Listening to and obeying God

Hebrews 8:10
¹⁰This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel
after that time, declares the Lord.
I will put my laws in their minds
and write them on their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be my people.

At my last cell group meeting, some one asked how we could listen to God's instruction and be sure that it is His. A few others shared their experiences.

In summary, their experiences converged to a few points. God wants to speak to us always. To listen, our heart must be still for Him to speak. But hearing God is not enough. We must obey what He tells us. To obey, we must totally trust Him. Only in this way, then can we live according to His will and not ours.

Cho Yong-Gi says his prayer is 90% listening and 10% asking.

Ps George Westlake related his own experience. During a service, there was a message in tongue. He was waiting for someone in the congregation to give an interpretation. There was none. He felt that the Lord wanted him to give the interpretation but the words that came to him was "Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall." There wasn't even a second line!

He reasoned to himself that this surely cannot be from the Lord. But he felt the Lord urging him on. He argued with the Lord that surely as the Senior Pastor of that church, he cannot say that the Lord says "Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall." But the Lord persisted.

Ps Westlake finally obeyed. As he spoke the first line, the Spirit led him to continue with the whole rhyme which went like this:-

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall;

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the King's horses
And all the King's men
Couldn't put Humpty together again!

The Holy Spirit ended the interpretation with, "Someone here today feels just like Humphty Dumpty. You feel that you are so broken that nobody can ever put you back together again. But the Lord says that He can and He will..."

After the service, a man came forward and told him that the message was for him. Thirty seconds before Ps Westlake spoke, he told his wife that he felt just like Humpty Dumpty, so broken that no one can put his life back together again. He was ministered to. Praise the Lord that Ps Westlake obeyed what he heard from the Lord.

Oswald Chambers remarked that "We have to get into the habit of carefully listening to God about everything, forming the habit of finding out what He says and heeding it."

It is so important that we find time to be still before the Lord. To listen and not to ask. To obey and not to rationalize. And when we hear what He is telling us, we must have the resolute to believe totally without questioning. The Lord says that His children will all know Him (Hebrews 8:11) - this is His covenant to us.

Praise the Lord!

Steven