“Today when you hear his voice,
don’t harden your hearts
as Israel did when they rebelled.” Hebrews 3:15 NLT
After hustling through the Indiana humidity, I squirmed into my seat, anxious to begin my class on Old Testament survey. As a part of the standard curriculum, and as a naive college freshman, I simply reasoned that I was doing what I was told.
God had other plans.
Studying the Old Testament under Professor Collymore, challenged us to not only study the word of God but the God of the word. I sat enraptured as this man taught revelation to me after revelation, but the biggest thing that has stuck with me is this:
“Partial obedience to God is not obedience at all; obedience is God’s love language.”
It can be so easy for us to justify all the reasons that we want to or don’t want to obey the promptings that God gives us. But the truth is, Scripture is clear in the instruction that when we hear his voice, we are not to harden our hearts. When Israel did that, it only led to rebellion and trouble… we don’t want history to repeat itself.
When we obey Jesus, we are actually building a life that gives Jesus our ‘yes.’ It tells him we love him and honor him with more than just lip service… obedience is worship and surrender, showing God that we not only want to listen but want to walk out what he has asked of us so that our very lives become the offering, not just our words.
A few things I want you to consider when it comes to obedience:
One: Filter everything through Scripture. God is not going to prompt you to do something that is contrary to his Word. His word, spirit, and voice are in complete agreement. Using God’s Word as a filter is one of the best places to start.
Two: Give yourself some grace for the trial and error of it. Sometimes I want to jump in when it comes to obeying, and sometimes, it feels very vague. You can ask God for confirmation that he is speaking, and you can run it through the filters of the Word and of trusted friends. If it passes those two tests, then go for it. Whether God is telling you to start a new hobby, give $20 away, or share the Gospel with a coworker, it is an adventure when we take a step out, listen to his voice, and obey because we love him and want to honor him.
Three: Hearing the voice of Jesus is a journey. There are stops and starts on a journey. You don’t have everything all figured out. There will be times you are unsure, unfamiliar, uncertain, or unclear. That is normal. The more familiar you get with the process, the more you will grow in confidence that you hear his voice. Give yourself grace, and continue to ask Jesus to make his voice clear to you. Then, guard your response! Make certain that you don’t ignore what he’s asked of you or that you fluff it off. Hearing is important, and so is the follow-through!
As a personal side caveat, I just wanted to bring this back to the filter that we are doing all of this with the end goal of more of Jesus in our lives. That does not mean that we obey just to manipulate God or look at what we do for God as a type of quid-pro-quo in our faith. We grow to understand Jesus and the nature of his ways when we obey. We follow through on what we are prompted to do, and we trust him with the results. We aren’t doing this because we are soldiers who want to be manipulated by the general… we’re co-heirs who want to have an intimate and close relationship with the King and lover of our souls. That doesn’t mean that we obey to curry favor; we obey because we love him, trust him, and want to see his kingdom come and his will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.
So much love,
Joy
PS……This is the final excerpt that I am sharing from my book More of Jesus as it launches! If you want to purchase the book, you can find it here on Amazon. Thank you so much for reading and for your support!