Voice Recognition

Before my daughter had a real vocabulary, I was able to recognize her voice.

I could identify her laugh or cry in a noisy room full of babies and toddlers.

I knew her sound—not just her words.

Jesus said, “The gatekeeper opens the gate… and the sheep recognize his voice and come to him. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.” (John 10.3 NLT).

Jesus calls us by name. I love that! He knows us personally—we’re not just a number to him (sheep #1,245,973).

Yes, Jesus knows us… and we know him.

We recognize His voice.

We follow Him.

Voice recognition is important.

We like formulas. We try to predict what God will say and how he will say it—what he will do and how he will do it.

If we’re not listening for His voice, we could miss out on what He’s saying because it didn’t fit our formula.

Remember the story of Elijah on the mountain?

“A mighty windstorm hit the mountain. It was such a terrible blast that the rocks were torn loose, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind, there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake, there was a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire, there was the sound of a gentle whisper.” (1 Kings 19.11, 12 NLT)

In this instance with Elijah, God wasn’t in the wind or the earthquake or the fire… He spoke in a whisper.

In other instances, He was in the wind, earthquake, and fire (day of Pentecost, Isaiah’s vision, Moses’ call).

God is bigger than our formulas of how he works.

Formulas are what religion is all about.

Unfortunately, our formulas sometimes void or cancel out what God is actually saying and doing.

“You cancel the word of God in order to hand down your own tradition.” (Mark 7.13 NLT)

We need to be more confident in Him—knowing Him and knowing His voice—than we are in our formulas.

“His sheep recognize his voice…”