Recently I had a discussion with someone who asked me, “Why doesn’t God speak to us like he used to in the Bible?” My response to them was, “How do you know that God doesn’t?” In 1 Samuel 3:1 the chapter starts out with, “In those days the word of the Lord was rare, not many were seeing visions.” So the idea of people not hearing from God is not a new thing, but it happens. Lets take a quick look at the context surrounding the books of 1 & 2 Samuel to see why.
The book of Samuel (yes one book, but our bible separates them into 1 Samuel and 2 Samuel) took place after Israel was rescued from slavery in Egypt. They had made a covenant with God at Mount Sinai and eventually they arrived into the promised land. It was there in the promise land that Israel would become faithful to God and do as the covenant commanded… but before the book of Samuel we have the book of Judges and it showed that Israel had done a miserable job at being faithful to God and God’s commandments. The book of Samuel focuses on three main characters, Samuel the Prophet, King Saul, and King David. These three would unify Israel from several tribes into one kingdom ruled by King David. Samuel would be the key leader in the first section of the book and play a key role in revealing a new thing that God would be doing in Israel.
In the third chapter of 1 Samuel, the prophet Samuel would hear from God while sleeping one night. At first he would not recognize the voice he was hearing as the Lord’s, but rather he thought it was the priest Eli calling him. Eventually through the wisdom of Eli, Samuel would respond to the voice of God, but not before several moments of confusion. So what keeps us from hearing God’s voice today? Well maybe it is not that we are unable to hear God’s voice but rather we are unable to recognize it. Join us this Sunday as we discuss how we can recognize the voice of God that is speaking to us always.
This Sunday at Cornerstone we will be having a special worship service at 10:30 AM where we will be assembling 50 Chemotherapy Care Bags while worshiping! This is part of our effort to do more than offer our prayers and thoughts during worship for people battling cancer. Prayers and thoughts are important but so is action.
