Listen: Speak

Listen. The creator of the universe does not shout. He's not yelling at you. He's whispering. Why whisper? Because you gotta be really close to hear the whisper of God. When you whisper to somebody, it's pretty intimate. You gotta get really, really close. God's saying, Elijah, I'm right here. Some of you need to know that today. God is not distant from you. He's close to you, so close that you can hear His whisper. [01:01:05] (34 seconds)  #whisperofgod

But but I will tell you, it's been a few times where I'm going throughout my day and just the power of the Holy Spirit redirects me, and it is a sweet opportunity. There's been times where I was maybe doing sermon prep or doing other pastoral duties and just the Holy Spirit said, you need to call this family. This person's been in hospice for a while for months and months, but it's time. I call him up, and I say, I'm on my way to the hospital. How did you know? [00:53:22] (31 seconds)  #holyspiritnudges

There's some things we don't need to waste our time praying about. We have everything you need. We have everything we need for life and godliness. God has spoken a lot. He said a lot of things. There's a lot of things we do need to pray about, but let's not confuse them for the things that we shouldn't be praying about because God's already spoken on that. Don't use I'll pray about it as a justification to do what you wanna do. Okay? [00:50:32] (24 seconds)  #praywithpurpose

Speak for your servant is listening. Now listen. It's a dangerous prayer. Don't don't pray that if you don't mean that because when God speaks, oftentimes there's a command followed. When God meets people in the Old Testament, most often, was a task. It was a command. It was a charge to go and do something really, really difficult, so please be careful with that prayer. [00:41:47] (26 seconds)  #carefulwhatyouprayfor

There's two primary ways in which God speaks to every person on the planet. It's called general revelation. General means every person on the planet has an opportunity to have God speak to them. The first one is through creation. No matter where a person is born on this planet, they have an opportunity to see the sunrise and the sunset. That is the handiwork of the almighty creator God. You cannot look at that and think that's all by chance. [00:54:28] (34 seconds)  #creationrevealsgod

But listen. Some of us are waiting for just, like, supernatural. I remember I was in high school taking tests with ovals filling in. I'm like, I'm looking for a sign. Like, is it a b c or d? Give me a shadow of the cross on the corner above the a, and I'll know it's you. That's not how God speaks. God is not mysterious. He's relational. He wants to speak to you. [00:59:12] (25 seconds)  #relationalnotmysterious

When was the last time you heard God clearly speak to you? And is it an audible voice? Maybe you've been in conversations with people and they said, oh, yeah. God told me to do this. God told me to leave my job, and I heard God say this. I'm here because of God, and you're maybe you're questioning, well, I've never heard God speak to me that clearly. [00:33:17] (23 seconds)  #haveyouheardgod

You're gonna hear sounds. You're gonna hear dozens of sounds. You might hear birds chirping. You might hear the traffic. You might all these different sounds. Hear here's what's different. You're hearing them. They're the same sounds that happen all the time. You just haven't stopped to to listen to them. The same is true with the voice of God. God's always speaking. Problem is, are we always listening? [00:36:47] (31 seconds)  #listennotnoise