Listen, Learn, AND Obey

“God does not speak simply to be heard. He speaks to be obeyed. Obedience is the Alpha and Omega of discerning God’s voice.” by Priscilla Shirer Discerning the Voice of God.


They say some people speak just to hear themselves talk. Thinking of a few people I happen to know I believe that statement. However with God that is not true. He definitely doesn’t speak just to hear His voice. In the very beginning He didn’t just speak to hear Himself talk then say, “Opps I just formed a round mass of dirt.” Then randomly spoke again and there were animals, water, and little people running all around. No, God said and it was so. At the sound of His voice the world was formed. It wasn’t an atmospheric echo backlash that just happened to be.

God didn’t speak just hear Himself and He definitely doesn’t speak just so we can hear the sound of His voice only to walk away from what was said. As kids and even as adults we’ve all probably tried to pull that on our parents, spouse, employers or whoever. We hear them out. Let them have the satisfaction of getting whatever they want to say out and then we go on. No intention at all of “obeying” or taking the advice just spoken.

Truth be known, we’ve turned God’s Holy Word into a suggestion box. The blank pages in the back are no longer places to write notes on what was said but to put in our own suggestions. We fear being more politically correct than we do God. We must not offend anyone so we listen to what we want to hear, we speak what we think others may listen to but we don’t obey any of it.

What would it have been like in Genesis 46 when God spoke to Israel in the visions of the night, and said, “Jacob, Jacob!” and his response instead of “Here I am” was “Yeah what do you want?” Then later after hearing Him out he walked away and didn’t listen to what God said. The same with Noah, Moses, Joshua, Joseph, and many more of our Bible Buddies who heard, listened, and obeyed.

What makes us think we can play the part of Eve and not obey God’s voice or His commands and get away with it? It wasn’t a slip-up that Eve and Adam got caught. God wasn’t having a bad day and lost His temper and kicked them out of the garden. Why do we think we can be a Jonah and not wind up in the belly of a fish some place because we chose not to listen to what God had to say?

Just as there are rewards for our obedience there are consequences to our disobedience. We don’t need to “hear God out” we need to “hear Him in.” In to our lives, in to the way we live, in our homes, work, churches, states, and countries. He is not a voice from our past, He’s the voice of our future that we need to be paying attention to.

We have become so far fetched that we don’t even hide ourselves anymore from the presence of the Lord in shame of what we do as Adam and Eve did. No, we openly flaunt our sins and expect the all loving, forgiving God to ignore what we choose to disobey. It didn’t work for Eve and Adam or Jonah and it’s not going to work for us.

God needs to be heard, listened to, and obeyed. Tilt your heart toward Jesus. Hear Him in to your lives as you choose, CHOOSE, CHOOSE to listen, learn, AND obey.


Oh I better shut up I think I could ramble on forever on this one. It’s such a big issue now a days as people don’t think they need to obey God’s voice, they don’t need to obey the voice of the laws put forth by the government, they don’t need to obey mom and dad’s rules. We don’t need to obey…..are we NUTS or what? …..Pardon me, by the way our host today is Miriam on her blog Miriam Pauline’s Monologue get on over and join the rumble.