Mentoring Manna:  Today, if you will hear His voice

© 2003 Pastor Keith Hassell

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Today, if you will hear His voice:  Hebrews 3:7-13  “Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says: ‘Today, if you will hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, in the day of trial in the wilderness, where your fathers tested Me, tried Me, and saw My works forty years. Therefore I was angry with that generation, and said, “They always go astray in their heart, and they have not known My ways.” So I swore in My wrath, “They shall not enter My rest.”’ Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God; but exhort one another daily, while it is called ‘Today,’ lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.”  Although the Word of God is eternal, the voice of the Lord speaks in the timeframe of “Today.”  It is a “Today” Word of God for our lives.  Like the children of Israel on their way from Egypt to the promise land, God is leading us into the place of “His rest.”  Hebrews 4:6-11 says,  “Since therefore it remains that some must enter it, and those to whom it was first preached did not enter because of disobedience, again He designates a certain day, saying in David, ‘Today,’ after such a long time, as it has been said: ‘Today, if you will hear His voice, do not harden your hearts.’ For if Joshua had given them rest, then He would not afterward have spoken of another day. There remains therefore a rest for the people of God. For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from His. Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall according to the same example of disobedience.”  It is easy to say that we believe the Word of God as we speak of the Bible.  It is easy to believe we are in compliance when there is nothing required of us “Today.”  But the voice of the Lord speaks to us in the “NOW.”  Our response to His voice will bring us either into His rest or it will cause us to harden us in a spiritual wilderness.  Will we obey His voice speaking to us or will we harden our heart?  Will we obey so as to enter His rest or will we die in a spiritual wilderness?  If we will obey, we have the promise of entering into His rest.  What is meant by the phrase “His rest”?  “His Rest” means simply to cease from all attempts to do things our way and to yield to His way.  It means to quit striving to be a “Christian” in our own strength and to begin living a simple life in fellowship with our Heavenly Father whereby we listen for, trust in, and obey His voice speaking to our hearts “Today.”  Then we will know what it is to be at rest in Christ’s work in us “Today” even while the project of our lives is still “under construction.”

Application:  It is important to develop a sensitive heart toward voice of the Lord.  God is always speaking “Today.”  God will speak in that “still small voice” to our inward man and show us the way that will lead us into His rest, whether that be in our personal life, marriage, with our children, our job, our health, our calling, and our future.  We learn to hear His voice by getting into His word and then listening for His voice speaking to us through His word and in prayer.  It is important that we do not harden our heart to the voice of the Lord when He speaks to us “Today”.  Why?  Our heart becomes hardened to His voice.  We lose our sensitivity to hearing His voice and, even worse, in responding to His voice. We miss out on the blessing of God that comes when we obey His voice and reap in its place the consequences of disobedience.  The next time you hear His voice speaking to you, do not harden your heart through disobedience, and don’t put it off until “tomorrow.”  Obey what He is speaking to your heart right then while it is still called “Today.”

Prayer:  “Heavenly Father, I determine to hear Your voice speaking to me ‘Today.’  As I hear Your voice speaking to me, I determine now not to harden my heart through disobedience.  I determine now not to procrastinate my obedience to Your voice.  Bring me into that place of rest as I seek to obey Your voice ‘Today.”  I pray this and thank You for it  in Jesus’ name.  Amen.”

Grace Fellowship     P.O. Box 260       Rusk, Texas 75785       (903) 683-6550

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