Take time to listen to God, every day.

A phrase that occurs frequently in the very first chapter of the Bible is this: "Then God said".

God said something on every one of those first six days, when He remade the chaotic earth. And each time God spoke, the earth became a better place.

So, right there on the very first page of the Bible we learn one very important truth - that we must hear what God has to say every day. And if we submit to what God tells us every day, we will be transformed into better and more useful Christians.

There's a lot of difference between hearing what God has to say to us and just reading the Bible. Remember, it was people who studied their Bibles daily who crucified the Lord. They studied their Bibles but they never heard God speaking to their hearts (See Acts 13:27 ). That's the danger we face too. And then, we can be as blind as they were.

Genesis 1 also teaches us that God wants to speak to us every day.

But most Christians don't listen to God every day. They only read the writings of men!

In Genesis 1, we read that whenever God spoke, supernatural things happened. That's how it can be in our ministry too, if we preach what God has first spoken to our own hearts.

Paul told Timothy to take heed to his own life first before his teaching, if he wanted to save himself and others (1 Timothy 4:16). The only way to escape self-deception is by hearing what God has to say to us.

Jesus once rebuked Martha for being busy with so much work instead of being like Mary who sat and listened to Him speak. Our Lord went on to say that what Mary did was the ONLY necessary thing in life (Luke 10:42). We must all have the attitude that Samuel had, who said, "Speak Lord, your servant is listening".

What did we see in the very first page of the Bible? Whenever God spoke, something was immediately accomplished: Light was produced, the earth came up out of the waters, trees, fish and animals were created, etc.

Isaiah 55:10, 11 tells us that the Word which goes forth from God's mouth will never return empty without accomplishing what God desires and without succeeding in the matter for which it was spoken.

Notice two words in these verses that are highly valued by all people in the world - "accomplishment" and "success".

We all want to accomplish something in our lives and we all want to succeed. But life is short and we don't have the time to experiment with various methods for success and accomplishment - certainly not in spiritual matters. We shouldn't try out some method of doing the Lord's work and discover 20 years later that that was not God's way of doing things, and that we were on the wrong track! We can be saved from all such wastage of time, if we listen to the word that God speaks . That will always bring success and accomplishment.