For the One Who Has Ears to Hear
When I initially started writing this 3 part treatise back in 2016 I was in a very different place than I am now. Little did I know that in the providence of God I would have the opportunity to fail in the worst ways and see myself for who I really and truly am. But here I am, broken and simple, listening and open for the first time to really hear what the Spirit of God has to say. And the one resounding word that I hear, the one overwhelming reality that I have been confronted with time and time again is this. I do not really trust God if I do not do what He says. I can sing all of the worship songs from the most sincere heart that I want to. I can proclaim the gospel until I am blue in the face. I can work hard to study theology even to the point of teaching it. I can read my bible every day and pray every day. I can work hard to love others. But If i do not do what He says I do not really trust Him.
Jesus went even further. He said if I do not do what He says, I do not really love Him. Ouch. Let that sink in for a minute. I am. And it hurts. but in a good way though. I am not condemning myself, here. I am seeing things as they are. Jesus said the one who has ears to hear, let them hear. I am choosing to reckon with what He said. He said listen and do what I say. And if I am honest I have not done that...for over 20 years. I have done half of what He said, most of what He said and at times some of what He said but never what He said. I have studied theology, led worship, proclaimed the gospel and all in disobedience to His word, to His voice. He said, "My sheep hear my voice" and I did. He said, "and they follow me". I did not. Not really. Not exactly where He told me to. Not when He told me to or how He told me to. And I got hurt. And my family got hurt. Because I chose to step out of the will of God. Now don't misunderstand me. I did not step out of His authority or sovereignty. I did not go where His will is powerless. I did not in anyway jeopardize or thwart His purposes. To believe such a thing would reveal a need to know Him more intimately. No.
The Creator of the universe very sovereignly and very expertly stepped aside so I could strike out on my own in my newfound theological superiority and make decisions like a grown up. And by doing so He let me bump and crash and bruise myself and everyone around me as I thrashed violently like a mad man against His will for my life (not unlike Paul I might add). He let me waste countless hours on worthless entertainment. He let me fail miserably to follow through on my marital vows. He watched quietly as I moved further and further into Sodom and Gomorrah (Like Lot) and farther and farther away from the ones who loved me and invested in me as a young believer. He never took His eye off of my wandering heart. Every betrayal every angry word on full display in His view. He did nothing to stop me. He only nudged me ever so slightly and only when I absolutely needed it. Even now I marvel at His fatherly prowess. He certainly knew what He was doing.
The years piled on and with them my betrayals, my wanderings and my disobedience, until at long last I came to my inevitable end. It was on that fateful day in that crucial moment that I was finally forced to stop and look in the mirror. It was not a mirror of glass that I stared back into that day but a heart of love. A Father's love. His Love. And it broke me. The reflection that I saw in that moment looking into that holy mirror shattered my ego and set me in a completely different direction than I ever intended to go. The love I felt in that moment changed me. And I have never been the same since. It might be an exaggeration to say that I felt like I got saved all over again. But that is really how I felt. I felt like a new person. And when the dust settled and the tears stopped flowing and I was left standing in front of that mirror, the one thought that echoed through the chambers of my mind was "How did I get so far away? How did I end up so lost in my own shadow? What led me to this point of despair and exasperation?"
I did not receive an answer right away. But slowly and surely through the many difficulties and trials I was experiencing I began to hear the answer to my question loudly and clearly. And just like that I finally understood. I finally understand. I can honestly say with full assurance that I started drifting away from Jesus the moment that I stopped following the leading of the Holy Spirit. I stopped listening to the still small voice of God. Worse, I stopped believing that He does speak. I relegated His voice to the account of His works and speech in the Bible. Little compromise by little compromise I began to trade His supernatural leading in my inner man for the intellect I had sharpened with study. And without realizing it I became the very type of religious person that Jesus once stood against and defied. I became a tight fisted hard hearted pharisee that wholeheartedly believed He not only walked with God, but that also that no one could possibly know God or walk with Him in the way that I did, because I knew something they did not. And just like that I became something I came to despise. And all because I chose to stop listening to His voice.
Now let me stop before we go any farther and say this. The Holy Spirit does not speak to the people of God in the same way all of the time. Nor does He speak to me in the same way that He speaks to you. He chooses to speak to His children as He wills when He wills according to His wisdom and grace. For some the Holy Spirit speaks through the remembrance of specific scriptures. For many it is a still small voice. For others it is a gentle but definitive leading. Whatever the method that He chooses to use or has created us to receive, He does speak. And He speaks today. He does not fail to speak nor does He fail to lead. We do. We fail to listen. We fail to obey, to follow, to surrender to His leading. But this is the essence of prayer. It is to speak and be heard. It is to hear and to pour out our heart. It is communication. And it is vital to any healthy relationship. Our relationship with God is certainly no exception.
And this brings me back full circle to the purpose of this final meditation on following Christ and what God by the Holy Spirit has essentially revealed to me over the past 5 months in this season of repentance. We cannot follow Jesus if we do not have ears to hear. And we will not hear Him with those ears if we do not have any intention of following His instructions. I did not. For years I did not have any intention of obeying His commands. I convinced myself that I did though. And I thought I convinced other believers that I did as well. But I am pretty sure now that they saw right through me. How could they not? Either way it was not pretty I am sure. A man who thinks he knows the Living God but who only lives for himself is a sight to behold let me tell you. I know.
So why am I writing this? Im going to tell you. Or rather I will let Jesus say tell you and then James and just for kicks maybe we will look at what Paul wrote as well. First, Jesus because He is the Master after all. Jesus said,
"But everyone who hears these sayings of mine and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house and it fell. And great was its fall."
Ouch. Boy have I been there. Knowledge without action is a fancy mansion on the shoreline to be sure. But lets see what James has to say.
"For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself, goes away and immediately forgets what kind of man he was." Man I hear that.
And finally just for good measure, the apostle Paul, concluding his epic treatise in Romans 1-11 on the work of God in redemption writes,"I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service."
I don't know if it is plain to you at this point or not so I will spell it out. We cannot walk with God and not hear His voice. And we cannot hear His voice or follow His leading or even obey Him if we have not resolved to do what He says. You see the words of God are always a call to action. In fact the great mystery of the universe is the fact that He works His will out in the actions of men. The truly pious man might think that he must sit and wait for God to speak and work. But the reality is proven in scripture and our day to day lives that we must live what we believe. We must do what He says. We must go when He says go and where He says go. We must follow His leading at all times. If we do not we are only deceiving ourselves and setting ourselves up for failure. I did that. And Lord willing, I am done doing that.
I agreed with the reality of the gospel, but I did not proclaim it to the lost. I sang songs to Jesus about His faithfulness but failed to let Him provide for my family when He said He would. I studied the scriptures but denied Jesus with my lifestyle. I agreed with the scriptures that state mankind was made in His image and then allowed my covetous heart to exploit them for my gain. I said that I loved His word but refused to do what it teaches. In my wisdom I became a fool. In my worldliness I became a wanderer. Now you might be saying to yourself come on Chris aren't we saved by grace? Jesus promised to keep me in His fold no matter what. Everyone else is doing it. It''s only.... or I only.... once and while. Really? Well, it was the same for me too. But the world is not content for long with distracting us. It wants to own us body and soul. It cannot help itself. It is driven with the same drive of its master. And little by little the little disobediences will always draw our heart away from the One who made us and saved us for Himself.
We were not created to live for ourselves. Our life is about more than us. We were not created merely to be comfortable. We were created to be in fellowship with the Creator. We were created to enjoy Him above all else, to derive our sense of purpose our identity and our pleasure from Him. Everything else is in the service of that truth. When we choose to ignore the leading of His Spirit, or disobey His commands, we are actually giving our heart to another. There is no middle ground on this planet in this space and time. We are either cultivating our relationship with God, moving into closer and closer fellowship with Him or we are moving away from Him. We may think that we do not need Him as much as others. But that is not really the point. It is not about what we think or what we feel. It is about what He wants. It is about what He says. Where He leads. We were created for Him.
So we must all reckon with this reality. Do we really hear the voice of God? Are we familiar with His leading? Do we know Him intimately as a person? Or is He just a religious figure? Do we believe that He is knowable or do we feel safer just reading about Him? Are we convinced that the bible is only a redemptive account or a catalog of useful philosophical and religious information? Or do we believe that the God witnessed in those pages is really alive today? Are you content to go about as you have or do you feel in your soul as I did, that something is not right, that something is missing? You know you are His but you feel a million miles from Him. I want to encourage you that you are not alone. And if He can speak and break through the fortress of my heart, yours is just as accessible.
I want to leave you with this final thought. If you take nothing from what I have written please hear this. Our God is not moved by our unbelief. He will wait until we are on our death bed, until the moment that we have chosen to reach out to Him. He loves us with a love that is confident and bold. A love that is patient and wise. He loves us with a never ending never deterred settled conviction that we cannot alter with our choices. We cannot change the mind of God. We cannot sin ourselves out of his grace once it has been lavished on us. We cannot run so far that He will not chase us back home. Once He has set His glorious tender heart upon a person it is only a matter of time before they crumble in His gentle arms. Be encouraged to know that this everlasting Father, this Prince of Peace will get His heart's desire one way or another. And friend the mystery of all mysteries, the unfathomable reality, the breathtaking truth is that the desire of this infinite sovereign God is the person who believes in Him no matter how far they have wandered from Him. That person is His child. And like a great and gracious dad that child is always welcome in His arms. Even if that child is like me and has squandered the majority of his or her life wandering in the wasteland away from Him, that child is always welcome in His arms.
Hallelujah.
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