen to what the Word is saying! Do IT!

Show Us The Father — The Personal God

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““You see the people crowding against you,” his disciples answered, “and yet you can ask, ‘Who touched me?’ ””
‭‭Mark‬ ‭5‬:‭31‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Jesus was surrounded by crowds of people, but He still saw the needs of the one. One man in a crowd needed Jesus to heal his dying daughter. Jesus’s response is to head towards that man’s, Jairus, home to pray for his little girl.

As they walk through the crowd where people were pressing up against Jesus on all sides, one woman was healed in a very personal way. Jesus stopped to address her individually.

You and I are only one in 8 billion on this planet. There are so many others pressing in around Jesus. Yet He stops for the one, you/ me.

So many around us but He comes to our home of our hearts and raises the dead within us.

Jesus shows us a Heavenly Father who is personal. He is for each of us one on one. He wants intimate relationship with each of us. Jesus went to the cross, died and rose again to extend the invitation that our Heavenly Father desires for us to receive. He desires for us to come. Will we respond to His personal invitation for our time to be one on one with Him?

Show Us The Father — The Sower of the Word

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Today is Mark 4:1-20.

“The sower sows the word.” (Verse 14)

I’ve planted a few gardens. The idea behind a garden is to plant a seed that will produce ALOT. When I put a seed in the ground, I am desiring to see the good vegetables to come after time of tending the seeds and the plants they will yield.

Our Heavenly Father has given us the seed of His Word. He sows this seed within our spiritual heart. His desire is to see the good fruit that it will bear in our lives.

The seed of the Word is “living and active.” It is good seed. It will produce what it was sent to produce. However, if fruit is not produced, the issue isn’t the seed. The issue is the condition of the soil the seed fell upon.

Simply put, what is the condition of your spiritual heart. Is it hard and unyielding. Is it filled with rocks (sin) that keep the Word from taking root. Is it lined with thorny plants “the cares of the world and deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things” that “chokes the Word, and proves unfruitful.” Or is your heart good soil that hears the Word and accepts it bearing fruit.

Our Heavenly Father is sending forth His Word. He desires for us to receive it and enjoy the good fruit it produces in our lives. Not just a little of the good fruit, but a lot! His desire is for us to receive it by hearing it and accepting it. He is the Sower of good seeds. Will we receive?

Show Us The Father — Family

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Today is Mark 3:21-35.

Jesus’s biological family thought He was “out of his mind.” They came to seize Him. They did not understand who Jesus really was.

When Jesus was told about their coming, they said, “Your mother and your brothers are outside, seeking you.” Jesus then defined our true heavenly family. He said, “…whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother.” (Verse 35)

If we want to dwell in a relationship of “family” with God, we need to do the will of God. What is the will of God?

Jesus defined the will of God:

“For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.””
‭‭John‬ ‭6‬:‭40‬ ‭ESV‬‬

The will of God is that we believe on Jesus and receive His eternal life.

Jesus also defines eternal life:

“And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”
‭‭John‬ ‭17‬:‭3‬ ‭ESV‬‬

Knowing God = Eternal Life= Connection to God in a Relatioship of Oneness

When we know God intimately, in a connected relationship, we will be in His will. The ones who know God in this relationship are His family.

Nothing else matters in life. God wants us to experience Him as our Father. In this passage, the ones who were seated around Jesus, listening to Him speak were the ones who wanted to know God and to experience Him in relationship. They were the ones who were doing the will of God. They were Jesus’s true spiritual family.

When we enter into a relationship with God, we enter His family too! We can know God in a relationship of family!

Show Us The Father — Real

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Today is Mark 3:1-21.

“And he told his disciples to have a boat ready for him because of the crowd, lest they crush him, for he had healed many, so that all who had diseases pressed around him to touch him.”
‭‭Mark‬ ‭3‬:‭9‬-‭10‬ ‭ESV‬‬

People are looking for what is real, what is true. This was true in Jesus’s time and it is true today.

Crowds were showing up wherever Jesus went. They wanted an opportunity to experience Jesus. They had heard of Him, but they wanted to be near to Him, touch Him, and feel His power. They knew He had healed many. They knew He wasn’t just another religious leader. They knew He was real!

I have heard that this generation has seen so much false. They are hungry for what is real. God desires for them to know Him and His Word. He is the one who is right and true! He is real!

May our lives reflect Him so others may know Our Heavenly Father who still touches the broken and needy! He is real!

Show Us the Father — Friend of Sinners

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Today is Mark 2:1-17.

I can vividly remember the weight of my sin. I have known the emptiness of being separated from God. I can imagine how those who encountered Jesus in this chapter (the paralyzed man and Levi) must have felt, under the weight of their sin.

Jesus came to reconcile us to God. He “has authority on earth to forgive sins.” (Verse 10) Jesus, God with us, ate with sinners.

He told the self righteous religious leaders, who thought they had it together, “I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.” These leaders disliked Jesus all the more. In their preoccupation with how they looked, acted, and lived, they lived consumed with themselves. They couldn’t see the one truth that we all need to realize…we are all sinners too. They too were carrying the weight of sin as the ones they so quickly judged. Had they seen it and received God’s forgiveness, they would have had opportunity to experience God in truth. The God they thought they knew all about…

Jesus told them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Jesus came so He could call the sinners to Himself. He came so we could be forgiven. Our Heavenly Father desires for sinners to come! He is still calling us, sinners, today!

“…all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,”
‭‭Romans‬ ‭3‬:‭10‬, ‭23‬ ‭ESV‬‬

Jesus knew this truth! He came, He forgave sinners, and He ate with them! He has calls us His friends.

The ones who think they don’t need forgiveness of sins miss what Jesus was trying to show us about the Heavenly Father. He desires to be the sinner’s greatest friend!

“The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.”
‭‭1 Timothy‬ ‭1‬:‭15‬ ‭ESV‬‬

New Beginnings in The Book of Acts — “I Would Like to Hear the Man Myself”

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Today is Acts 25.

The Jewish leaders of Paul’s time refused to listen to the truth of God. They hated Paul, and they hated his testimony regarding Jesus. The would not believe that Jesus was alive, that Paul had had an encounter with Him, and that Jesus had changed Paul’s life.

They wanted the message that Paul was teaching and preaching to die. In their minds, the way to achieve it would be to kill Paul himself. The results of this mission was Paul imprisoned.

However, this gave Paul more opportunity to share what Jesus had done for him. First he shared with Felix, the Roman official. Then the opportunity came to speak to King Agrippa.

“I would like to hear the man myself.” King Agrippa spoke these words. He was not a believer in Jesus, but he was curious of what Paul was preaching.

Our world is filled with people similar to those of Paul’s time. There are those who have heard the message of Jesus rejecting and resisting it. There are those who are curious. Who would “like to hear” our testimony of what Jesus has done.

The question is will we respond as Paul did? Will we tell everyone with whom God brings into contact with us about the encounter we have experienced with Jesus?

Paul was not afraid to testify of the Gospel of Jesus! Are we? We live in a world with people who “would like to hear.” How they respond is not the issue. Our willingness to testify is.

New Beginnings in The Book of Acts — We Need Him!

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Today is Acts 21.

The Holy Spirit spoke to the believers who were friends with Paul. He told them that Paul would be arrested in Jerusalem. Paul already knew this as well, and he was fully convinced that God had told Him to go to Jerusalem any way. He was prepared to suffer whatever he would suffer. Because he knew he had to testify of Jesus there.

Sometimes the direction of our lives leads us down hard roads. This does not mean that God is not with us when we face difficulty, or that we have missed God’s will. God has a plan in each and every path He places us on. The end of that plan is always for our good and for His glory! We can trust Him in this. Hardship is part of life here in a world that is tainted by sin. The only place we find free of that is heaven where there are no more tears, no more sadness, no more sorrow.

This is why our loving Heavenly Father sent the Holy Spirit to us. He is the Comforter. The question arises as we look more intently at the Holy Spirit within us: Do we need the Holy Spirit? YES! We need His comfort, we need His guidance, we need His teaching, We need His power. The Holy Spirit in us is God’s gift to help us navigate life’s hardest twist and turns.

May we seek to know Him better and to live our lives in His fullness!

New Beginnings in The Book of Acts —Sent Out!

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“While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them”…. sent on their way by the Holy Spirit…they proclaimed the word of God.” Acts‬ ‭13‬:‭2‬,4-5 NIV‬‬


Today is Acts 13.


The church in Antioch spent time worshipping and fasting. As they did the Holy Spirit directed them to send out Saul, who is also called Paul, and Barnabas on a missionary journey. As Paul and Barnabas went out, they “proclaimed the word of God.” Everywhere they went people’s lives were changed. The people were “astonished at the teaching of the Lord.” The people “begged that these things might be told them.” One account in verse 44 says “almost the whole city gathered to hear the word of the Lord.” The Gentiles “began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord…” verse 48. In fact, “the word of the Lord was spreading throughout the whole region.”

We have the same Holy Spirit living inside of us. We have the same Word of God to proclaim! People are hungry to hear. We too can worship and fast to hear the direction of the Holy Spirit so that we can go out and proclaim God’s Word.

Our world is no different than the world during the time of the early church. People need to hear about Jesus and all that He has done! We have the Word that brings life. May we boldly proclaim that Word in the power of the Holy Spirit!

New Beginnings in Acts — Stand in God’s Way?

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“So if God gave them the same gift he gave us who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to think that I could stand in God’s way?”” Acts‬ ‭11‬:‭17‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Today is Acts 11.

Peter’s visit with Cornelius was controversial with the Jewish believers. They had not understood God’s plan. The Jews did not closely affiliate with the Gentiles. They would not even eat with them. But Peter explained why he went, and how God had revealed to Him in a vision that he needed to “make no distinction” between himself and the Gentile men who came to him. When the Gentile household received the Holy Spirit as he had, Peter came to a conclusion. “Who was I that I could stand in God’s way?”

God wants complete surrender of our ideas, thoughts, plans, dreams, etc. to Him. His way is better than anything we could ever conceive. We may think a certain way, but when it is held up to the truth of the Word of God that way must change. Peter “remembered the word of the Lord.“ (verse 16) This changed how he had always lived his life. He obeyed the Word of the Lord. This obedience brought life not only to Cornelius, but it opened the door for the Gentiles (which is you and me) to come. “Then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life.“

When God speaks to us, we must listen. We must obey! It may be uncomfortable, but our obedience to His Word is always for our good and the good of those around us. May we say as Peter did, “who was I that I could stand in Gods way?”