The God who Cries

It is inspiring how God uses the past circumstances of our lives to use us profitably for the future.  Only He is able to redeem the wreckage of our lives and make it new and beautiful.  Unlike some Christians who have a radical conversion out of drugs, alcohol, and sex, my background is one of a self-righteous Pharisee.  My sinful condition was not on display through crime or gang violence, but through pride as I was brought up in the church.  People talk about "at risk" youth, but there is hardly a precipice more risky than self-righteous pride and arrogance - in a collared shirt, combed hair, and a Bible in hand in Sunday School.

One of the greatest risks in church is we know much of God but never actually hear from Him.  Hearing God speak is not and expected part of many people's daily walk with Jesus Christ.  It should be!  How can we know we are following Christ if we are too distant to hear His voice?  Knowledge of the Bible does not mean a person knows God.  Somehow we have neglected this remedial fact.  I would rather someone doubt their salvation than to assume he is heaven bound because he knows doctrine.  It is not doctrine that saves but the applied blood of Jesus Christ through faith to the heart of a damned sinner who repents.  The Gospel for some people never gets past their heads and into their hearts.  If the Gospel is reduced to a mental exercise, it is rendered impotent of saving power.

Proverbs 8:1 says, "Does not wisdom cry out, and understanding lift up her voice?"  Jesus has become for us wisdom (1 Cor. 1:30).  Seven times in Revelation chapters 2 and 3 Jesus said, "He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says unto the churches."  Jesus stands at the door, knocking and crying out.  The question is not, "Does God speak?" but "What is Jesus saying to me today?"  God has put in me a great longing to see people in the church tuned to hear the small, still voice of God.  There are others who have a great burden for people who have never heard the Gospel.  I want to see those people saved too.  But they will not be saved until the people in the church hear God and respond to His call to go.  How will unreached people hear unless someone tells them?

Dear friends, there are unreached people who come to church every Sunday.  God is speaking, but His words fall on soil not prepared to receive the good Word.  Hosea 10:12 reveals the onus is on us:  "Sow for yourselves righteousness; reap in mercy; break up your fallow ground, for it is time to seek the LORD, till He comes and rains righteousness on you."  The paradigms of our flesh are fallow areas of our hearts that we must break up.  We must humble ourselves, be willing to clear the rocks from our hearts in God's strength, yield ourselves to the plow (though painful to our flesh), and receive the Word God speaks with joy.  God is the source of our fruitfulness.  Any effort of the flesh will fail, but those who walk by faith in the Spirit and abide in Christ will lack no good thing.

God is speaking; Wisdom is crying out.  Are you listening?  What is God saying to you today?  And what are you doing about it?