As men we often have great ideas that we share, be it how well we are doing in business, how we manage our families, and in doing all this, we praise our ourselves. That's our nature and that is how we are built naturally and it starts from a young age. In doing all this, we often forget who we should give praise to in all our success stories.

 

So today i want to share a bit on hearing the voice of the Lord and obeying it. Our Bible verses are:

 

*John 10 verse 27*

"My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me."

 

*Romans 10 vs 17*

"So faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God."

 

*Jeremiah 33 vs 3*

"Call me and I will answer you and will tell you hidden things that you have not known."

 

The truth is as men we hear the voice of the Lord everyday. The big question is do we obey or do we often resort to our reasoning. Sometimes what you hear does not even make sense but if you obey, it always makes a lot of sense in the end. 

 

A true story I still remember a time when i was in South Africa and I was about to go to work I heard a voice telling me not to use a certain freeway that I normally use and on that very day I obeyed. My friends came  to work an hour late that day because there was a huge accident on the freeway but I got to work on time. All of them were so shocked as to how I made it on time. I only told them it was God who told me not to use the freeway and they took it lightly.

 

Another incident. I had started a new job at a fast growing company and there was more work coming in and people became so tired that most of them were calling in sick. I prayed to God to give me strength so I managed to work extra hours at that job and that business started doing well financially and I thereby started gaining favour with my boss. You need to remember I was in South Africa, a land where the locals hate foreigners. So my supervisor did not like the fact that the boss was always saying good things about me. So he started plotting evil against me. I work as a first class metal machinist so  during my lunch time the supervisor will go to the machine I will be operating  and loosen my job so that I can either get injured or probably make serious mistakes. So one day when I was coming back from lunch time and was about to operate my machine, the voice of the Lord told me to tighten the job I was working on before I started operating the machine. So when he saw me tightening my job, he came straight to me and said are "You a witch or what Simba". I smiled and said to him "It's God." At that time, I truly knew that I had no option but to listen to the voice of the Lord always 'cause I knew I was in danger. So truly, God speaks but do we listen?

 

As men, this is the time where we should show complete dependency on God and listen to his voice and then obey it. 

 

There are many voices talking now which seem to be louder that God's voice. Remember God's voice is gentle. We are leaving in an environment were the louder voice now is saying to our kids at school it's ok to be a boy today and switch to being a girl the next day. We are living in an environment were inflation and recession are the loudest voices on social media platforms. We are living in an environment where business tycoons are losing billions in minutes because of bad business decisions.

 

I believe in a God who is not controlled by time and space. For if you hear the voice of the Lord he will guide your paths. He will lead you all the way because his voice gives an edge over all. He tells you were to invest, what business venture to undertake. What career path to engage in and how to raise your children. If you can only listen to the voice of the Lord you can connect to your partner well and solve all your differences amicably. Listen to this, even how to connect to your inlaws. He gives you words to say to people and he even shows you people who need words of encouragement and he consistently makes you a blessing wherever you are. How many of you agree with me that there are people you always feel refreshed after talking to but on the other hand, there are people you always feel anxious and depressed after talking to?

 

*Prayer point 2*

Let us pray that the voice of the Lord may help us locate those who need encouragement. Those men who are about to give up on life and need the voice of the Lord in order for them to  pull through the difficult times.

 

My encouragement today is let us take charge. With God we are unstoppable, we can see danger from a distance before it gets too near our families.

 

Men After God's Heart is reaching a stage were it is going to grow like wildfire. There will be more men and it won't be easy to know everyone by name. There will be more young men joining the group.

 

*Prayer point 3*

Let there be unity amongst us and let the voice of the Lord speak louder in this group and his grace always be amongst us.