“The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. 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 10:2-5
In the same way that we recognize the voice of our mother or father, or perhaps siblings and friends, we recognize the voice of Jesus. If a stranger calls our name, we may hear it, but we won’t blindly trust what the stranger is seeking from or in us. But if it’s a mother calling to you, you’ll go to her, knowing in confidence the voice that is calling to you; the voice that is leading you.
I’ve been considering a lot lately what it looks like to hear God’s voice and the way it leads us through life. Looking at the steps of life that lay before you, whether they be big steps, transitioning from one season of life to another (this is where I am at with my gap year drawing to a close – 6 weeks until I step into an entirely new season of life!), or smaller steps, transitioning perhaps from the end of a school year into summer, it can be simple to convince ourselves that we do not know what steps to take because we don’t hear God’s voice; that we do not know the Lord’s will for our lives. And in a sense – to an extent – that is true. We were created that we may not comprehend what the Lord has done from beginning to end (Eccl. 3:11), but the Lord’s will isn’t entirely encompassed by ‘all that is to come.’ We may not know our futures step by step, or how the Lord is going to use our lives for the sake of his Kingdom, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t discern God’s will for our lives, and the steps we’re meant to take as it unfolds before us.
God’s will for us is that we put on the heart of Christ in action and identity. That we might walk in the fullness of the authority given to us because of the sacrifice Christ made on the cross. God wants us to pursue His love and His character, that we may have a deeper and wider understand of who He is. He desires for us to delight in Him in the way he delights in us. His will is for us to seek His presence and move in His Kingdom; to find intimacy with Him.
One of my favorite verses, which I think so perfectly encompasses the walk of life we’re lead to, is in 1 Thessalonians:
“We remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labor prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ” (1:3).
This is the walk we are called to, the heart of Christ we are meant to reflect. The church of Thessalonica was, evidently, incredibly aware of the heart of Christ, and understood that we are meant to reflect that in action and identity. They walked that our through faith in their understanding of who the Lord says they are, and their understanding that this identity, this calling, is a promise coming forth from the Lord’s purpose for His Kingdom and for our lives; and because it is His purpose in and for this world, it cannot be changed or deterred.
If we walk in faith, love and hope, we will find intimacy with God. And it is there, in that intimacy, that He will whisper to your heart and guide you down the paths He has prepared for you.
We were created to recognize the voice of the shepherd; we were created to recognize the voice of God. We’ve been gifted with discernment, a blessing that came upon our minds as we were anointed by the Holy Spirit upon receiving Christ. And because we have such a gifting, we cannot misstep. If we truly have Jesus in our lives, and if we follow him with our whole hearts, we are incapable of misstepping because his voice calls to us. (Even if you aren’t able to hear his voice audibly, there is a part of you deep in your soul that hears and understands where he’s leading you).
My prayer for each of you, and for myself, is that we may walk in the fullness of our identity in Christ, standing firm in the knowledge that we walk in full authority (that is our inheritance in the Kingdom of God) and that the enemy has no true dominion over our lives because we exist no longer in the flesh, but in Christ. That any lie from the enemy would not even touch our ears, rather it would just fall away, but if any lie were to touch our ears, we would turn and run because it is the voice of a stranger.
His voice is leading you now and always.
