In the Beginning... God created everything we know and everything we don't know yet... all by His speaking it all into existence. You gotta admit, that is pretty cool stuff!
Jesus, divinely God, and also man in the flesh said, “... For I say only what I have heard from the one who sent me, and he is completely truthful.” He had the CLOSEST relationship possible with God as man. Over and over Jesus spoke of how he only obeys what the Father has spoken, moving in healing and ministry as God directed. Jesus never went somewhere God did not precede him in word.
I so desire to move in absolute intimacy and congruency with God's voice... that would be cool stuff!
In our lives, God speaks into our lives, into our situations, into our circumstances, and He speaks to us. Are we listening, have we ears to hear? Are we so caught up into our “stuff” and into hearing from other sounds that we have cut God off? Hmm, something to ponder and chew on.
There are many hindrances to our hearing from God, and hence receiving life from His voice.
Man, you gotta admit that the world is very loud and very distracting. The TV, radio, print media, all those things challenging God's perspective and God's will for the earth. What we got right now is now what God spoke; it is what we have spoken.
Yeah, so often my own flesh speaks so loudly and I am so familiar with it that I easily respond to the desires of my flesh. I am selfish; I am mean-spirited; I pass along the other side of the street from the needy. I am judgmental, and I am unforgiving... my flesh is self-destructive and carnal only wanting pleasure and self-fulfillment. There must be one serious reason that the Lord speaks of the dangers of the flesh so much...I am fighting against my flesh so much.
The enemy of God is dead-set against us. They don't want to bless us, or even want us to follow them. They want to use us up like fodder and food. They hate what God loves and God loves us. We are hated. Even the biggest sinner is not loved by the enemy; they are just being used up.
My conscious disobedience; making choices contrary to the Word of God, and to His voice is also another way I've shut down the life in God's voice. Silly really, to know what is right and make a decision to go against what is right, perhaps it's the discomfort of having to apologize; of having to make a tough choice; a big sacrifice; or because there are sins that I love committing...of course I can't hear God when I have put in earplugs by being willfully disobedient.
All God has ever wanted from us is an intimate relationship with Him. He created us to show love, and to enjoy evening walks together, talking as intimates; Creator and His created. He so wants to walk with each of us in the garden again... like in the very beginning.
In this intimate relationship He wants to be conversational, wanting to not only hear what we have to say, He wants to share the many wonderful things He has to say to us and about us... He loves us.
God continues to speak to us; sometimes it is directly through His Word—the Bible. It one long and fascinating love story, and it is us He loves.
His Word also says to pray without ceasing. Prayer is the means to intimate conversations and develops and intimate relationship with God. That is cool stuff// Prayer is direct conversation with the Creator and if we train ourselves up and even open up to the reality that God speaks we may even sense or hear His still small voice.
I don't hear an audible voice, it is a clear sense of something and I am getting better and better at discerning when it is God, when it is my own flesh, the world, or the enemy. His still, small voice is not something that happens everyday, but nearly so.
God will also speak through the prophetic words and counsel of others... each part of the body has a function and we need to be open to it...
Choose to live a life striving to hear God better and better. Strive to be open and obedient to what He says and look for more opportunities to practice “hearing”. Get with others to pray and ask God for clarity and you will seek Him and find Him when you seek Him with all your heart... fun stuff.
2 comments:
That was cool I too am learning to fine tune my hearing to the Holy Spirit frequency. I agree with everything you wrote except for the striving part. I guess I will go back several blogs to the topic of surrender.
Maybe I'm splitting hairs and getting too semantical. That not my intent. I am just learning so much in the area of not using my own will or strength even to seek God but to totally surrender. My own efforts to be obedient mostly ends in disappointment and failure. But when I really yield to the Holy Spirit's prompting or die to my desire to perform the results are far more productive. My mentality is shifting from striving to yielding a concept that my spirit wrestles with daily. But as I realize that the frequency is a lot clearer when my posture changes from looking forward to looking up.
I actually think we are still on track. We can strive and surrender at the same time, they are not necessarily independent or opposite elements.
I strive to hear clearly and I surrender to what I hear.
I strive to learn from Our Father, and I am open to what He says...
If it is simply the word, "strive" how about I "seek".... see if I lost my keys I would seek them, striving to find them... I think surrendering can be an active passive motion, I like the phrase active rest... still doing things but focused on resting (surrendering) to His will.
It may be that striving and surrender are both things we need to chew on... aware of, and look at our motive, focus, and approach to doing either or both....
Thanks, cuz' you got me really thinking, not about our word choice as much as what these mean to God.... Mahalo...
Here's some Scriptures I'm thinking on now.
"So I strive always to keep my conscience clear before God and man."
Check out 1 Tim. 4:7-10... see if my sense of striving makes more sense.
If we look at striving as seeking with intensity or focus....
"You will seek Me and find Me when you seek me with all your heart."
"Seek first the Kingdom of God..."
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