Tag: hear from heaven

9.h. “But they did not hear or pay attention to me, declares the LORD.”

Joel 2:10  Return to the Lord “Yet even now,” declares the Lord, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your hearts and not your garments.” Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and he relents over disaster. Who knows whether he will not turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind him, a grain offering and a drink offering for the Lord your God?

Deuteronomy 4:29-30     But from there you will seek the LORD your God and you will find him, if you search after him with all your heart and with all your soul.  When you are in tribulation, and all these things come upon you in the latter days, you will return to the LORD your God and obey his voice.

Jeremiah 4:1    “If you return, O Israel, declares the LORD, to me you should return. If you remove your detestable things from my presence, and do not waver,

Jeremiah 29:12-13   Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you.  You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.

2 Chronicles 7:13-14    When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command the locust to devour the land, or send pestilence among my people,  if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.

Zechariah 1:3-4    Therefore say to them, Thus declares the LORD of hosts: Return to me, says the LORD of hosts, and I will return to you, says the LORD of hosts.  Do not be like your fathers, to whom the former prophets cried out, ‘Thus says the LORD of hosts, Return from your evil ways and from your evil deeds.’ But they did not hear or pay attention to me, declares the LORD.

Acts 26:20     but declared first to those in Damascus, then in Jerusalem and throughout all the region of Judea, and also to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God, performing deeds in keeping with their repentance.

With all that is going on in the whole world today, is there any doubt that it is by the hand of God?  Some may say it is just a fluke in nature and we should expect things like this to happen given the ease in which travel has become.  Two views.  One seeing God as the author and the other denying God is the author.  The one who sees this as being at the hand of God will look inward to self and outward to culture and seek understanding, wisdom, repentance, and return to God more wholeheartedly.  They know their security is in Him but more than that, they have an inner assurance that is soul deep.  Belief in Jesus Christ will allow us to grab hold of the security as a means of facing trials but they lack the inner assurance that only comes when one comes out the other side of the trial.  All trials should give us pause and push us to reflect on our lives.  Are we keeping our focus on Jesus Christ, living for Him, seeking to follow, trust and obey Him?  Not a single one of us can say there is not some area within our lives that we keep to ourselves and don’t give it over to Jesus Christ.  Through trials, we can seek God’s leading and desire Him to show us what we have not yet surrendered to Him and His awesome power and control.  We can return to Him more fully and find rest for our surrendered souls.  It is in His hands we will find rest, assurance, hope, and purpose now and forever.

139. For there is no one who does not sin

1 Kings 8:46   “If they sin against you—for there is no one who does not sin—and you are angry with them and give them to an enemy, so that they are carried away captive to the land of the enemy, far off or near, yet if they turn their heart in the land to which they have been carried captive, and repent and plead with you in the land of their captors, saying, We have sinned and have acted perversely and wickedly,’ if they repent with all their heart and with all their soul in the land of their enemies, who carried them captive, and pray to you toward their land, which you gave to their fathers, the city that you have chosen, and the house that I have built for your name, then hear in heaven your dwelling place their prayer and their plea, and maintain their cause and forgive your people who have sinned against you, and all their transgressions that they have committed against you, and grant them compassion in the sight of those who carried them captive, that they may have compassion on them (for they are your people, and your heritage, which you brought out of Egypt, from the midst of the iron furnace). Let your eyes be open to the plea of your servant and to the plea of your people Israel, giving ear to them whenever they call to you. For you separated them from among all the peoples of the earth to be your heritage, as you declared through Moses your servant, when you brought our fathers out of Egypt, O Lord God.”

How do we know if there is sin in our life?  How do we know if we are active in our walk with God?  How do we know if our walk is worthy of honoring God? 

“If they sin against you—for there is no one who does not sin.”  “ Psalms 19:12    Who can discern his errors? Declare me innocent from hidden faults.”  “Proverbs 20:9 Who can say, “I have made my heart pure; I am clean from my sin”? “Ecclesiastes 7:20  Surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins.”  “Isaiah 64:6   We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.”  “1 John 1:8-10 If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.  If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

I fear that we are thinking we are active in our walk with God and that our life is honoring Him but His word is far from our heart, mind, and soul.  This is an intentional choice being made every single day to neglect His word, live for self, and give no thought about serving, honoring, glorifying, following, and obeying God on a deeper level each day. How can we say we are committed Christians and we spend little to no time in His word with the single thought of to know and understand Jesus Christ more and more so that we would honor and serve and become very aware of sin in our life.

Turning a blind eye or deaf ear to God’s word does not give us a pass on the sin in our life.