If God were to speak to you what would he say? By this time anyone who is reading this blog will likely say, God has spoken to me and he still speaks to me. Fair enough, I too believe God has spoken and is still speaking. I believe his primary and preferred means of communication is His Word. I also know God can and does speak to the conscience and spirit of individuals. Where I would likely disagree with most is God’s topic of choice while speaking. Most who claim to have heard God speak almost always tell of God speaking to them about them. Rarely, have I heard another (John Piper not withstanding) say that when God spoke to them, he spoke of himself. Almost always “God-speak” is centered on and around the individual who heard from God. In Isaiah 6, when Isaiah receives is call from the Lord to beProphet to God’s people, God shows himself in a vision in which his own holiness and person were on display. When God gives Moses and his covenant people (though not all were God followers) the Ten Commandments on Mt. Sinai from Exodus 20, God’s character are the point of emphasis. The Law, is meant to show us the holiness of the Lord. Without the knowledge of his holiness, we would never even begin to understand our own sinfulness. I’m not saying God does not speak to people about their own lives. I am simply stating that far to often people would rather hear a word about themselves than a word about God. We need look no further than the state of preaching that exists in the vast majority of pulpits on Sunday’s…sermons saturated with “ME”, and “I”, and “YOU”. The church as a whole is suffering from a lack of reverence for God in his holiness. We need far less sermons that deal with personal application, and far more that deal with the glory of God. I hope we can see the connection, we are so accustomed to hearing sermons each week that focus on the individual what else should we expect to hear from God through prayer and his word then something pertaining to our own lives. Also, if God does speak to you outside of his word, be careful. It is not as though I doubt God’s ability to speak, but rather, our own ability to hear and interpret in light of his word. When someone declares they have received a word from God and share that word, it is not “Thus Sayeth The Lord”. The word of God is our complete and final authority on all matters without exception. It is my hope that we would all seek daily to hear the voice of God, not so that we might learn more about ourselves and our own lives (we all do enough of that already). Rather, that we might be awe-struck by his person and wonder as Isaiah was during his vision of the Lord. We would all do well to focus on God more and make less of our selves and our own lives.
