A God Listening Heart

A God Listening Heart

I Kings 3: 7-9 (I am reading from the Message)

“And now here I am: God, my God you have made me your servant, ruler of the kingdom place of my father David. I’m too young for this, a mere child! I don’t know the ropes yet, I hardly know that ‘ins’ and ‘outs’ of this job. And here I am, set down in the Middle of the people you have a chosen, a great people- far too many to ever count.”

“Here’s what I want: Give me a God –listening heart, so I can lead your people well discerning the difference between good and evil. For who on their own is capable of leading your glorious people?”

This is the Word of God for the people of God and the entire world. Thanks be to God…

Let us pray.

Un-shakable, immovable, faithful, and true. You are full of wisdom, faith, and beauty. These things are true of you. For you are perfect and blameless. Righteousness shines through in all you do. Yet you never give up on the hopeless ones. These things are true of you. And as I turn my face to you. Oh, Lord, I asked and pray. By the power of your grace, make these things true of me too. Make these things true of me too. Let your words be my words Father. Remove me from the equation all together and hide me behind the cross. It is in the name of the Christ I pray, Amen.

We have been talking about Following the Spirit. I have witnessed to you about my anointing and yielding to the spirit. And the direction my life has taken as I answered the call. We have talked about how it is important for us to yield to the guidance of the Holy Spirit. We have to be willing to go where the Spirit leads us. It’s not easy, but it is very necessary. We talked about the urgency that is within the body of Christ for us to yield to the will of Father through the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Today, I am going to discuss what it takes to have a God-listening heart.

I will be the first one to admit that it is scary following where the Spirit leads because it just messes up all the plans that I had for my own life. But the Father doesn’t always do what I feel he should, but He always does what is best. And it doesn’t take a rocket scientist or an industrial chemist to figure that one out. It’s a leap of faith.

Does age really matter, when it comes to spiritual maturity? Well, I hope that we all know that answer to this question. It does not. What matters is your relationship with the Father. (Pause)

Yielding to the Spirit makes us obedient. And by obedience we obtain God’s true and perfect will for our lives. Some people chose to follow the Spirit at a young age, while others wait until their older. The calling and yearning is always there. But we chose when we ask God to give us God-listening hearts.

(Pause)

At lot of times this is done when we have gone through something life changing. Like I just witnessed to last Sunday. But I think that I would have rather had a subtle experience like Enoch had.

Enoch was talking with God one day. God love him so much because he was supremely obedient. Enoch was walking along with God and fellowshipping with him like he always did, and in a blink of an eye, Enoch realized that he was taken up into heaven. He didn’t experience death. He went from walking in the garden to walking in paradise.

It was subtle, but the results of obedience are dramatic and life changing. Now that puts a new meaning on “Just a Closer Walk with Thee”.

Figurative speaking, let’s go back to the scripture text. Solomon asked God for discernment and the ability to listen to God with his heart. He was overwhelmed and realized what he was about to come up against. His dad, King David just died, and now he is succeeding him as king of Israel. I mean, that’s a lot for anyone to have to take on. He was now responsible for the lively hood of God’s chosen people.

Solomon gave us a realistic situation where he admitted to his inexperience and age. He had sense enough to ask God for spiritual guidance. He didn’t ask for riches, but rather a God-listening heart. And because of that, God made him the riches king ever. No earthly king has ever reached the glory of Solomon.

We all take advantage of our boundless ability to receive the Holy Spirit’s guidance so many times in our lives. We are quick to say, “God, I got this!” And when the situation does not turn out the way that we hope, we are begging for God to take over and put an end to the madness.