Life #23 - To Live "Now" is to Hear His Voice

yellow spotted crotons 020

Children are taught, or threatened, to listen.  By the time they grow up, they’ve managed to construct an inner schematic that shuts out, or mutes, aggravating noises—mostly adult voices. This selective hearing is the type of schematic Christians erect within ourselves that prevents us from hearing God.

How did we do that? Churched Christians have a difficult time distinguishing God’s voice apart from the church’s voice. Often we convince ourselves that when we do what our church says to do, we’re hearing God’s voice. In the process, we neglect our family’s needs and we negate our own thoughts and feelings, which is Christ in us, until we’ve erroneously muted the voice of God. As a result, our witness of Jesus suffers within our own families and within our own psyches.

Scripture says there are many voices in the world and they all carry meaning (1 Cor. 14:10 KJV). However, Christians have only one Voice we should be listening to because the meaning from that Voice holds significance:

“Most assuredly I say to you,  the hour is coming and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God; and those who hear will live” (John 5:25).

If churched Christians are dead because we cannot hear the voice that “now is”—so that we can live today—then how can we expect to hear that same voice at the resurrection, so we can live again?

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Scripture quotations from New King James Version (NKJV) unless otherwise noted; excerpts from our book to be released next year.