Voice of Truth

I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit^[a] of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints,
and his incomparably great power for us who believe.

Ephesians 1:16-19

Would you as a Christian claim to be ready-minded? Most Christians would immediately say yes because most Christians believe that by being ready and open to hear what God has planned for their lives and ready to respond in complete obedience makes them ready-minded. This is not the case because most are only ready and willing to follow Christ if the message that they hear is one that they want to hear or one that will serve their purpose. Most of the time, we try and kill the messenger that God has sent our way to bring us His message because we do not want to hear it or we do not believe it is for us or because it steps on our toes.

What does ready-mindedness really look like? It means that instead of only listening for those things that we want to hear, that we listen out for those things that we need to hear. It means that we are willing to say that we are wrong and that something in our life needs to change. When we have minds that are ready-minded, we are able to distinguish the source of the voice speaking to us. It is so easy to pay attention to those words that are encouraging or that make us feel good but none of us enjoys hearing things that makes us aware of our inadequacies.

Satan is constantly combating within our minds to convince us that a message that we may hear is not relevant to us or that in fact it may not even be correct. He will put thoughts in our mind that lead us to believe that what we are hearing is something that we already know or that may be meant for someone else and by doing so, he prevents us from hearing the Truth of what we need in order to gain our freedom in Christ.

More than once, I have heard our pastor preach a sermon on gossip or complacency in our walk and afterwards have heard people walking away saying, "it sure is a shame so and so was not here this morning to hear that sermon." WOW. This is Satan at work and not even five minutes after a service is over. This is how quickly and how easily he works when our minds are not ready to receive God's message of grace and when our minds are not focused on Truth. It is not that we do not need that message; it is that it may never have occurred to us that we ourselves may have needed that very message because we were not ready-minded.

Having a ready mind is not always easy. The more intensely that the Holy Spirit wants to address issues in our life, the more that Satan will try and convince us that we already know or do not need to hear. We must have minds, hearts and ears that are ready, willing and open to accept the messages that come into our life and we must be willing to discern the voice of truth from the lies of Satan.

"Father, may I always hear your message clearly and may I not fall into the lies that Satan uses to convince me otherwise. May I always seek after truth and embrace the message of those that you send before me to share your truth. May I always be willing to say, "yes Lord", no matter what you have to say to me. I want and desire to have a mind that pleases You in everything."