Who Told You?

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Jesse Duplantis once explained the ‘double edged sword’ nature of the Word this way: it strikes the receiver in equal proportion to it piercing the messenger. A double-edged sword has both of its edges cut and can therefore be used with thrusts and swipes in any direction with equal effectiveness (e.g. Ehud’s sword in Judges 3). Now God’s word is sharper than such a double edged sword and in the hand of the Holy Spirit it swipes in the direction of the crowd and the speaker with equal effect.

“For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.” Hebrews 4:12
 

You have no idea how many times I catch God speaking directly to me through my own voice. Those times when he leads me beyond my sermon notes which are a transcription of what I heard him say a few hours earlier. When he uses the words flowing out of my mouth to convict me as I speak them. There’s nothing quite like it. Today was one of those days.

This year has come with an unexpected change in my life. I won’t lie and say it wasn’t anticipated but it was still very much unexpected in its timing and method. With more change unfolding, I find myself easily loosing my footing in my duty to stand. My mind strays, dragging along my heart, and I soon find myself wrestling under a heaving burden of worry. Today, I realized that I have had my joy and peace stolen from me all because I was listening to a stranger’s voice.  

“Very truly I tell you Pharisees, anyone who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in by some other way, is a thief and a robber… But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger’s voice.” John 10:1,5

I couldn’t even recall when, where or how, but I just realized there and then that my peace was taken from me. I couldn’t trace it because the thief didn’t come through the door, I’d obviously see him and rebuke him. But as a thief, he climbed in some way, probably using a foothold. But here I was, almost sick with worry and completely outside the rest the cross had purchased for me.

“And do not give the devil a foothold.” Ephesians 4:27

My biggest fault was listening to the lies of this thief and stranger instead of running away from them towards God’s liberating truth. It was in thinking I was too strong to run, thinking I could stand to hear this voice and not be drawn to follow it. But praise be to God who does not leave us to our own devices. I heard his voice, asking me as it did Adam:“Who told you that you were naked?” Genesis 3:11


‘Who told you that I needed your participation in sustaining you?’ I was flabbergasted with the realization that I had listened to a stranger’s voice and believed a lie. I followed a voice that lead me away from God and his truth, a voice that convinced me to forsake God’s strength for my own, that detached me from the peace of trusting God and burdened me with fear and anxiety.

I then remembered an old Zulu hymn I had been singing when this year begun. I had sung it intentionally and resiliently because of the many questions I had no answers to at that point.
Ngizomethemba njalo ngob’ uyayazi indlela (I will trust him always for he knows the way)
Uzongihola ngeso angisekel’ impela (He will lead me with his eye on me and support me indeed)
Ezulwini ngolanda, ngimbonge phakade (In heaven I will sing and praise him forevermore)
Wangethula umthwalo, wangishiya neculo (He took off my burden and left me with a song)


And so I am back here again, where my journey started, where it will always return and ultimately end; hearing, following and trusting the voice of the One who called me.

I'd like to challenge you to question the voices that are speaking into your life. Who’s voice have you been listening to? Where is it leading you to? Who told you these things that you now believe so much? Who told you you have to look that way and speak that way and be that way? Where is your peace? Where is your freedom? Where is your joy? Child, throw off those shackles, His voice summons you!

“Even to your old age and gray hairs I am he, I am he who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you.” Isaiah 46:4

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