2/5/2018 Our Daily Bread – Daily Devotions from the Word God

Listening to His Voice

February 5, 2018

Read: John 10:25–30 | Bible in a Year: Exodus 36–38; Matthew 23:1–22

My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. John 10:27

I’m hard of hearing—“deaf in one ear and can’t hear out of the other,” as my
father used to say. So I wear a set of hearing aids.

Most of the time the devices work well, except in environments where
there’s a lot of surrounding noise. In those se ings, my hearing aids pick up
every voice in the room and I cannot hear the person in front of me.

So it is with our culture: a cacophony of sounds can drown out God’s quiet
voice. “Where shall the Word be found, where will the Word resound?” poet
T.S. Eliot asks. “Not here, there is not enough silence.”

Fortunately, my hearing aids have a se ing that cuts out the surrounding
sounds and enables me to hear only the voices I want to hear. In the same
way, despite the voices around us, if we quiet our souls and listen, we will
hear God’s “still small voice” (1 Kings 19:11–12 ).

He speaks to us every day, summoning us in our restlessness and our

longing. He calls to us in our deepest sorrow and in the incompleteness and
dissatisfaction of our greatest joys.

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2/5/2018 Our Daily Bread – Daily Devotions from the Word God

But primarily God speaks to us in His Word (1 Thessalonians 2:13). As you

pick up His book and read it, you too will hear His voice. He loves you more
than you can ever know, and He wants you to hear what He has to say.

Dear Lord, thank You for giving us Your Word. Help

me to listen to Your voice as I spend time alone with
You.

God speaks through His Word when we take time to

listen.

By David H. Roper | See Other Authors

INSIGHT

Throughout the Scriptures, God used a variety of ways to speak to people.

Sometimes, God spoke audibly (Abraham, Moses). Sometimes, He communicated by
way of dreams (Joseph, Nebuchadnezzar). At other times, God gave His message
through prophets (Samuel, Ezekiel). Occasionally, God even sent His message by way
of angels, which means “messengers,” as He did with Mary and Joseph.

No wonder the writer of the le er to the Hebrews said, “God spoke to our ancestors
through the prophets at many times and in various ways” (1:1). However, God’s
greatest means of expressing His heart to people was His Son, as verse 2 states: “In
these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things,
and through whom also he made the universe.” That explains why John opened his
gospel by describing Jesus as the Word (the Logos) who “became flesh and made his
dwelling among us” (John 1:14). Jesus—the living Word—is God’s ultimate message
of love to us! And He is revealed to us in the Scriptures—the wri en Word.

For more on Jesus as the living Word, check out the conversations from Discover the
Word at discovertheword.org/the-living-word.

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