“My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me” (John 10:27).
God made man for fellowship with Him; both God and man enjoyed that relationship until man was deceived by Satan and yielded himself up to the sinful pleasures of this fleshly life. But God has always desired to communicate with us; He “spoke in former times in the prophets” and in these latter days He speaks to us in His Son through His Spirit. So God still desires to communicate with us and this desire is the throbbing heart of our faith.
God’s communication with man is personal; that is, it doesn’t come to us through the body of believers but in conscious personal awareness to the individual and thence, to the body through the individuals who compose it. It is conscious; that is, it doesn’t work unknown in the individual or stay below the threshold of awareness; when we are quickened into life by the Holy Spirit, part of that regeneration is a capacity to know God; our quickened spirits rise up in recognition of the One who, until now, has been a stranger to us.
This, however, is a beginning only and we must never stop growing in our knowledge of, and communication with, God. The tragedy of modern Christianity is that it no longer seeks to grow in the knowledge of God and no longer desires to hear His voice; indeed, there are many Christians who would say that God doesn’t speak to man any longer, He has said all that He has to say in His Word. Such a view makes a liar of Jesus and denies the promises of God. It is a view without hope.
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