God Bares All

# 57 – Today's Du-votional comes from 1Sa 3:19 So Samuel grew, and the LORD was with him and let none of his words fall to the ground. 20 And all Israel from Dan to Beersheba knew that Samuel had been established as a prophet of the LORD. 21 Then the LORD appeared again in Shiloh. For the LORD revealed Himself to Samuel in Shiloh by the word of the LORD. ( 1 Sam 3:19-21) This whole chapter has dealt with the call of God on Samuel to be a prophet. The test of a prophet is first of all that the Lord is with him. The proof of the Lord's presence in a prophet's life is found in the words of the prophet. Do the words spoken by the prophet come to pass? Then He is a spokesperson for God. Jer 28:9b says, "when the word of the prophet comes to pass, the prophet will be known as one whom the LORD has truly sent." We can infer from this latter part of 1 Sam 3, that all the declarations and pronouncements that came from Samuel, came to pass. This resulted in establishing him firmly in the hearts and minds of the Israelites “from Dan to Beersheeba” as a true prophet of God. Samuel remained at Shiloh and the Lord continued to reveal Himself to Samuel by His Word. Interesting word, “revealed.” In the Hebrew it means “denude” God bared Himself before Samuel. How did He do this? Through His Word. Sometimes we get caught up in the trap of thinking that God has to give us something spectacular in order to have a fuller revelation of who He is. While God is certainly capable of doing that, beware, lest we allow the spectacular to overrule His Word. In 2 Peter 1:17-21, Peter relates the spectacular glorification of Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration. As spectacular as that was, he goes on to say in v19 that , “We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed,” He was talking about the Holy Scriptures. It is in His Word that God bares all we need to know about Him, words that we all would do well to heed.