Gifts and Talents

          We all would like to hear the voice of God. In order to hear what He is saying to us we need to tune into Him. We cannot hear Him when we fill our lives with the things of this world. We are busy every day with the busyness that fills our lives. We get up and go to work. We send the kids off to school. We come home at night, eat supper, help the kids with homework. We go to bed and get up the next day and do it all over again. It is hard to fit God into our schedule. To hear God we need to quiet our minds and quiet our soul, so we can hear what God is saying to us.

      We have to first be stewards to what we hear from god. We have to be stewards of the spoken word of God. We also need to be stewards of what we hear, and how we hear, and what we hear. There are many, many ways that God wants to speak to us.

      God talks to us:

      Through Circumstances: God asked Jonah to take His word to Nineveh. Jonah went the opposite way. Jonah was thrown into the sea and was in a big fish for three days. God did not talk to Jonah again, until he repented.

      Through Counsel: Proverbs: To know wisdom and instruction, Justice, Judgment, and equity: To give prudence to the simple: To the young man of understanding will attain wise counsel: To understand a proverb and enigma, The words of the wise and their riddles. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.

      Through Peace: Colossians 3:15; And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body; and be thankful.

      Through People: Acts 21:10, 11: - And as we stayed many days, a certain prophet named Agabus came down from Judea.
11 When he had come to us, he took Paul's belt, bound his own hands and feet, and said, "Thus says the Holy Spirit, `So shall the Jews at Jerusalem bind the man who owns this belt, and deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles.'"

      Through Dreams and visions: Solomon, Jacob, Peter, John, Paul.

      Through Thoughts: Matthew 1:20: But while he thought about these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, "Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take to you Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit.

      Through Natural Manifestations: Romans 1:2 and declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead. John 12:29; Therefore the people who stood by and heard it said that it had thundered. Others said, "An angel has spoken to Him."

      Through Supernatural Manifestations: A Burning bush, Fleece, Donkey.

      Through the Bible: Romans 10:17 So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

      Through a Still, Small Voice: 1 Kings 19:12 and after the earthquake a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire; and after the fire a still small voice.

      There are many ways that God will talk to us, if we stop what we are doing and tune into what He wants to say to us. We must have a soft and gentle heart, then God can and will talk to us, if we will let Him in to our heart. We need to take heed what we hear.

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      New King James Version
Mark 4:24 Then He said to them, "Take heed what you hear. With the same measure you use, it will be measured to you; and to you who hear, more will be given.
25 "For whoever has, to him more will be given; but whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him."

      New King James Version
Judges 6:36 So Gideon said to God, "If You will save Israel by my hand as You have said--
37 "look, I shall put a fleece of wool on the threshing floor; if there is dew on the fleece only, and it is dry on all the ground, then I shall know that You will save Israel by my hand, as You have said."
38 And it was so. When he rose early the next morning and squeezed the fleece together, he wrung the dew out of the fleece, a bowlful of water.
39 Then Gideon said to God, "Do not be angry with me, but let me speak just once more: Let me test, I pray, just once more with the fleece; let it now be dry only on the fleece, but on all the ground let there be dew."
40 And God did so that night. It was dry on the fleece only, but there was dew on all the ground.

      New King James Version
Luke 8:18 "Therefore take heed how you hear. For whoever has, to him more will be given; and whoever does not have, even what he seems to have will be taken from him."