"Recognizing His Voice"

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

Have you ever been somewhere and heard a voice and immediately knew who it was even without seeing their face because you recognized the voice? I have. When my phone rings and the name of the person calling doesn't show up on the ID, once they say something I know who it is. There are people that I have become acquainted with because they come into our ministry store, and though we were once strangers I will recognize their voice when I hear it in another store. 

 

Out of all the voices that we recognize is the Lord's one of them? If we are His "sheep"- if we are His followers- we should have no trouble recognizing His voice. Being able to recognize a person's voice comes as a result of spending time not only talking to them but listening to them. It is the same way with being able to recognize the voice of our Good Shepherd. We are only able to recognize His voice if we are spending time with Him. 

 

We learn His voice through talking with Him in prayer-- or should I say, by listening to Him when we pray. Most of our prayers consist of us doing all the talking. We give God our "to do" list; we tell Him what we want; we give Him our "wish" list; we spend the whole time talking and rarely do any listening. You learn another person's voice by hearing it. When your voice is the only one you hear, that is the only voice you become acquainted with. 

 

We also learn His voice through His Word. The Bible isn't just a book of facts and figures about God, it is God speaking to us through its pages. The Bible is the Living Word- Jesus- written down on paper. Through it we know what He likes, dislikes, what He requires, what His will is, what His is like, how gracious, kind, loving and how just He is. 

 

How familiar are you with His voice? It should be the most important voice for us to know. It should be the voice that we desire to know above all other voices. We should be more acquainted with His than we are with anyone else's. We should recognize it more readily than any other voice. And we will if we will spend time with Him learning it.

 

Have a great day. How acquainted are you with the voice of God?

 

For further reading:

John 1:1

Genesis 3:8

Song of Solomon 2:14