Day 162: Knowing God's Voice

"My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.  And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand."  John 10:27-28

This is a message of reassurance, and I am sure that many of us need this message this very day.

This reassurance comes with instructions, though, and we cannot avoid those instructions.  Jesus says My sheep hear My voice...and they follow Me.  Easy enough, isn't it?  When I was in grade school, as soon as the bell rang, I knew it was time to change classes.  I followed the sound of the bell.  Following Jesus should be just as easy, right?  Of course it can be that easy!  We just have to make it easier for ourselves.

As I'm on the way to the Viola da Gamba Society of America Conclave, I remember when I was at another historical music festival a few years ago, the Texas Toot.  I took a lesson with a professional, and I played in an ornate way that I thought was impressive.  She replied, however, that what I had done was not in good taste.  It was good playing, but not tasteful.  From then, I sought to understand what good taste in Baroque music was, and I feel now, especially after receiving guidance from many teachers and performers, that I have somewhat of a sense for this good taste.

What did it take?  Well, it took, and still takes, lots of listening.  I listen to many different artists and many different pieces to understand what is going on.  I read countless pages by teachers of the time period and modern commentators just to get a sense about the style of music from back then.  I have sifted through many do nots just to start doing.  Any profession will require this sort of dedication, and we all have a certain calling that we pursue with all our time and attention.

However, the good news is that we have a simple way of getting in touch with God.  We have the Bible with many quotes from great people and from God.  We can only understand the sound of God's voice when we surround ourselves with God's voice.  We can get a sense for it by sitting in church, where we all hear the word of God being read to us.  Even easier is just to grab a Bible and start reading.  Nowadays, we have an even easier step: listen to an audio Bible.   When we get connected with the Bible, we start to understand that God is calling us constantly.  We will learn that God reassures us more than scares us.  Rather than listen to the loud voices that are trying to scare us into voting one way or another, to scare us into killing ourselves, to scare us into killing and hating all those around us, we will find comfort in all that Jesus has to say.  Jesus tells us that times will be tough, but he reassures us so many times more than just telling us to be afraid.  As Christians, we are called to be brave and bold in all our tough situations.  We shall know God's voice, and we shall receive eternal life.

Day 149: Searching for Jesus

"You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of me.  But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life."  John 5:39-40

This reprimand from Jesus is pretty harsh, but there is an important message that will bring us closer to him.

A page from the Cordúa cookbook

This reprimand reminds me of how cooking works.  There are countless cookbooks in circulation.  Even some high end restaurants will put out books full of their own recipes, some of which must seem to be secret.  And they'll even be in plain sight, where somebody could turn to a specific page and take a picture and have the recipe, for free!  But, no matter the number of resources available, there is still a thriving restaurant industry, and many restaurants that have their own recipes out there are still in business.  Why is that?

Well, none of us are using those recipes!  None of us are taking the time to actually cook them.  Even worse, we don't even know how to do half of the things that are described in them.  Blanch a chicken?  Stir-fry?  Julienne carrots?  Sous vide cooking?  If we learned how to do all of these things, we would no longer need cookbooks.  We would be chefs, rendering both restaurants and cookbooks useless.

But that's where Jesus' reprimand comes in.  We can comb through every single page of the bible, read every single commentary on the bible, learn about every single tradition, but we'd be nothing if we don't go to Jesus ourselves.  The bible testifies of Jesus.  We have so many things to learn about Jesus.  And, all the scriptures point out a focal point of Jesus: Jesus is love.  We have to love if we are going to follow Jesus.  We can talk all we want about the bible, but if we don't put any of the words into practice, we're going to have to keep going back to the same chapters, the same verses, hoping that maybe another time we will learn ourselves.  Our bible is our recipe, our instruction manual.  And there is a lot in there!  We might not be able to put every single thing into practice in our lifetime, but if we continue to put more and more of it into practice everyday, then maybe, just maybe, we will start getting closer to Jesus.  It will be difficult, but Jesus has shown that every step of the way will be glorious.  We will see miracles happen, we will see joy, we will see the Kingdom of God materializing in our midst.  When we love, we will have the eternal life that is promised us by God.

Day 134: Purification through Love

"Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart."  1 Peter 1:22

This command implies an important message.

Today, there are so many Christians out there who turn their setting apart for the Lord into a show of utmost pride and arrogance.  They will say, "Since I am holy, I can no longer associate with anybody else who isn't holy in the exact way that I am."  Obviously, this becomes a problem for building a community, for there will be a separation of us vs. them, rather than looking out and seeing potential new members.

Some people out there will even turn that arrogance into pure hatred, continuing to separate them from the outside world.  They will deceive themselves, thinking that because they are holy, nobody else can possibly be.  They think that with their purification through Jesus, they are entitled to become judges of everybody around them.  But that's completely in contrast with what we have been told.  Jesus has commanded us many times to love not only our neighbors, but our enemies, those who are strangers, the sick, the poor, and even those we don't even understand.  That's what the above message gets at as well.

We have been saved through Jesus.  We have been made whole because of Jesus.  We are loved because of Jesus.  How does anything else besides love make sense after this purification?  Because we have been purified with the God of love, we too should show our love towards everybody else out there.

Day 009: Divine Command

But the Lord said to him, "Go, for he is a chosen vessel of Mine to bear My name before Gentiles, kings, and the children of Israel." Acts 9:15

Go.
This is a recurring command in the Bible, and it usually means to leave one's comfort zone.  God told Abraham to go from his home.  Jesus commanded the disciples to go and preach.  Here, Jesus commands Ananias to go and finish a conversion of one of the most terrifying men in the early church: Saul/Paul.

Now, the Bible is also quite clear that many who are called will talk back to God, will have some sort of resistance.  Ananias, though, makes an argument that sounds quite weak, for he says "I have heard about that man."  Hearsay.  That's a very troubling thing that we as humans like to rely on.  We love to add fuel to our judging engines whenever we can.  Despite the fact that there are records of all the trouble Paul had done, Ananias says that he relied on what he heard.  I find this as an opportunity for us to learn to trust in God.

If we are to assume that God is our Father, then how should we treat God?  Shouldn't we obey?  I'm sure many of you have experienced the chastising from your parents, whether physical or verbal or both.  Eventually, we children learn to obey without talking back.  And, most of the time, things go the way they are supposed to when we listen and obey.  Doing that homework assignment got us through school well; not eating too much candy helped us feel better in the long run; sleeping on time for school made it that much better for us.  If that's how our relationships with our parents are, how much better would God's plans be for us?  Why must we talk back to God?

God has a history of challenging us, and that only makes us better people.  God challenged Abraham and Sarah to have faith in their future progeny.  God challenged many scholars to devote themselves to wisdom.  God challenged Joseph and Mary to accept the gift of bringing up Jesus, the Christ.  God challenged Ananias essentially to walk into the den of lions so that the church may grow in an unimaginable way.

How is God challenging us today?

Devotion

"Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God." (Luke 9:60)
Jesus never stutters when He commands us.  He says, "love your neighbor," meaning every one.  He says, "proclaim the kingdom of God," meaning always.  We like to place our attention elsewhere, but to what reward?  God provides us with everything.  The Kingdom of Heaven is perfection for all of us.  Why would we want to go away from perfection? God loves each and every one of us.  How about we show that love to each other?