Daily Devotional
Word of the Day
Getting Quiet to Hear
Pastor Scott
Thursday, January 27, 2005
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"Thou gavest also thy good spirit to instruct them, and withheldest not thy manna from their mouth, and gavest them water for their thirst."
(Nehemiah 9:20)
"Thou gavest also thy good spirit to instruct them" (Neh. 9:20). The Holy Spirit constantly instructs us how to walk in the image of Jesus, how to walk separate from the world's wisdom, how to move in supernatural power. This power is not what you can initiate but power that He initiates if you are available to be used. Some misunderstand the gifts of the Spirit. They think that to be full of the Holy Spirit and the gifts of the Spirit means that you can go heal anybody you want. If that was the case, you could go empty all the hospitals. It's not like that. It is when that Holy Spirit speaks and gives you the unction.
Peter and the disciples many times had walked right by the same beggar at Gate Beautiful into the Temple. But as they walk past this guy asking for alms this time, after they had been filled with the Holy Spirit, Peter stops. There is no telling how many times he had walked by him before; but now full of the Holy Ghost, he heard the word of the Lord. You don't do it at your own whim or your own discretion. How many times have you stopped to talk or minister to somebody, giving a word in season, and you didn't know the timing and the consequences? That is the Spirit of God leading us into all truth. They stopped, looked at him, and said, "Silver and gold have I none, but such as I have I give [to you]: In the name of Jesus...rise up and walk" (Acts 3:6). The power of God comes into this man, and he begins to leap and jump and praise God.
Don't you want to be used like that? Are you quiet enough to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit? I wonder if you can hear the voice of the Spirit when your cell phone is ringing all the time or your satellite radio or latest CD/DVD is blasting. How much time are you spending to be quiet before God? We are living in a world of noise. The Bible says God speaks with a still small voice. To know this voice, you are going to have to get quiet. You will have to spend some time to listen and become familiar with it. Pretty soon it will be the loudest voice you hear with all of this other turmoil going on around you. There can be cell phones, people honking, and whatever else; and you know that voice. You have become familiar with it. Like the voice of your children or your spouse, you can hear it in a crowd. It's so familiar to you. How valuable is that voice to you? Are you listening for that voice today? He wants to talk to you. When you pray, how much time do you listen?
Why do you need to be filled with the Spirit and able to speak in other tongues? The Bible says that praying in other tongues is the Spirit of God praying through us with groanings that cannot be uttered (Rom. 8:26). In other words, it is supernatural wisdom, things you cannot comprehend. The Spirit prays and makes intercession through us according to the will of God (Rom. 8:27). The Scripture says we pray then to our own edification; it builds us up (1 Cor. 14:4). So after you pray in the Spirit, you stop and you listen. It is in the quiet time that the Holy Spirit will reveal what He just prayed. I don't mean verbatim. It's not like the interpretation of tongues. He reveals to you the essence of what He wants to do in your life. Then you say, "Okay," and He enables you and empowers you to obey. That's how the process works.