Gluten Free & God Seeking: Hearing God in His Word - Dinner Fellowship With College Students

Friday, September 2, 2011

Hearing God in His Word - Dinner Fellowship With College Students

God spoke to me three times this week, and He used three different ways.

1st Time - Bible Study with College Students

Last Thursday after eating dinner with the students, we read two pages on the Bible. We read about the Bible being God’s breath (2 Tim. 3:16), that its words are Spirit and life (John 6:63), and that life is the focus of the Bible (John 10:10). Since the Bible is God’s very breath, then surely we must touch God when we read it, right? When we read this part, I was very much touched with how much God wants us to touch HIM in His word. All week these lines have been in my heart:

“We should not contact the Bible without contacting the Lord. Whenever we open the Bible we have to say, ‘Lord Jesus, You have to be here. This is not merely a book, this is Your revelation. I don’t like to read this book without contacting You. I don’t like to hear something from this book without hearing You. I don’t like to read this book without seeing You. I like to see Your face. I like to see what You are from the printed page. O Lord Jesus, enlighten Your word and anoint every line that I may touch You.’”

Sorry I don’t know which book my husband printed this off from. So many times we may read the Bible like a textbook and not really realize this is the word of God we're reading!! Sometimes I'm off in the ozone and not connecting, and this prayer just echoed in me, yes I want to hear God and see Him in a fresh and real way every time I read my Bible!

2nd Time - Working on a Project

Well on Monday I was doing a project, and I was pulling different volumes off my shelf by Watchman Nee, and then one book flipped open to a chapter I had read in May 2010 entitled Tell Him I was like wow, here I’m seeing this matter of being real with God again! Here are some heart-warming excerpts that spoke to and helped me realize even more that God doesn't mind hearing the good, the bad, and the ugly.

“The Lord Jesus is a person in whom men can most easily confide. He allows others to tell Him anything…There is nothing that is too small for the Lord to listen to. He is willing to listen to everything…We can tell the Lord our sorrow. He will not rebuke us...He knows our emotion, and He sympathizes with our heart…We should bring our problems to the Lord and tell Him about them. He can comfort us and help us...No matter what we tell Him, He will listen…He is sympathetic to everyone of our problems. He cares for the affairs of us all. In His heart there seems to be no one else’s affairs but ours. He bears all our sorrows…Do not think that He will not listen…He is waiting for us to tell them to Him, and He is happy to listen to our speaking” (Collected Works of Watchman Nee, Volume 18, Page 327-329).

Did you count how many times Watchman Nee says in just this excerpt that God will listen to His children? When I read this, I felt like God was talking directly to me, encouraging me to have a heart-to-heart.

3rd Time - Listening to LSM Radio

Then on Tuesday this week while I was working on researching about lavender and typing up that blog, I was listening to the radio broadcast on www.lsm.org, and Ed Marks made a comment about talking to the Lord. And I’m like Lord You really do want us to talk to You--within a week I've heard this three times! It was so good, I started typing it up on my blog notes page:

“I just want to stress this with our listeners, always spend some personal time with the Lord every day where you can be in the word, and where you can pray to Him, where you can talk to Him. And, Chris, throughout the day we should talk to the Lord, we should say, 'Lord Jesus I need You, Lord Jesus I love you, Lord Jesus I’m in this situation and I don’t know what do.' Tell Him, talk to Him in everything and about everything. …You will enjoy the Lord, experience the Lord, and you will grow in life.”

Last night after cleaning up from the student dinner, I just felt like I wanted to put these three excerpts together to encourage you--God wants to heart it! He knows it all anyway! WE CAN TELL HIM EVERYTHING! !