365 Days of the Great Names of God, Day 119: God Who Speaks

God Who Speaks

"Speak, LORD, for your servant is listening." (1 Samuel 3:9 NIV)

God has been speaking since the beginning.

"In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, 'Let there be light,' and there was light" (Genesis 1:1-3).

God said.

One of the things God says is that there is a time to be silent and a time to speak. 

When I'm thinking it might be time for me to speak, I need to pass my words under the confirming light of God's Word.

L—Is what I'm thinking of speaking loving? "If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal." (1 Corinthians 13:1 NIV)

I—Is it instructed? "The Sovereign LORD has given me an instructed tongue, to know the word that sustains the weary." (Isaiah 50:4a)

G—Is it gracious? "Gracious words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones." (Proverbs 16:24 NIV) 

H—Is it helpful? "Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen." (Ephesians 4:29 NIV)

T—It is true? "Then we will no longer be immature like children. We won’t be tossed and blown about by every wind of new teaching. We will not be influenced when people try to trick us with lies so clever they sound like the truth. Instead, we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church." (Ephesians 4:14, 15 NLT)

In the Old Testament, God often spoke through His prophets. But in the New Testament, He spoke through His Son, the Word. Jesus spoke of and for His Father until the day Abba went silent...the day darkness was given its hour of reign...the day the Light of the world spoke the words that changed everything.

"It is finished."

It is finished.

Oh friends, one day, this same Jesus—the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End—will say, "It is done"...and we will see the beginning to end all beginnings.