Fifth Sunday after Epiphany, Thursday, February 9, 2006

One more day of a short blogging. I went to the Kemper County Prayer Breakfast this morning and heard some speakers from the Meridian Naval Airbase. It was a pleasure to hear these men, and we should daily keep our service men and women in our prayers.

John 8:21-32

Jesus said that if you hold to my teachings, we are His disciples. We can't separate obedience to him from love of him. Our love is seen in how we obey Him. Notice in the text, the folks he was talking to never fully understood what he was saying. Jesus would say something, and you can almost see them looking at him and going "huh?" They were listening, but they weren't really. They weren't being led by the spirit. We can read the Bible all day long, but if the spirit is not leading, it will not sink in. We can read every devotional under the sun, but if the spirit is not leading, then we aren't doing much. We can do all these things, but if the spirit is not leading, then not much will be accomplished. They heard Jesus, but they weren't listening to the spirit. Is God speaking to us today? Are we listening? Are we listening with the Spirit? God will speak to us today. Will we take the time to listen to Him today. It is not that He is not speaking, it is that we don't always listen. They heard Jesus speak today, but they did not listen through the Spirit. May we not make the same mistake.