God Speaks, Let’s Listen – EP54
1 Samuel 3
"And the Lord came and called as before, 'Samuel! Samuel!'
And Samuel replied, 'Speak, your servant is listening.'”
Hello and welcome back to the One Thing Podcast. I'm very excited to share a few verses here of a story about a young boy named Samuel, and we're gonna be looking at first Samuel chapter 3. I encourage you to read this entire chapter as God I know can speak so much through His Word, but I'm only going to share a few verses.
"We are all called to serve in the house of the Lord"And to give you an idea of the story, Samuel is a young boy who is dedicated to serving the Lord in His house and around this time history states that he was probably around 11 years old. Samuel was being trained by his mentor Eli who was the head priest at the time. And you can imagine this young boy who was so excited to learn of what it meant to serve God to walk with Him and to follow Him.
"Speak Lord for your servant is listening..."And for us today maybe we're not in a ministry, maybe we're not, you know, on the worship team or pastors. Whatever we may be, the whole point is that we are all called to serve in the house of the Lord by worshiping and ministering to the Lord by having our hearts filled with His word, filled with His presence. And God has called us to all truly have this ministry within our hearts.
And so we can relate to Samuel, now one night young Samuel was sleeping, Eli was in his place sleeping and Samuel was in his place and Samuel hears a voice call his name. He immediately assumed it was Eli so he runs to Eli and he says, "Did you call me here I am," and Eli says, "I didn't call you, go back to bed." This happens 2 times, Samuel hears his name called, he hears a voice not knowing that it's actually the Lord calling him. And he goes to Eli. Now there came a point - now we're gonna look at verse 8, and we're gonna see what Eli finally realized. It says, "A third time the Lord called Samuel and 'Samuel!' And Samuel got up and went to Eli and said, 'Here I am; you called me.' Then Eli realized that the Lord was calling the boy. So Eli told Samuel going and lie down, and if He calls you, say, 'Speak Lord, for Your servant is listening.'
"So Samuel went and lay down in his place. The lord came and stood there calling as at other times, 'Samuel! Samuel!' Then Samuel said, 'Speak, for Your servant is listening." You see originally prior to you Eli instructing Samuel on what to do, he wasn't familiar with the voice of the Lord yet. How many of us today may feel as though we always speak with God, we pray and we do a lot of different things but we don't commonly find ourself listening to His voice and maybe we don't find ourself familiar with His way of speaking and what He may be saying this day.
"Those who begin to hear His voice live in victory!"I encourage you as Samuel that today you would change your prayer and yes we can you know bring our petitions before God. There's a time for thankfulness, there's a time to pray for others, and those things are all special. But I encourage us before all other things today to come as Samuel did, and to stop in the midst of our jobs, to maybe stop in the midst of our lunch break or schooling whatever we may be doing and just in our hearts begin to say, 'Lord here I am; speak, for Your servant is listening."
And as we begin to practice this, as we begin to open our hearts and our minds which really is a work of the grace of God in our lives, may we begin to hear God speak into our hearts speaking to our mind. And we know that as those who begin to hear His voice as we begin to follow it, we live in victory.
Practice, practice...God speaks!And what is the victory, first of all we get to know God! We get to know His voice. This is the greatest thing. The apostle Paul said that you know for all things I press on to know Him everything else is worthless. So may we come to that point in our lives where we begin to hear from the Lord and begin to practice and practice and practice, and maybe at first it'll be just a whisper. But before we know it we'll be overtaken as an ocean overtakes a man or woman in the sea. Overtaken by the voice of God. Speaking, hearing, listening and walking and there is victory in knowing Him. There is victory at accomplishing His will because we can hear His thoughts, His heart, and His voice. There is victory because we can also now bring others to come to know that voice as this young boy was also instructed.
So I pray today that our prayer would be, "Father, here we are, here I am; speak for Your servant is listening." May we be blessed by this word, may we come to know the voice of the Father, the voice of our mighty Savior, the voice of the mighty Holy Spirit that speaks as those who listen come and sit at His door waiting for that beautiful voice to come into their hearts and come into their mind.
Thank You God for Your voice this day.