By Pastor John Mateos Ong
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We can admit, not all of us have that deep relationship with God. And that’s the saddest thing human can have—not having a personal relationship with the Lord.
Back when Samuel, the last judge was a kid, he had an encounter with God. But just like everyone at first, he didn’t know who is God. The, while he was sleeping, God called him by his name. He woke up and thought that it was Eli the priest who called him. This happened 3 times before Eli realized that it was God who is calling Samuel. He told Samuel to go back to sleep for it is God who is calling him, and if he hears Him again he must say, “Speak Lord, your servant is listening.” Then the Lord told Samuel that He would do something in Israel that will make everyone’s ears to tingle.
In today’s time, it is a great privilege to hear God or to have an encounter with Him. As Christians, whether we’re new Christians or have been baptized for a long time now, we must desire to have a deeper relationship with Him through time. With our personal relationship, we can have the opportunity to hear Him.
If we want to know how to hear God, here are some ideas that may help us achieve it.’
1. Long – You must desire to hear God. You cannot hear Him if you’re too lazy to desire it. Don’t expect to hear Him if you don’t do anything just to hear him. A very beautiful verse from Isaiah says, “My soul yearns for you in the night; in the morning my spirit longs for you.” The very soul craves the word of God, day and night; don’t put “me time” first but your time with Him.
2. Learn – We must master the art of waiting and keeping ourselves quiet. In some circumstances, waiting for God and keeping ourselves quiet teaches us how to hear God better. It is a total dependency on Him that no matter what the situation is our goal is to learn from His Word in order to hear Him. Which is why in Psalm 24:5 says, “Show me your ways Lord, teach me your path.”
3. Listen – the difference between hearing and listening is our choice to understand what the other person is saying. We can hear for it is uncontrollable, but listening and putting your full attention to someone is by choice. It takes an effort on our end to listen to someone, so be wise in using your effort and listen to the Lord.
4. Live – To be able to hear God, you must live His teachings. Remember Philippians 4:9! You must remember that you cannot hear God or experience Him if you only say and know his teachings but do not practice it.
Why some people don’t hear? It is because of three things:
· Distraction – there are things around us that we put our focus, we get distracted easily and we tend to refocus ourselves. We get distracted to fame, money, power and other worldly things we thought is important.
· Deception – People are deceived by the wrong teachings, heard wrong gospels, and worshiped false gods. With these, it keeps some people’s ears closed from hearing God.
· Destruction – Simply because some of us are bound for destruction. 1 Corinthians 1:18 tell us, the death of Christ on the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing but a Power of God to those who are being saved.
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