Acts 18:9-10 “One night, the Lord appeared to Paul in a vision and said, “Do not be afraid. Continue with your preaching, and do not be silent, for I am with you. No one will attack you or try to harm you, for there are many in this city who are my people.” Today's episode starts off by talking a bit about how we can learn to hear God's voice more and some reasons why we might not be able to hear it right now. Next, it talks about how God is our protector and how much He loves us. I have also included two Words of Prophecy that were given to my prayer group that go along with God being our protector. Since they are His words I thought I would include them for your discernment. Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Be Bold & Listen To God!
Acts 18:9-10 “One night, the Lord appeared to Paul in a vision and said, “Do not be afraid. Continue with your preaching, and do not be silent, for I am with you. No one will attack you or try to harm you, for there are many in this city who are my people.”
I always get a bit jealous when I hear verses that say the Lord appeared to so and so in a dream or an angel visited them. Then I remembered that although I am not getting visited by angels, that I am aware of, although if you listened to the episode on angels last week, you know we aren’t always aware when we are visited by an angel. Although I am not aware of any visits from angels or the Lord in my sleep, the Lord does show up and talk to us each and every Thursday during prayer group. He also talks to me during my prayer time, so I really have no reason to be jealous. I don’t know if you ever felt like I did. Have you ever been jealous that some people seem to hear the world of the Lord and you can’t? If this is the case, I want to assure you that He wants to talk to you. God is always talking to His people; we just struggle to listen sometimes.
If you are struggling to hear the Lord. If you wish you could ask Him a question and really hear an answer I want you to know you can. It is possible. If you cannot hear Him, it is not because He is mad at you or because He is punishing you. There could be a number of reasons why you can’t hear Him. Maybe you are harboring unforgiveness to others, which can block all kinds of graces. Maybe you don’t believe you can hear Him, so you are afraid to sit in the silence and give Him time to talk. Maybe you don’t have any quiet time in your day? Think about how hard it is to hear someone that you are intentionally trying to hear when you are in a crowded restaurant or on a subway train. Look through your day. If someone was following you around trying to talk to you all day, would there be any times when you would hear them?
The world we live in is busy and noisy. It is not often that we sit and listen to the Word of God. This can change. If you want to start hearing from God, all you have to do is listen. He is already talking to you. I know that this may sound weird to some of you, and yet I think it is important to tell you. I often talk with the Lord. I write Him a letter, and then I write one back to myself and let the Holy Spirit lead what I write in the one back to myself. I feel the Lord is constantly telling me, “Thank you for listening; not many do.” God is not mad; He is not punishing you, He is patiently waiting for you to come to Him and ask Him what He thinks. He is waiting to tell you how much He loves you until you take a minute to listen. Can you give God 5 minutes of your time today to just listen? If you are quiet, if you are asking the Lord to talk, and you can’t hear anything, then you can command the spirit of deaf ears to leave immediately. You can command your spiritual ears to open. You can ask God again and expect that He will answer as He always does!
I am not sure that had a lot or anything to do with the verse, and yet when I feel led by the Holy Spirit, I just agree and go along for the ride. Back to the verse. It says, “One night, the Lord appeared to Paul in a vision and said, “Do not be afraid. Continue with your preaching, and do not be silent, for I am with you. No one will attack you or try to harm you, for there are many in this city who are my people.” I think this verse is a testament to God’s love for Paul. He knew He was afraid and He came to talk to him and to reassure him. It sounds like Paul wanted to leave the place where he was. Paul was in Corinth and that was not a nice town. Its nickname is “Sin City.” I have heard Father Mike liken it to parts of Las Vegas. Paul was preaching at the synagogue to the Jews & the Greeks, but they didn’t really want to hear what he had to say.
When they started to oppose him and hurl insults at him, he decided to leave the synagogue and search out the gentiles. In case anyone listening is like me, and you are not sure who the gentiles were or what that word means, let me explain. You were considered a gentile if you were not Jewish. It was not a certain race of people or a certain tribe of people; it was all people who were not Jewish. God came to Paul in his dreams and told him not to be afraid, that He was with him, and that he would not be attacked or harmed. God is saying this to us, too! He is with each one of us, and He is protecting us from all evil. I was typing up the minutes for my prayer group, and we had several prophecies that seemed to confirm this. There were two that I thought were especially good to go with this verse.
The first one says, “I watch over you, my children. All of you are my children. I break the sword of the enemy who would come against you. You have nothing to fear, for I am there for each and every one of you in each and every trial. I will never forsake my children or leave my children. I will defend you in battle. I have sent you the power of the Spirit, and He will give you all that you need to do what you have been called to do.” Isn’t that amazing? God is telling us that He is here for us. He will defend us in battle and any other situation. You may be thinking you are not in a battle; you are not in the military. Each one of us is in a battle whether we know it or not. Each one of us is in a spiritual battle, and sometimes, the enemy can take it out on our family members. We need to stand firm and hold onto this word from God and all the other words He has given us. God will not let the enemy win. He will protect us. All we need to do is turn to Him.
The second word I thought went along with this verse says, “My children take my hand. Realize that I am with you. Go into the world without fear. I am holding onto your hand. There is no need to fear I am your God. I will protect you. I will defend you. Smile that you are mine. Smile my children. I am with you till the end of time. Come closer, my children, come closer so that I can reveal my mysteries to you so you, in turn, can share them with the world. I am your Lord, I am your God, and I am all-powerful. I hold onto your hand. Move forward, move forward with joy, for you are mine.”
I love how gentle God can be. He is talking about protecting us, and He is doing it in this last verse as any Father would. Think back to when you were little. When you were walking with your dad, you were probably holding his hand. If you weren’t holding it all the time, you at least know it is there if you need it. God is giving us this visual of walking with Him through life and asking us to take His hand and walk side by side with Him; what an amazing visual that is for me. Yes, please, Lord, I would love to walk alongside you! I would love to hold your hand so you can protect me and defend me against this crazy world. I also like how he ended the word with, “Move forward with joy, for you are mine.” We are His children, isn’t that amazing!! God is so good!
Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to protect and bless all those listening to this episode today. Lord, we are so grateful you are protecting us! We are so grateful you are a loving Father who wants to hold our hand and walk through this life with us. Lord, we ask that you help us to be able to hear you when you are talking to us. We ask that you open our spiritual ears and allow us to converse with you. I ask that everyone listening to this episode hear your word just as they do in the prayer group meeting. Lord, we thank you for the words above, and we ask that you help them take route in our hearts. If anyone listening to this episode had a difficult relationship with their father, I ask that you let these two messages go deep down in their hearts and take route. You are a good and loving Father to all your children! We love you Lord and we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen!
Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus! I look forward to meeting you here again tomorrow. Remember Jesus loves you, and so do I! Have a blessed day!
Today’s Word from the Lord was received in September 2024 by a member of my Catholic Charismatic Prayer Group. If you have any questions about the prayer group, these words, or how to join us for a meeting, please email CatholicCharismaticPrayerGroup@gmail.com. Today’s Word from the Lord is, “My little ones, nothing, absolutely nothing, can separate you from me. When I tell you that I hold you in the palm of my hand, I tell you the truth. No matter what happens, no matter what you're facing, no matter what you're worried about, what you fret about, no matter how anxious you get, I hold you in the palm of my hand. My hand is cupped around your life in a gentle, strong, loving way.”