Faith comes from hearing God speak to you. – Rom 10:17
This scripture tells us the path to real walking with God in a life that includes encountering all that the world might throw at us with the supernatural abilities that God has given to His Body, at our fingertips.
There are so many times in our lives when we really need God to come in a tangible and practical way and help us with situations we encounter in life. Through a life based through communication and a consequent growing connection with Him we build, like a brick house is built, piece by piece, a life of having heard Him speak to us about things impossible for us to do, which we then believe He will do. We then act on what He has said to us and with miracles it becomes a natural, often physical, part of our lives. But the faith to act on something impossible for us to accomplish requires the faith that only comes from hearing God say to us to do it! If we think we hear God but are mistaken we won’t have that God given faith and the miracles of God’s working won’t happen. Walking with God and the faith generated by His actual presence and speaking to us in real connection, are inseparable.
This is the simple basis of our Christian living. It starts with our being born again. We are drawn by God to Jesus Christ and we ‘hear’ Him saying to us, “surrender your life to Jesus Lordship”. We believe that it is God asking us to do this! (faith has been given to us in His telling us to surrender) We obey and God causes us to supernaturally be born again as Jesus says we must. Then, and only then, we become aware that Jesus is now living in our hearts and all of our life has changed. We’ve met Him. He is ‘there’ in each day for us now whereas in the past we were alone. Our lives have changed in a wonderful way. A spiritual life has become a normal now that we couldn’t have ever discovered by ourselves.
That’s what faith does. It is always born in something that God speaks to us; shows us is real through visions; given direct personal revelation to us through some Bible verses or whispers in our ears in an almost imperceptible way. Faith to know anything from God comes by hearing God connect with us in conversation in some way. It is that and only that. Anything that doesn’t come out of that faith is not of God and the only way we get faith is by hearing God, the creator of the universe, actually speak to us as an individual.
I think that for many even to believe that God might speak to them is a daunting thing. Insecurity, a downtrodden heart that spawns beliefs of insignificance, or over indulgence by our parents that have built ideas and attitudes of pride and entitlement, accomplishments that have built ideas of self importance etc, etc. can either make believing that one is undeserving of God’s conversation or attention at all and therefore we sink into unbelief: or that we do deserve His special friendship as a matter of right and make assumptions that He hears our prayers and we mistake fanciful thoughts, dreams or visions we concoct in our imaginations as His speech to us.
One leads to despair and the other to presumption. One leads to, ‘God couldn’t possibly be interested in me’ and the other to, ‘God should and will speak to me because I am worthy of His attention’.
One leads to despair, depression and hopeless praying that will never find faith – and often believes that no one else really hears God either, or idolises those they think do.
The other leads to presumption; believing that God speaks to them in an almost chatty, overindulgent, ‘spoiled child teacher’s pet’ kind of way. In this latter case we are very prone to interpreting our own imaginations and feelings as God speaking to us. Neither imparts faith because neither is real connecting with God.
Listen here! We need people in this world who really know God speaking to them. We need the sometimes thunderous voice of the creator of the universe breaking into this world. We need to know God moving amongst us, destroying the structures of this world and raising up the reality of the Kingdom of God here on earth. This is the purpose of God in the world today and no other. ‘Thy Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven’, He told us to pray for, work for, establish and die for.
That voice of God will always do wondrous things. It is not petty. It is not casually received. It is not available to those with a petty or hopelessness based prayer life. It will not fail but it will accomplish impossible things bearing fruit in all directions that no one could predict. It will accomplish something laying supernatural bricks that cannot be removed on the Kingdom of God foundation.
Those of us who have come into life from an overwhelming situation of abuse, emotional starvation of love, violence or isolation really need the rest of the Body of Christ who are able to surround them in love and healing and bring them into a personal experience of God’s fathering Love for them. It is only the special Love of God as father poured into them that will really heal the wounds of their life, the despair and hopelessness, the deep belief that they are unloveable and feelings of being worthless. One touch of the Father’s love, because it is supernaturally transmitted straight from God’s heart to them individually, is the most powerful reality and breaks through all of the messages that lost hurting people have been given to date. It is the reality that Jesus came, preached, healed people, died and rose again to bring us.
Jn 17:26 I have declared to them your name that the love with which you have loved me may be in them … Jesus reported to His Father of what He had done on earth during His time here as it ended.
Take note that it is often those who have come from what might be judged as insignificance who become the ones who hear the voice of God most profoundly. They know they have to hear the real thing because they need to hear that which ends up changing them and their usually critically difficult circumstances. So if you have come from an insignificant Nazareth, look up!
Then there is the other side. Those who have an over positive attitude towards God and the fact He loves them. Make no mistake, God loves us all totally and equally. He loves with all of His heart all of the time. Even His disapproval is tinged with, ruled by in fact, His Love. I write love with a capital because I don’t want anyone to think that God’s Love is like human love. Yes He Loves us. But that Love can be taken too lightly, We can presume on it. We can be flippant about it, we can treat it casually and offhandedly, we can take it as a right. We can make ourselves, by positive thinking, believe that we are more deeply intimate with God than is real from His perspective. We have overstepped into fantasy like Miriam.
I see many who have heard that God Loves them, learn that God is their father and begin to revel in the joy of that without having really come to begin experiencing that intimately and privately inside their inner lives without some big event lifting them out of themselves for a moment. But the place of really hearing God speak, gaining the faith that can truly prophesy and impart the Life of the Holy Spirit into this world doesn’t come easy or quickly or by learning some technique. We can only hear the voice of God to our hearts when our hearts are bare; when we are at the ground of our being; when we are exposed for what we truly are in our humanity; when we stand destitute before Him in all vulnerability as a person.
This is where we always stand and God is able to speak to us. The Bible calls it a contrite heart. This is the one whom God commends. This is who He communes with. This is what He is looking for and whom He cannot despise, the Bible tells us.
Oh, so many are missing this today. The voice of prophecy has been cheapened by those who have presumed on a relationship that they haven’t taken the time and humility (acceptance of humiliation) that is required before God, to really have a connection with Him that can really ‘hear’ words from God that He wants to speak through us into this world. The deeper the intimacy of a contrite person the greater the importance of revelations from God he will hear and the greater impact his spirit will have as he speaks what he has heard from God.
Kneel before God. Not on one knee in the midst of a crowded sports stadium or large congregation in that shallow sign of obeisance and challenge. But in private, with a contrite heart that has rejected all privilege, rights, giftedness, past blessings etc. Stand before God as you did when you were first born with no regard to what family you were born to, because that’s who you are. Meet Him there and He will meet you and show you great and mighty things that you knowest not. He will be your God and you will be His child with whom He will share His secrets and fruitfulness will be your joy.
