curg9

Can You Reach God

Lesson Nine: by turtle30c

Can you reach God? Most of the time our communication problem with others is not listening to the other person or only
hearing what one wants to hear. However not listening to God and Christ one will find themselves without a home or never
having one to begin with. To draw nigh to God is to draw close to God to hear God’s word. In scripture one thinks of hearing
Christ one is also hearing God. God being the Holy Spirit. To hear the Holy Spirit, to hear the small still whisper of God. Holy
Spirit being the third person of the trinity, yet the same as Father and Son, yet a different name, in which He is called as a
comforter and a voice to one’s hearts soul and mind. The Holy Spirit is one you calls to us when we are searching for the
grace of God in the mist of the storm. The Holy Spirit is the one that speaks to the heart of everyone looking to enter in upon
receipt of the word. One has to receive the word of God to be a hearer. Holy Spirit being the messenger, yet also being God to
alert us of those that will listen to who He is and the fact He is wanting to commune with us.

The Holy Spirit communed with the people of Israel some forty years in the desert. He anointed Moses with His Spirit and
filled over 70 elders who prophesied. Yet the Spirit of God demonstrated miracles through out the forty years in the wilderness
some were stiff neck and refused to listen to God. Refused to believe God and by not believing they found themselves never
receiving the promise.

Hebrews 3:7-11 KJV
(7) Wherefore (as the Holy Ghost saith, To day if ye will hear his voice,
(8) Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness:
(9) When your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my works forty years.
(10) Wherefore I was grieved with that generation, and said, They do alway err in their heart; and they have not known my
ways.
(11) So I sware in my wrath, They shall not enter into my rest.)

Though we be saved by grace and not by works, one still can not enter the promise land without obeying God. Many believe in
Christ and even the works of Christ but many fail to take it to heart. It is the awareness to know about God but having no
desire to follow God. We are to take up our cross daily and follow after Christ. To believe and to do evil is to follow after the
devil. God children follow, hear and obey Him. If we believe and do not follow we find ourselves in opposition to God.
Though we be in opposition we can ask for forgiveness and God will hear. The sacrifice of Jesus on the cross made a way to
bridge the gap between God and man. However belief is essential, to see the works of God in one’s life and to not believe the
works of God is a sin. It not unusal to lack faith or even unbelief at times, yet that why it is important to pray to God to
increase one’s faith.

To have knowledge and to turn from God is sin. It is to do evil. To not know God is sin. Not to hear God is human error. It is
easy to block out someone talking to us, but it even worse when what the person we block is trying to save our life and we will
not listen. It like falling in a creek and one being carried down stream and people shouting to swim to shore, yet ignoring the
simple fact despite the current, one needs to be safe by going to shore. To be in deep water is to be in trouble with God. To
the point as we begin to drown our ears are no longer listening.

Peter when he walked on water heard Christ say come, yet when the waves began to roll around him he became afraid and
began to drown, yet when he looked to Jesus he was able to continue to walk on water. It is the difference between listening
and tuning God out.

Hebrews 3:12-13 KJV
(12) Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God.
(13) But exhort one another daily, while it is called To day; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.

We need to remind each other to listen to God. Remind each other what scripture says. To encourage each other to turn from
sin and trust in the living God. To trust in Jesus. Exhortation is a gift. It is a gift to be able to go to a brother or sister in Christ
and be able to share with them how sin is leading them away from God. One has to have the log out of their own eye first
before they can teach or preach. One of the first things I remember when I began to teach from God’s word after not teaching
for several years, was how God began to work and move in my life. I had to apply all I taught to myself. I could not teach it
unless I worked through it myself. And with working through different passage of scripture God began to draw me closer to
Him. It not enough to know God’s word, one has to work through it in a personal manner. Even the devil knows the word of
God but does not follow it.

We must hold steadfast the word of God and turn neither left or right. Truthfully I can say I never did not believe in God
however, I can admit I did not always live according to God ways. One needs to be steadfast in faith, believing.

Hebrews 3:14-19 KJV
(14) For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence stedfast unto the end;
(15) While it is said, To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation.
(16) For some, when they had heard, did provoke: howbeit not all that came out of Egypt by Moses.
(17) But with whom was he grieved forty years? was it not with them that had sinned, whose carcases fell in the wilderness?
(18) And to whom sware he that they should not enter into his rest, but to them that believed not?
(19) So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief.

What if we fail to believe God? Yet received Christ as Savior. Are we doomed. We need to understand we all sin and fall short
of the glory of God. All make mistakes. However we need to repent of those mistakes. Repent of unbelief and ask God to
enable us to believe. The story of man of unbelief who had a child possessed by demons, ask the Lord for help in unbelief.

Mark 9:23-24 KJV
(23) Jesus said unto him, If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.
(24) And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.

If we can believe all things are possible we will see even trees uprooted.

Luke 17:5-6 KJV
(5) And the apostles said unto the Lord, Increase our faith.
(6) And the Lord said, If ye had faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye might say unto this sycamine tree, Be thou plucked up by
the root, and be thou planted in the sea; and it should obey you.

We all waiver in faith over certain things, but it is learning to trust in Jesus. Learning to trust in God’s voice that when He
speaks to our hearts we obey. A drill sergeant has to train the troops to listen to and to obey. Not to question the leadership.
God does that with us. He takes the Shepard hook and gentle turns us. Pastors often have that gift of leadership as well,
however a true pastor will instruct one to listen to God. Eli did that with Samuel. When he began to hear the voice of God, Eli
instructed him to call out to God.

1 Samuel 3:1-9 KJV
(1) And the child Samuel ministered unto the LORD before Eli. And the word of the LORD was precious in those days; there
was no open vision.
(2) And it came to pass at that time, when Eli was laid down in his place, and his eyes began to wax dim, that he could not see;
(3) And ere the lamp of God went out in the temple of the LORD, where the ark of God was, and Samuel was laid down to
sleep;
(4) That the LORD called Samuel: and he answered, Here am I.
(5) And he ran unto Eli, and said, Here am I; for thou calledst me. And he said, I called not; lie down again. And he went and
lay down.
(6) And the LORD called yet again, Samuel. And Samuel arose and went to Eli, and said, Here am I; for thou didst call me.
And he answered, I called not, my son; lie down again.
(7) Now Samuel did not yet know the LORD, neither was the word of the LORD yet revealed unto him.
(8) And the LORD called Samuel again the third time. And he arose and went to Eli, and said, Here am I; for thou didst call
me. And Eli perceived that the LORD had called the child.
(9) Therefore Eli said unto Samuel, Go, lie down: and it shall be, if he call thee, that thou shalt say, Speak, LORD; for thy
servant heareth. So Samuel went and lay down in his place.

Eli knew Samuel was hearing the call of God, and knew that Samuel need to hear God. Though Eli was the instructor to
Samuel he was not God to Samuel. Husband and wives stay together if they listen to each other, yet it is the same, if we will
listen to God we will stay with God.

Dear Heavenly Father help us to trust you solely in whatever decisions needs to be made in our life. Help us to believe all
things are possible. In Jesus name, Amen.