Just Like Jesus Summer Sermon Series Week 3

Chapters 4: A Listening Heart

How do we hear God? Max Lucado suggests we look to Jesus as the model who takes time out to listen/pray and to be in God’s Word. We have been given two ears and one mouth! We must be a people of God who listen twice as much as we talk. Jesus says in many places in Scripture “Let those who have ears hear what I’m saying!” Essentially, Jesus is saying “Listen to what I am saying!” 

We are invited to use the same time every day and the same place to pray and to listen to God. Prayer is not complicated; we are invited to pray all the time in the Bible: “Pray without ceasing” (I Th. 5:17). 

God has already “givan” us a listening heart, toss out the extras and the other things crowding our minds, and stop, and listen. God does it for you and me whenever we pray! 

Chapter 5-6: A God-Intoxicated and Worship Hungry Heart

Max Lucado says, “It’s a wonderful day indeed when we stop working for God and begin working with God.” We are invited to consider God’s presence with us all day, and “our goal is simply to stand before God with a prepared and willing heart and then let God do God’s work” (pg. 83). Max will point out to us in this book about having a constant, day long/night long presence of God with us. We are invited to have a heart just like Jesus. In fact, we are told that we already have a God-Intoxicated and Worship Hungry heart. We love the Lord, and we come together to serve God, and then go home to our daily lives living in the constant presence of God.

In the Old Testament a famous message comes from Lamentations: “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end, they are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness!” As we live into these new mercies Max Lucado urges us to give God all our moments of the day: our “waking” moments as we begin our day, our “waiting” moments as the day unfolds, and our “waning” moments as the day ends. “At the end of the day, let your minds settle on God” (pg. 72).