Biblical Evangelism

Part 3 - Knowing your Master's voice

In many countries of the Western world, when couples want to adopt a child, even though perhaps they have a child of their own, they will visit an adoption home after being sifted by an adoption agency to see whether their home is suitable to take in another child, feed it and in every way tend to its needs when the child is sick and will encourage the child to grow at a stead pace towards the fullness of their potential.

If these things are found to be the case, the parents wanting to adopt the child will be taken to a part of the building where there are many children who need adoption, they will talk to the children individually and they will eventually find one where there is a natural bond between the parents and the child.

When this happens the parents will visit the child often so that the child will get to know them and they will get to know the child more and more. If all goes well eventually the child will be ready and happy to leave its current surroundings and take up residence in the family home of the couple who will legally act as the child's parents and guardian.

This is a very close likeness of what happens between God and man. Although God knows us well and knew all about us even before we were born you did not know Him until you responded to the drawing unto Him by The Holy Spirit. Jeremiah chapter 1 verse five reads: "Before I formed thee in the belly I knew you; and before you came forth out of the womb I sanctified you, and I ordained you as a prophet unto the nations."

Though we do not all have the same calling, it tells us that God knew and loved us even before we were conceived and that He ordained what our purpose in Himself would be. Building a relationship with God is similar to the way you build a relationship with another person; you get to know them, spend more and more time with them and eventually fall in love with them and are legally bonded to them for eternity.

The kind of relationship Jesus had with His Father was no different from the kind of intimate fellowship that God longs to have with each one of us. In the first seven verses of Ephesians chapter 1 we read something that is rarely expounded on by teachers yet is of tremendous importance.

"Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to the saints which are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus: grace be to you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: according as He chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: having predestinated us to be adopted as His children through Jesus Christ according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, wherein He has made us accepted in the beloved. In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace."

The passage continues and the whole of the first chapter of Ephesians was actually originally written as one sentence. The point that is very rarely spoken of by teachers and preachers is the fact that things were very different in the days of Paul, and although they are very different now Paul chose his words carefully so that they would reflect what he meant.

In those days if your natural born son rebelled against you there was provision for you to exclude him from your will, completely cut him off from an inheritance and denounce him publicly. No such provision existed for those who were adopted; they could not be written out of their adopted Father's will or denounced publicly or privately.

This shows you the depth of our security in Christ, He promised that He would never forsake us or desert us and here we have an extra assurance of this. Towards the end of the book of Ephesians in chapter 5 verses 18 to 21 Paul writes something that gives us a hint of how we can build a relationship with our heavenly father as intimate as the one that Jesus had with God when He was living in the body of a man on earth, subjecting Himself to all the limitations that we have.

The verse in question reads as follows: "Be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit; speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord; giving thanks always for all things unto God The Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ; submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God." What is the fear of God? Well that is another subject altogether.

If we follow Paul's advice and sing and make melody in our hearts unto The Lord then we are indulging in something that has been forgotten by most churches for centuries and that is the gift of silent prayer. This means that you can be praying, praising and worshipping God in your spirit with crowds of people around you and nobody but you and God will know that this is happening.

There is an example of silent prayer as early as Genesis chapter 24 and verse 45 though some translations miss the point of this verse altogether. The full context of this story can be found in verses 37 to 48 inclusive of that chapter.

The passage reads as follows: my master made me swear saying, you shall not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites, in whose land I dwell: but you shall go unto my father's house, and to my kindred, to take a wife for my son. I said unto my master, what if the woman will not follow me?

I came this day unto the well, and said, O Lord God of my master Abraham, if now you do prosper the way that I go: behold, I stand by the well of water; and it shall come to pass, that when a virgin comes forth to draw water, and I say to her, Give me, I pray you, a little water from your pitcher to drink; and she says to me, both drink and I will also draw water for your camels: let the same be the woman whom The Lord has appointed for my master's son.

Before I had done speaking in mine heart, behold, Rebecca came forth with her pitcher on her shoulder; and she went down to the well, and drew water: and I said to her, let me drink, I pray you. She made haste, and let down her pitcher from her shoulder, and said, drink, and I will give your camels drink also: so I drank, and she made the camels drink also.

I asked her, whose daughter are you? And she said, the daughter of Bethuel, Nahor's son, whom Milcah bore unto him: and I put the ear ring upon her face, and the bracelets upon her hands. I bowed down my head, and worshipped The Lord, and blessed The Lord God of my master Abraham, who had led me in the right way to take my master's brother's daughter unto his son."

What is "prayer in my heart"? Without doubt this is silent prayer. Jesus seems to have used it always in His relationship with His Father when He was out and about in the towns that He visited.

The deeper and more intimate our relationship with our creator the easier we will find it to identify that still small voice when it speaks to you. One of the quickest ways of growing in your ability to identify that still small voice is to obey it immediately and do what ever God is telling you to do. No relationship can grow whilst one is doing the things that are hateful to the other.

Another important way is to spend quality time with God usually in the morning when you rise from your bed. This is what Jesus did and it caused Him to grow in His relationship with The Father. The early morning is the best time of day to have quality time listening to what God wants to say to you, worshipping Him and reading His word before the problems and distractions of the day begin in earnest.

God wants to have a two way relationship with you just like King David did in Psalm 142. verses 1 and 2 read: "I cried unto The Lord with my voice, unto The Lord did I make my supplication. I poured out my complaint before him; I showed before him my trouble." Isn't this what people in a close relationship do? You share something of your heart with God and He will share something of His heart with you.

Any relationship takes time to develop and has its ups and downs yet The Lord is worth pursuing just "like a dear that is searching for cold water in a drought" as a well-known chorus would say. Relationships have to be worked at, never give up, always keep searching and remember God's promise in Jeremiah chapter 29 verse 13 which reads as follows: "When you seek me, you shall find me, when you seek me with all your heart."

read part 4...