In Touch Ministries

Dr. Charles Stanley: Do not come to church, do not listen to the radio as a passive listener. If it is God who is doing the speaking, I believe that by His very nature, God is worthy of my undivided attention for the moment.

So when we listen, we're to listen aggressively and intensely, for God may be saying something to you through someone else that will change your life.

Guest (Male): With all the voices we hear each day, how do we determine the message God wants to impress in our spirit? Today on In Touch, the teaching ministry of Dr. Charles Stanley, we'll be reminded that God never says anything that's unimportant, so we'd be wise to keep our heart and mind focused on Him. Here's Dr. Stanley's explanation of God's goal in communicating.

Dr. Charles Stanley: God never says anything unless it is very important and worth remembering. He doesn't engage in any kind of chit-chat. He doesn't preface His remarks with anything, and God doesn't speak for fifteen minutes and finally get around to the point. God is always at the point. He makes no introduction. He doesn't talk just to be talking. God always has something specific to say. He says it precisely, He says it concisely, and it always, without fail, has something to do with our need.

It may involve other people, but God is always speaking to our need. It may be that we have a need to become involved in somebody else's life, or it may be that God wants to do something in our own or to say something to us, but God always has our need in mind when He's speaking. If God is speaking and I'm doing the listening, if I want to be sure that I hear what God is saying, one of the things I need to settle or to learn is this: what is God's primary objective or objectives?

What is His goal or what are His goals in speaking to me in the beginning? That is, if I really want to hear what God is saying and be able to listen to Him and know that I've heard from God, one of the best things I can do is to learn what God's purpose or His goal is in the beginning of speaking to you or to me. That's what I want to talk about. I want to give you three words and I want you to listen carefully. Three simple words. Here is what God has in mind when He speaks to you and to me. He always has these three things as His goal, so it's a threefold goal.

Number one, when God speaks to our heart, His first goal is that we may comprehend the truth. Get that word down: comprehend. Which means that we may be able to grasp it, we may be able to seize it, and we may be able to understand fully what He is saying. God never speaks in riddles. That is, He's going to speak to your life in a way that you can understand because God's goal for speaking to you is that you comprehend the truth.

God will not speak to you and to me in riddles. You say, "There've been times when God spoken to me that I didn't understand what He was saying." It wasn't because God was foggy, it wasn't because He was being confused, it was because something in your life was hindering a clear hearing of what God was saying. God speaks to you and to me and He wants us to listen. Not simply to listen with our mind. If I only preach to your mind, you're going to get a mental message.

But if God, through My spirit through this voice, speaks to your spirit, you're going to get a spiritual message and God is going to deal with your whole life, not just your thinking processes. There are two kinds of listeners, and all of us fall in one of these two categories: we are either passive listeners or we are aggressive listeners. We become involved in listening. Here's a passive listener: comes to church on Sunday morning and views to see if everything is in order, seeing how she's dressed, how he looks, how the choir's doing. They did pretty good, in fact, they did great. What kind of sermon? It was alright.

That person is just in the middle of a big crowd of people. They are passive listeners. They did not come with a decision to hear from God. A passive listener will miss most of God's message to them, if not all of it. Nowhere in this book are we admonished to be passive listeners. We are to be involved, aggressive listeners. You know what an involved, aggressive listener is? An involved, aggressive listener comes to church with a Bible in his hand. When the pastor opens the book, he opens the book.

When the pastor begins to preach, he gets out a pencil and a piece of paper. He's an aggressive listener. He wants to be sure he doesn't miss anything. An involved listener listens with intent, probing, searching, listening carefully, wanting to be sensitive to what God is saying, alert to what God is saying, interested in what is happening, turning to the verses, thinking all the time, "How does this apply to my life? I don't want to miss this. I hope he says that again."

An intensive, aggressive listener. If God speaks through this servant or any servant and you are listening, you're under obligation before Almighty God to listen aggressively, intensely, sensitively, because it is the mouth of God and not the mouth of man. I want to encourage you, do not come to church, do not watch the television, do not listen to the radio as a passive listener. If it is God who is doing the speaking, I believe that by His very nature, God is worthy of my undivided attention for the moment.

So when we listen, we're to listen aggressively. That's why we must learn to listen carefully to others, not passively but aggressively and intensely, for God may be saying something to you through someone else that will change your life. But if you're a passive, ho-hum listener, then you may miss God's direct message to your life. We're to listen with comprehension. You'll recall, for example, in that first chapter of James what he says about those who go to the mirror and look, then walk away.

He says in verse 25, "But one who looks intently..." That is, they pried up to look to see what's there. What is God saying? They want to grasp the truth. What is the Lord saying to us? Every time you and I come into a situation, every time we come to the Lord's house, we should ask God, "Lord, when we sit in these pews, Father, even before we get here, give me a listening heart. Lord, show me how to listen aggressively. Show me how to listen attentively. Show me how to listen probing to see if what I'm hearing is the truth. How can I apply this to my heart?"

We want to be listening to Jehovah, Yahweh, Elohim God, not man. What does man have to say? Not much. Look at the mess this world is in. You know why? Because men are listening to men; they're not listening to God. When you hear God speak and you know that it's from the word of God, you know that from the Spirit of God into your spirit, God is dealing with you, then if God is the God He says He is, does He not demand, does He not require, and does He not deserve my fullhearted attention for the moment that God is speaking?

If He's the God we say He is, He deserves my undivided attention. Because you see, God wants me to know the truth. You say, "What is this truth God wants us to know?" As I thought about it, I think you could put it into three categories. Number one, He wants us to know the truth about Himself. He wants us to know the truth about ourselves, and He wants us to know the truth about other people. When I understand the truth of who God is, I'm going to begin to understand better who I am.

Then I'm going to begin to understand who other people are and their need and how God in my life, through my life, can help meet those needs. God wants us to know who He is. He has equipped us through the indwelling Holy Spirit to know Him. So the first word is what? Comprehend. He wants us to comprehend the truth. The second part of God's goal for us in listening is that we may be conformed to the truth. To be conformed to the truth, that is, shaped into the mold of the truth that we hear.

Fashioned into the mold of the truth we hear. What does He say, for example, in Romans chapter eight, verse 29? He says in this 29th verse, for every single believer, God has predetermined, predestined, preordained that every single believer would be shaped, that is, fitted into the mold of Christ. He says, "Conformed into the likeness of Jesus Christ." How is God going to conform you and me into His likeness? By revealing to us the truth of His likeness, shaping us.

As I am confronted with the truth, I can do one of two things: I can resist the truth, I can refuse to be pushed into God's mold into the likeness of Christ, or I can hear the truth, drop my guard, receive the truth of the Lord Jesus Christ, yield to Him, not resist but yield, and be fashioned into the likeness of Christ. He says we are to listen in order to comprehend, and to comprehend in order to be shaped and to be conformed to that truth.

You'll recall, for example, back in James again, chapter one, what he says. He says there are two kinds of hearers. He says, "If anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer," that is a passive listener. Hearing but not doing. Hearing, being entertained but not being conformed. Let me tell you something else: God never speaks for our consideration. He reveals truth to us. The wisest thing you can ever do is to allow the truth to shape you into the mold of God.

Would God ever tell you anything that's not true? Never. Would He ever tell you anything that is not good for you? Never. Would He ever require of you anything that's not good for you? Never. There'll be some things He may say to us that we don't particularly like to hear, and I think as Jeremiah spoke, the listeners to Jeremiah and his prophecy, one of the things that they said, we ought to have this spirit. Jeremiah chapter 42, verse 6, "Whether it is pleasant or unpleasant, we will listen to the voice of the Lord our God."

Haven't you heard people say, "I'm not going back to that church anymore, I don't want to hear that preacher." Why don't you want to? "All he talks about is money," or, "All he talks about is sin." Could it be that God's trying to get through your thick heart? I'll tell you one thing, if I went somewhere and heard somebody preach and God got a hold of me and got me under conviction, I'd be afraid not to go back. If you are running from God, what you're doing is you're resisting the truth and what you're saying is, "I love darkness more than I love light."

The man who hears these words that I speak and doeth them is like a man who builds his house and the foundation is solid rock. The winds will blow, the storms will come, the rain will beat down and the floods will come, but it's immovable because it is built on that which is immovable: Christ Jesus the Rock. He says, "But the man who listens to the words that I speak and doeth them not is a fool." God gives the truth that I may comprehend it. God gives the truth that I may be conformed to it because He knows that is for my best.

The third part of that goal is that God speaks to us that we may communicate that truth. God has never given us anything to keep for ourselves. Whether it's money, it's to go through us. If it is truth, it is to be shared. "As you go, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all the things which I have given to you. And ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you and ye shall be witnesses of me: Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, the uttermost parts of the earth."

In second Timothy chapter two and verse two, that beautiful passage that oftentimes we quote about discipleship, he said, "And the things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, these entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also." That is, the truth that you have been able to comprehend as I have been your teacher, you are to communicate these truths to others, who in turn will be able to pass them on that somebody else's life may be changed.

Now I want you to listen to me very carefully; it's going to get real personal. Every waking moment of our life, every single one of us is communicating something. By what we say and what we don't say, by what we do and what we fail to do, we are communicating something. For example, here's a dad with a family. Son says, "Well, Dad, how much are we going to tithe this Sunday?" Dad says, "We're not going to tithe this Sunday because I can't afford it. I've got bills to pay and I can't tithe."

Then, Father, you are communicating to your son a lie. You're communicating to him by your actions that you cannot trust God with your money, that God is not faithful to meet your needs, that God will not keep His promise concerning the tithe if you give it. You're saying, "Son, you can't trust God when it comes to money." You say, "I'm not one of those tithers but I wouldn't say that." You've already said it. You have already communicated by your decision; you have communicated either truth or error.

In your family, for example, let's say that you never read the Bible. What you're communicating to your family is, "I'm smart enough to make my decisions and I can get along without God's counsel." And that too is a lie, that too is error. If you're teaching your family that a person can get along without the counsel of God, you are communicating to them something that is absolutely untrue and detrimental to their whole future.

Your sons or your daughters have never seen you on your knees, never heard you pray. What you're communicating is, "I don't need fellowship with God. I don't need to ask Him about anything. I can handle it myself." The truth is that's not true either. That is a lie; you cannot handle it without Him. Not and be what God wants you to be. The absence of prayer, of Bible study, of giving, and of sharing our faith is communicating to others that none of these things are important.

And every single one of them is important. Imagine Dad is talking to his family. He says, "Well, God wants me to raise my giving. We're going to trust the Lord. Here's a need we have, we're going to trust God." You know what you're communicating to your kids? "Listen, when all hell breaks loose, you can trust on God. When you can't see your way clear, God will work it out. God will meet your needs." We are communicating either error and lies or we're communicating truth, life-changing truth.

Some fathers and mothers wonder why their families are in the mess they're in. Could it be that you and I have communicated unbelief? We communicate so many things we never decided to communicate. Let me ask you a question. In the light of what you know, that God's been so gracious and good to teach you over these years, are you deliberately, willfully, by an act of choice, attempting to apply these truths to your life on a daily basis in order that you may be shaped in the likeness of Christ?

Are you communicating the truth about God? Are you communicating the truth about yourself? What is it by your life you are telling other people? Every time God speaks to you and to me, He's got three things in mind: that you comprehend the truth, that you are conformed to the truth, that you communicate that truth. We comprehend it clearly, we conform to it willingly, and we communicate it boldly. That's why God speaks to you and me.

Guest (Male): How do you respond to God when you read or listen to His word? Today on In Touch, we were reminded that anytime we hear God's truth, we're responsible to conform our life to it and boldly communicate it to others. To listen again, click on "Today on Radio" at intouch.org, and that's where you can study more about keeping your mind and heart centered on Jesus.

For a copy of Dr. Stanley's complete message, "God's Goal in Communicating," open the bookstore page to place your order, or order the entire "Listening to God" teaching set. Our web address again is intouch.org. To call or text, the number is 1-800-INTOUCH. You can write to us at In Touch Ministries, Post Office Box 7900, Atlanta, Georgia, 30357. Do you sometimes wonder if you're understanding spiritual things accurately? Insight is coming up in today's "Moment with Charles Stanley."

Guest (Female): Tired of faith feeling like a performance? Worn down by constant striving? Jesus never meant it to feel that way. His call was always to something more: to a life that's generous, vibrant, joyful, and sustainable. A real life with Him. That's the heart of "Follow Me," our book created to help you answer that call. Get your copy at intouch.org/store.

Guest (Male): In our spiritual journey, we often have questions. "How do I know God's will for my life?" "Does God hear my prayers?" "Why do bad things happen?" The answers are found in the word of God, but how do we know where to start? The free In Touch devotional can help point you in the right direction with biblically based content from Dr. Charles Stanley. You'll gain insight and wisdom through daily devotionals, Bible studies, and more. The In Touch devotional, delivered monthly to your mailbox. Subscribe for free at intouch.org/daily.

You're listening to In Touch. Spiritual truth can be difficult to understand. That's why we need an interpreter. Here's a "Moment with Charles Stanley."

Dr. Charles Stanley: Now, God has given to all of us who are believers a divine Person who lives within us to help us to receive and understand everything that God says. First Corinthians chapter two, look if you will. You recall this verse which says, "Things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard, and which have not entered the heart of man, all that God has prepared for those who love Him."

Then Paul says, "For to us God revealed these things through the Spirit, for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God." Every single believer has within him and her the Holy Spirit who knows perfectly the mind of God and who receives within us and communicates to our spirit the message, the truth that God wants us to hear. Because Adam fell, the whole human race fell. You and I were born with a bent away from God.

The moment we receive Jesus Christ as our personal Savior, the Holy Spirit came in. One of His primary ministries is to teach us the truth of who God is. He says He gave us the Holy Spirit to reveal these things. Verse 12, "Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God." For what reason? "That we may know the things freely given to us of God." We may grasp them.

And the Greek word there "eido," which means fullness of knowledge, that I may fully understand what God is saying to me. Verse 14, "But a natural man," who is an unbeliever, "does not accept nor receive, cannot understand the things of the Spirit of God. They're foolish to him. He cannot understand them because they are spiritually appraised."

That is, a person who does not have the Holy Spirit cannot understand the deep things of God, spiritual things, because in his fallen nature, living a life of selfishness, doing his own thing, he is absolutely incapable of understanding the things of God.

Guest (Male): And understanding the things of God begins by believing He forgives you the moment you trust in His Son, Jesus Christ. Learn more about becoming a Christian at intouch.org. On the next edition of In Touch, sometimes before we can even tell that God is trying to communicate with us, He has to first change our focus. Find out how He does that on In Touch, the teaching ministry of Dr. Charles Stanley. This program is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia, and remains on this station through the grace of God and your faithful prayers and gifts.