Living on God’s Rumors

Have you ever taken a word that God spoke to someone in scripture and claimed that for your own? I was pondering that (contemplating really) and I felt as if that was wrong. I felt that if a man stood up and told people publically that He loved Shirley, his wife, it would be wrong for other women to say, “he loves me too”. I know it is more than popular to do that with scripture, but is it right?
As I consider this I felt assured by God that He is more than able to talk to each one of us. And YES He does use scripture to do that. But have you notice how we do it with the positive words, what we call the “good stuff”.

When we do this we live on the rumors of God. We are trying to live by what God has said to another. You don’t need to do that. God has plenty to say to you. You don’t need to live in the leftovers of another person’s relationship with God.
I have heard many people proclaim “We are the head and not the tail”. Yet seldom (actually I am the only one I know of, and I did it more in a spirit of grumbling than in a spirit of revelation) do people proclaim “I am the tail”. Do you recall Paul proclaiming his apostleship (1 Cor. 4:9)? Maybe modern man is better off than this old worn out Apostle.
Now don’t throw out your Bibles just because you can’t get a word from them whenever YOU wish. There is more than enough narrative relenting the unchangeable nature of God. Even among all the personal words not intended for you – are lines and lines of the character and nature of God just waiting for you to grasp and delight in.
God does often use the very words He spoke to one to speak to us too. When we hear Him, even though He is addressing another, His word to us becomes alive and fresh. It has His conviction and not just our presumption. In these cases we do not choose the word but the word has chosen us. We are not laying claim on the word as much as the word is laying claim on us.
Let’s all make the choice not to live my rumors or the words that God has spoken to others. Let’s step out each day with the active hope of a living relationship with the living word. It is His nature to communicate to me, to us.
Even if the Lord of heaven has recorded His love for another in Scripture, you need not envy or steal that proclamation. And don’t panic if you are not the “head”, I have it from a good source that the first are going to finish a little lower than the last one day.