The very reason why I’m alive, hopeful, joyful and peaceful is because the Lord our God still speaks to today.   If He sustained the existence of the whole creation by the word of His power, then that includes you and me as His created speaking beings.  Truly, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.”  (Matthew 4:4)

He continually summons us to ask, seek, knock!  How do we do these?  By words!  How does He answer?  By words!  He issued an invitation for us to meditate on His word day and night.  Why?  Because He desires to speak into our hearts and when He does, it changes our thoughts, our options, our decisions, our perspective and eventually our whole lives.  He takes us from revelation to revelation, line upon line, precept upon precept, from faith to faith, from glory to glory.  Every spoken word that pierces our hearts causes our concepts to become convictions that changes us.

The world is full of hopelessness, but His word carries HOPE!  In the midst of challenges, His word give us a confident expectation and a joyful anticipation of His goodness to surprise us along the way.   His word makes us steadfast, undaunted and unmoved by what what we see and choose to anchor ourselves upon what He has spoken.  He speaks HEALING and sealed this promise 2000 years ago by the stripes that He bore in His body when He was severely whipped, beaten and flogged that we may be healed and whole.  He speaks PEACE in the midst of our turmoil, depriving it of its power to harm us and have conquered it for us.  He speaks ABUNDANCE though what we see may seem contrary to what we expect to see.  He speaks words of WISDOM when we’re caught in the unknown and know not what to do.  He speaks LIFE that we may have it fully and overflowingly.

His word is the light upon our path and the lamp upon our feet (Psalm 119:105).   He illumines our way that we may SEE Him as His word leads us the way, never leaving us nor forsaking us.  His word is the river of living water that when we, likened to trees, are positioned and planted beside it, our roots drink and draw nourishment from Him and His spoken word alone that enables and graces us to bear fruit without fail.  His word is our daily bread as we feed on His faithfulness knowing that He always fulfills what He has promised.

Blessed is the man
Who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly,
    Nor stands in the path of sinners,
    Nor sits in the seat of the scornful;
But his delight is in the law of the Lord,
    And in His law he meditates day and night.
He shall be like a tree
    Planted by the rivers of water,
    That brings forth its fruit in its season,
    Whose leaf also shall not wither;
And whatever he does shall prosper.  (Psalm 1:1-3)

When His word is spoken, it brings faith into our hearts.  “Faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ.” (Romans 10:17 NIV)

Sometimes we are too consumed by looking for the manifestations of what we have been praying for that it deprives us to hear His voice that are seeds into what we are about to see.

I love the story of His two disciples on the road to Emmaus as they talked together of all the things which had happened after Jesus’ resurrection.  It says, “while they conversed and reasoned, Jesus DREW NEAR and WENT WITH THEM” (Luke 24:15).  Very interesting indeed that when we come together in fellowship and talk about Jesus, He comes in the midst of us.  “For where two or three are gathered in My name, there Am I among them.” (Matthew 18:20)   We may not readily recognize His presence in our midst, but He is.  What a glorious encouragement and revelation indeed.  And the best part of it is that He isn’t intimidated at all of Him not being acknowledged immediately.

They walked and conversed with Jesus for several miles never recognizing Him yet He continued to expound to them in ALL scriptures the things concerning Himself.  Jesus was to continue His journey further but the two disciples constrained Him and asked Him to abide with them toward the evening.  Just as Jesus sat at the table with them, He took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them, and their eyes were OPENED and they KNEW Him and HE VANISHED FROM THEIR SIGHT!

The two disciples were expecting to see redemption in their own perception, Jesus being alive without having to die, not knowing that the power of redemption came with His resurrection.  “So they said to Him, “The things concerning Jesus of Nazareth, who was a Prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people,  and how the chief priests and our rulers delivered Him to be condemned to death, and crucified Him.  But we were hoping that it was He who was going to redeem Israel.” (Luke 24:20-21)  

They only came to know the truth of Who Jesus was after He disappeared before them.  Jesus was speaking while they were walking that caused their heart to burn within themselves while He opened the scriptures to them yet they never recognized Him. He continued to speak until it came to pass when it was time for communion that He unveiled their eyes to see Him as He vanished.

Do you know that in an instant two things happened at the same time?  They physically saw Jesus yet never knew it was Him but in such instancy when He disappeared, their spiritual eyes were opened to see Him in their hearts that caused them to be JOYFUL and UNSTOPPABLE that they rose up and went back to Jerusalem that very hour.

YOU DON’T NEED TO SEE JESUS IN SIGHT WHEN YOU RECOGNIZE HIM IN YOUR HEART!  Know that He is speaking and is continually speaking.  When He says, “I AM with you always” means He isn’t just with us passively.  He is actively with us, speaking to us, protecting us, enjoying and celebrating with us as we journey in this life of encounters with Him.

In the world, to see is to believe.  In His Word, we live by faith and not by sight.

Prayer:  Heavenly Father, thank You for choosing us to be a part of Your family where we divine encounters You have prepared for us to experience and explore.  Truly we live because You are always speaking.  Holy Spirit, we ask You to continue to unveil our eyes to see Jesus everyday, in every way, for You are always with us, never leaving us nor forsaking us.  Thank You for gracing our physical ears to hear You speak and our spiritual ears to listen to Your voice.  In Your presence is where our hearts of stone become hearts of flesh where You mold us to be like You, Jesus.  Amen!