The Inconvenience of Hearing God

A few years ago my wife's father gave us a microwave oven. It is very old, one of the earliest models. It takes up most of the counter! The new ones are much smaller, sleeker; I'm sure they work better too. But after getting that I don't see us rushing back to the way life was without it. It is faster. It is more convenient.

One of the questions most of today's Christianity would find difficult to answer would be, Why, if all the other gifts are more or less manifested in your church--pastors and teachers, missionaries, leaders, etc.--why does your church not have prophets?

What is Salvation--Notes From Jesus' Old Testament Sourcebook

How is everyone this beautiful Sabbath morning? We began this series on "I Want to Give My Heart to Jesus" with a look at what inspiration says about our nature as fallen men and women. We asked, What Is My Heart That I Would Give? discovering that at the fall we lost strength, but that God intervened assuring us the capacity to choose. We saw that we are not born guilty but with a disposition pulling strongly toward the evil. Through the gospel God purposes to repair us.

Who is Jesus to Whom I Would Give?

Last Sabbath we began this series, and took up a very important topic. As people who want to give our heart to Jesus we stopped to size-up the situation. We asked, What Is My Heart That I Would Give? taking time to seriously develop what inspiration says about the fall's impact on our race.

We observed that God is a holy Being, that He made man for Himself (Colossians 1:16); that He even made humankind for His pleasure (Revelation 4:11) -- the pleasure of a holy Being! We were designed for holiness. God's original plan for us was that we would be happy in holiness; and He would be happy too. Before the fall, at the close of His work in Genesis one, we hear His pronouncement that everything is "very good." But things don't remain that way.

The second chapter of Genesis introduces a small test of man's faithfulness, the third tells the story of the temptation and fall into sin, and promise of redemption through Messiah to come. The fourth chapter shows us that God, knowing how Cain was wired -- as a fallen, selfish being -- urges him to "rule over" sin, but he fails in this and murders his brother Abel.

Today we embark on a multi-part study of salvation. It is a time for watchfulness. Free-floating ideas abound around us, left open, undefined, exploitable by those who would teach a peace-and-safety gospel. But if we will work through the inspired information point by point, there is much more than that for us as we pin things down where inspiration pins them down. Although surrounded by all the confusion, still, the people of God long to give their hearts to Jesus. Still they want to know how to find God, what salvation means, and how their life can be filled with all blessing.

In this, our first presentation, we consider just what is our human nature. What is my heart that I would give to God? What defines the boundaries of the salvation problem?

In the next presentation we turn our attention especially to Jesus. What is He? Alien, human, or God or both or neither? Why would we give our hearts to Him?

In the following presentations we'll chase salvation-understanding through the centuries, and see where that takes us to today.

In the last presentation, we'll be especially interested in application. How and when shall I give my heart to Jesus? We'll consider the answers.

Weigh, my brothers and sisters, these points carefully, that all of us may give to Him what only we have to give; our hearts; and receive what He only has to give; salvation in all of its fullness.