ARE WE LISTENING FOR GOD'S VOICE?

In my last blog post, I talked about how God moved in a marvelous way through and upon the Old Testament prophet Elijah.  After challenging the prophets of Baal to see whose god would send down fire to consume the bullock, we see that Elijah's God came through and consumed not only the bullock, but also the wood, the stones, the dust and even the water itself.

God manifested His presence in a rather spectacular way.  However, for us to say that God only moves in the spectacular way would mean that we would miss some very special times in our lives because of our preconceived notions.

The day after this great miracle, we find Elijah sitting under a Juniper tree, having run for his life, desiring to die and thinking himself to be the only prophet of the Lord left in the entire world.  He was having a pity party for himself.

However, God is about to manifest Himself to Elijah once again.  This time, however, it's going to be in a different manner.

As the prophet stood on Mount Horeb he experienced a "great and strong wind" perhaps expecting therein to hear from God.  However the Scripture says, "the Lord was not in the wind."  After the wind came an earthquake, "but the Lord was not in the earthquake."  After the earthquake came fire, "but the Lord was not in the fire."  After the fire came a "still small voice."

God was not in the wind, the earthquake or the fire, but rather God chose to manifest Himself to Elijah by way of a still small voice.  This can be a great lesson to people who believe that loud boisterous and highly demonstrative worship is the mark of power from God, and that quietness is a sign of a lack of the Spirit. On some occasions God was revealed in great manifestations, but in this passage He revealed Himself only in a still small voice.

I'm not saying that every church meeting should be a quiet one nor am I saying that every church meeting should be a loud boisterous one. What I am saying is that we should be attentive to the Spirit of God.

I think that it is crucial for us to realize that God has never been impressed by our demonstrations.  It doesn't matter how loud we shout, how high we jump or how long we dance if the life we're living on a daily basis doesn't line up with the Word of God.  It was the "religious" people of Jesus' day who took great pains to show others just how "spiritual" they were.  Jesus called them hypocrites and liars.  Their lives had not yet caught up with their tongues.

Sometimes we limit God by our demonstrations.  Sometimes the Lord desires to speak to us or move upon us in a quiet way - this still small voice - but we're too busy doing things by our program or taking matters into our own hands and doing things our way at the total exclusion of God.

The important thing for us, as Christians, is for us to be spiritually attentive to what the Lord would have for us.  John wrote in Revelation 3:6, "He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches."  It's imperative that we be tuned in to what God wants for us, whether it be a shout, a dance or a still small voice.  Are we listening for the voice of the Lord?

Until next time...enjoy the journey!

Ray

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