Voices are everywhere, and they’re screaming at us: use me, buy me, believe me.  We’ve got voices all over our culture: chat rooms, commercials, billboards, and bumper stickers, and they all want our immediate attention.

And then there is that voice from the past or that voice in your head that says you messed up too many times.  You can’t do it.  You can’t do it on your own.  You’re not smart enough.  You’re not strong enough.  You’re not stable enough.  You’re not thin enough.  And then there’s the enemy.  The father of lies that likes to get in there and say no way you’ll ever make anything of yourself.

I had this amazing conversation with my dad not too long ago.  He’s a great man.  I love him so much.  And he told me about the first time that his father said something encouraging to him.  My dad had just put a room onto his house.  And my grandfather was a master carpenter and he was inspecting my dad’s work.  And he got done and went to my dad, and said, “That’s a good job Harry.”  And that was the first time my grandfather said something encouraging to my dad, and he was 38 years old.

Man, and without hearing that voice.  Without hearing that, whether it’s the actually the physical audible voice of your father or mother, or the voice from God, you don’t have any identity.  You have no way to function.  I think Jesus knew that.  I think that’s why, when He went through His ministry, touching people and healing people, and speaking to people.  He never asked them to be anything that they weren’t.  He tried to get them to understand who they were.  That’s why he said, “You’re my daughter, you’re my son, you’re my brother, you’re my sheep.”  He wanted us to identify with Him and understand that we’re His creation; that we're worth something.

Yeah, and that’s something amazing about Jesus.  He could look down into somebody’s spirit and draw out who they really were.  I mean, he looked at Simon and said, “You know what?  You’re not Simon, You’re Peter.  You’re a Rock.”

And how ‘bout that woman that came up to Him when He was going through that crowd, and she touched His garment, and he turned around and he said, “Daughter.”  His first word: Daughter.

You know, Jesus got that honestly from His father.  Three times when Jesus was under immense pressure in his ministry, God the father actually spoke.  I mean, spoke audibly, It wasn’t inward.  Jesus heard it, and the people around Jesus heard it.  Like at His baptism, God the father said, “you are my son, I love you and I’m pleased with you.”  And then at the transfiguration, the father spoke again and the disciples heard it.  The father said, “You are my son.  I have chosen you, and God just established Christ’s purpose on that mountain.”  And then, before Christ died at Gethsemane in John 12, Jesus prayed: should I pray to be delivered from this hour?  No.  This is why I’ve come.  Glorify your name father.  And the father spoke and said, “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.”  And I think that promise just drove Christ to the cross.

I think it did too.  You may have never heard that voice.  That voice that says you’re worth it.  You’re smart enough.  I believe in you.  I love you.  There may be a gaping hole in your spirit where that voice was supposed to speak into, and it’s just a vacuum.  Listen, Jesus doesn’t require anything of you.  You can’t work to get His approval.  Remember, when he was affirmed by His father, when God looked down and said, “This is my son who I love.”  Jesus hadn’t done a single miracle.  All he asks of you is that you listen.