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He Speaks, So Let’s Listen

Not too long ago, I was meeting with a brother in Christ and he told me about how the Lord comforted him through various passages of Scripture. Does that happen to you? Do you interact with God’s Word, as though it is his personal Word to you? You should. We all should come to God’s Word expecting to hear from him, because when we are reading his Word that is precisely what he is doing.

He is always speaking to his children, but we are not always listening. The problem is never with the Lord’s voice. If there is a problem, it is always with our hearts and ears. This should not lead us to discouragement, but to an anxiousness to hear his voice. We should not wish to hurry through our reading if we are dry and dull in spirit; rather, we should slow down for we will hear from no one else as important or authoritative than God each day. We should be anxious to hear our Shepherd speak to us. So before we open the Word tomorrow morning we should pray. We should pray that the Lord would be pleased to speak, and that he would help us to hear. Long ago, J.C. Ryle wrote,

“Read the Bible in a spirit of obedience and self-application. Sit down to the study of it with a daily determination that you will live by its rules, rest on its statements, and act on its commands. Consider, as you travel through every chapter, ‘How does this affect my thinking and daily conduct? What does this teach me?’ It is poor work to read the Bible from mere curiosity, and for speculative purposes — in order to fill your head and store your mind with mere opinions; while you do not allow the book to influence your heart and life. That Bible is read best — which is practiced most!” [J.C. Ryle, Practical Religion, “Bible Reading” (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1998), 131-134.]

Surely the good Dr. Ryle was correct. Surely we should read to hear and obey the voice of our Good Shepherd, for his speaking is a divine mark of his goodness to us.