January 2

THE ART OF LISTENING

Father, thank You for bringing me to this place and this time today. I ask You to speak to me right now, and to let Your Word breathe life into my heart. Please use these next few moments to bring me to more of a fullness of You and to learn more of Your Glory and how to leave the footprints of Jesus everywhere I go today. In Jesus Name I pray. Amen!

Read Deuteronomy 18:14-19

Alright so some of you might be checking to see if this devotional is really going to follow the life of Christ or instead keep replacing one random hard verse from the Old Testament for another. Today brings us to a second passage in which is it difficult at first to see Jesus, and to see how to leave His footprints.

This passage is taken from Moses’ final address to the Hebrew nation before they begin to take possession of the promise land. He is reminding the people of their request to have a prophet speak to them, instead of God directly. They were afraid of God, so he is admonishing them to listen to the words of the prophets and to follow the Word of God that they convey. This prophetic passage was fulfilled many times over the course of the next fourteen hundred plus years in the lives of the various prophets. Both the apostle John and John the Baptist understood this to also be completed in the life and person of Jesus (c.f. John 1:21).

So after reading the associated passage from John, I reread these six verses with the life of Jesus in mind. Wow. Calling this a hard and difficult passage was quite correct. Since Jesus is the final fulfillment of this prophecy to raise up one who speaks the Words of God, then it is imperative that we not only hear what He says, but to let those Words affect our hearts and minds. To not listen to Him is to cause ourselves to come before the judgment of God. So to truly be one who walks like Jesus and leaves His footprints, we must spend time daily digging into His Words and actions and searching out what they say and what they mean. Then going and doing likewise. I encourage you to today listen to Him and let it soak into your being.

Leave His footprints as you walk today!