by Pastor Douglas Brauner

Listening to God’s Voice

This trumpet is useless. The breeze is the only thing that makes sound come from its bell so that it resonates like wind in a seashell. People treat it as an ornament that makes the play structure colorful and inviting, but that’s it.

Is this the way we treat God’s Word? Do we regard God’s word as an ornament that looks pretty on our coffee tables?

“Oh, that my people would listen to me, that Israel would walk on my paths.”
Psalm 81:13

Through the voice of the psalmist, the Lord reminds his people that it was he who brought them out of slavery in Egypt. It was his grace that had formed these people, yet they had ignored God’s love and mercy and did whatever they wanted to do. It was their rebellion against God’s grace, his paths, which led them into exile.

God has been merciful to us through his Son Jesus. We know his kindness as he does not count our sins against us but saves us through his shed blood and the power of his resurrection.

Even so, it is tempting for us to be like Israel and not listen to Jesus.

“And a voice came out of the cloud and said, ‘This is my son, the Chosen One, listen to him!”
Luke 9:35

In listening to Jesus, we listen to the voice of the Creator who called the universe into existence. And so, God confronts us with the question, why don’t we listen to Jesus? If Jesus is the Chosen One, the gift of God whose voice brings us life, why do we treat that word as a plastic trumpet, as an ornament and nothing more?

I ask you to ponder this question today. I can’t answer it for you, but I can invite you to listen to Jesus, to the One who said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6) It is the voice that says, “And get this, I am with you always.” (Matthew 28:20) May you know power of Jesus’ voice.

Copyright Family of Christ Lutheran Church, Colorado Springs, Colorado