Romans 10:17
So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.
Today more than any other time we have need to hear the voice of God to lead the church, but unfortunately most of the church is not seeking God or His Word for everyday direction!
Many preach today that faith comes by the one who preaches, but in actuality faith comes by the Holy Spirit. It is the work of the Holy Spirit, as we seek the face of God, that speaks to us individually. This is one of those scriptures that has been taken out of context for many years. Lets set the record straight.
When Paul wrote this he had no knowledge that a book called the Bible would some day be printed. In Paul's time he either wrote a letter to a particular church or had a scribe write the letter. This was common in his time. In our time we have taken the Bible and although it is true that it is the Word of God, it is also true that Jesus was then the Word as it is outlined in John chapter 1. By reading the Bible as the Word of God, one could easily assume that God stopped talking almost 2,000 years ago. I submit that this is a teaching that is in error. It is not that God stopped talking, but perhaps we stopped listening. Perhaps today we have replaced God's daily leading with traditional teachings. Teachings that although may be well intentioned, may miss the mark
Folks, let me be frank! Has God talked with you lately? If not, why? There is still time to ask the question. Believe me, if you ask the Holy Spirit to with you as you seek God's face and His direction for you in your life, He will speak to you. Don't think so try it! God is gracious and is willing to meet us half way if we reach out to Him in truth and in spirit. This is a subject that is so important, it could mean the difference between life and death, heaven or hell!
One of the things that Jesus gave us was the Lord's prayer. If you recall Jesus was asked 'How to pray.' He told the disciples to pray after this manner, "Our Father who art in Heaven hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread..." Most everyone can recite the prayer, but have we sought God on what it means? Fist we are given an idea of the will of God. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. This tells us that is God's will that there be no sorrow, sickness, disease and death. If there were such things in Heaven it would not be a place that I would want to go. No the things that happen here are not God's will, and we are given a clue how to make it God's will.
The phrase, "Give us this day our daily bread," also gives us insight to God's will as our daily bread is Jesus and our daily bread is His ministry to us. He wants us to come to Him for all things, and for direction in our life. As confirmation of this we are given Proverbs 3:5-8 where it tells us to, trust in the Lord with all of heart and lean not unto our own understanding, in all of our ways we are to acknowledge Him and He will direct our path. By reading further we make a startling discovery when it tells us that His Word will be health to our bones.
The Bible was given to us so that we would know that it was God speaking to us, as that still voice in us will never be out of line with His written Word, and if it is our of line we know that it is not of God. By reading the Bible as we seek God and His truth some of the scripture will actually seem to jump out to us, as it would seem that it was written specifically for us.
Perhaps next time that we are at church, we should all be seeking God both individually and corporately as the body for His will for us for the next week. Perhaps if we all did this the world would be different. Maybe that is what was originally intended for us in church.