Revelation:

One of the reasons many Christians don’t believe that God speaks to them is that they don’t recognize his voice when they hear it and don’t understand the ways in which the Holy Spirit reveals God’s heart to us.  Paul helps our understanding with the following passages.

The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God.  For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man’s spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.  We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us.  This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words.  The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them because they are spiritually discerned. (1 Cor. 2:10-14)

 The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children.  (Rom.  8:16)

 In 1 Corinthians 2, Paul reveals the process through which revelation comes to every follower of Jesus. Paul tells us that the Holy Spirit searches the mind of God and Christ, takes their thoughts or feelings relevant to us, and reveals those thoughts and feelings to our spirit.  Our spirit, then, opens up those thoughts to our conscious mind so that we can perceive the mind and the heart of God (Father, Son and Holy Spirit).  Because of that, we often hear the voice of God as a thought, an impression, a mental picture, a dream, or a vision that rises from our spirit into our consciousness.

Because this “download” from God’s Spirit to ours is experienced in the same way that we experience our own thoughts, we often dismiss a word of revelation from God as something we have intuitively known or discovered ourselves. Nearly every Christian has thought of someone spontaneously whom they had not thought of in days or weeks.  But suddenly, out of the blue, they think of that person and sense that they should give him/her a call.  When they do call, they discover that their friend or acquaintance was in desperate need of prayer or encouragement.  Then, that Christian goes on his way thinking about what a lucky coincidence all of that was.  What that person experienced was a revelation from God.  It was a “word of knowledge” about that friend and a prompting to make the call. God just spoke to that believer through the Holy Spirit but it seemed like an intuitive thought.

Many believers have had premonitions or foreboding thoughts about an event, an accident, or a disaster that they cautiously avoided.  They simply call it a premonition as if something had been floating around in the atmosphere and they had randomly sniffed a whiff of the future. What they actually experienced was a prophetic warning by the Holy Spirit.

Nearly all believers who study the word have had a moment when one scripture pointed to another and then another verse came to mind and suddenly a string of theological dots were connected that seemed like brilliant insight. What that person experienced was the Holy Spirit leading her into all truth and reminding her of things Jesus had said (Jn.14:26).  God had just spoken truth to that individual through the Holy Spirit.

My point is that Christians who don’t believe in the miraculous gifts of the Spirit or God speaking to his people today, have nearly all operated in those gifts themselves and have heard from God on many occasions.   They just call it something else because they have not been trained to expect the voice of God to come to them in a variety of ways.

The scriptures also tell us that God communicates with his people through dreams and visions. If we do not expect God to speak to us in those ways we will simply “write off” those dreams as something produced by our own minds and imagination.

If you, as a believer, have not been open to the voice of God coming to you, God has undoubtedly spoken to you or revealed himself to you on numerous occasions, but you simply did not know it was the Lord.  As a young man, the prophet Samuel heard God’s voice clearly and strongly on several occasions but believed it was a human voice calling to Him.  He finally asked Eli, his spiritual mentor, about the voice and Eli discerned that God Himself had been speaking to the boy.  It was then that Samuel began to recognize the voice of God in his own life.

As we come to expect God’s voice, we will learn that it has qualities that set it apart from our own thoughts.  Often there is a spontaneous quality when God speaks to us.  We simply know that the thoughts we are experiencing are not thoughts that have come from our reservoir of experiences nor are they expressed in ways that are common to us.  God speaks directly to us, not about us.  Dreams from the Father tend to be vivid and unforgettable.  Eventually, those who hear his voice on a regular basis will intuitively know it is God speaking to them as the Father, the Son or the Spirit.In addition to the inner voice of the Spirit, we may also hear from God in other ways as well – angelic visits, the audible voice of God, prophetic words, circumstances, dreams, etc. God desires to speak to his children in a myriad of ways and does so. .

Part of the joy of the Christian life is hearing personally from our heavenly Father in a variety of ways.I want to encourage you to begin to sense all the ways in a day that God has revealed himself to you and to begin to scan your own thoughts when you are in the Word or have been in prayer to sense the Father speaking to you.  Invite him to speak. Then listen.  Write down whatever you are hearing even though it will most likely feel like your own thoughts or imagination.  Tomorrow, I will talk about discerning whether what you hear is from the Lord or another source.

This is the second part of a series about God speaking to his people.  In Part 1, we explored the heart of God that deeply desires to reveal himself to his people and all the ways in which he has done that through the centuries. In this part we will discover that God’s word frequently emphasizes his speaking and our hearing in addition to reading the written word.

There are actually two Greek words that are translated “word” or “the word” related to what God says.  Logos tends to emphasize the entirety of God’s written communication to his people which is the Bible.  Rhema tends to emphasize a fresh word from God, which is not a binding revelation for all believers, but something that speaks to a certain situation or an individual.  Both words are used in the N.T. and the natural reading of the New Testament would not suggest that God’s fresh word to individual believer’s or churches was confined to the first century. So, if you have been taught that God no longer speaks to his children apart from the written word, let me encourage you to take a fresh look at some familiar scriptures.

Although God speaks to us in many ways his primary agent for communicating with His people is the Holy Spirit. The written word of God is his most available communication to us but even when we are seeking to know God and his will through personal reflection on the scriptures, the Holy Spirit is the one giving us understanding and application of that word. We experience the Holy Spirit in those moments as insight or understanding, but without the Spirit “speaking” to our spirit, we could not even understand God’s word as he intends.  “The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him and he cannot understand them because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor. 2:14).

But through the Holy Spirit, God also speaks to our hearts and minds apart from our reflection on the Word.  Note the following scriptures and the words or phrases that have been bold-faced for emphasis.

The man who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep…He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out…his sheep follow him because they know His voice … they do not recognize a stranger’s voice … I am the good shepherd, I know my sheep and my sheep know me.  (Jn. 10:2-5, 14-15)

Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God.  (Rom. 10:17)

But when He, the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on His own; He will only speak what He hears, and He will tell you what is yet to come. He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you.  (Jn. 16: 13-14)

The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God.  For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man’s spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.  We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us.  This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words.  The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them because they are spiritually discerned. (1 Cor. 2:10-14)

The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children.  (Rom.  8:16)

This is what the Lord says, he who made the earth, the Lord who formed it and established it – the Lord is his name.  “Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.”  (Jer. 33: 3)

Notice that these scriptures use words that signify direct communication between God and his people.  It shouldn’t surprise us.  From Genesis to Revelation, the biblical record is that God spoke to individuals face to face, through his Spirit as the word of the Lord came to numerous men and women,  through dreams and visions, and through angelic visits.

God spoke in these ways in the Garden, from the Garden to the giving of the Law at Sinai, from the giving of the Law to the cross and, more than ever, after the cross and the sending of the Spirit by Jesus. Why would we assume he would suddenly stop speaking a fresh word to his people somewhere around the end of the first century when it is evidently the nature of God to speak to his children through his written word (whether the Torah or the New Testament) and through a freshly spoken word. Since, God is the same yesterday, today and forever should we not expect to hear his voice on a personal level since we are his children?

Why do some things seem to tumble into place as soon as we pray and others take months or decades or a lifetime?  Is it our intensity in prayer, our faith for God to move mountains, or our personal intimacy with God that makes the difference? At times, each of those elements may factor in.  But often, the same person with the same intensity, the same faith, and the same intimacy finds that some prayers seem to be answered quickly while others take time – sometimes a great deal of time.

Dutch Sheets, in his book Intercessory Prayer (a great read ), suggests one possibility for your consideration.  He speculates that prayer releases the power of the Holy Spirit into situations and that some simply take more power to accomplish than others. I know I could object immediately to that notion since God has all power and he dispenses that power as he chooses. But God only acts in concert with his people on a great number of spiritual playing fields. There are many things God wants to do but holds back until his people pray so that we are “partnering with him” in the work of the kingdom.

I don’t think there is just one answer to our questions about prayer but I think we should consider the possibility that strongholds exist in spiritual realms like walled cities standing against siege weapons.  Some walls are higher and thicker than others.  Some are made of timber like forts on the frontier. Others are made of dirt piled high and others of great stones. Think of prayers as spiritual catapults where we continue to hurl stones at the wall of the enemy where he has established a stronghold in a person’s life, in generations of a family, or in a community.

As we press in and pray, is it possible that we are firing shots at the wall and must continue to bombard the enemy’s stronghold until the wall cracks, then begins to crumble, and then finally collapses sending the enemy scattering into the night? We don’t always know how high or thick the wall is or how long it has been in place when we begin to pray.  We don’t know how skilled and experienced those are who man the walls for the enemy.

Another way to think of this is that prayer is like an energy weapon. We carry power generated by the Holy Spirit. He is responsible for the energy that powers our weapons. But we are responsible to track down the enemy, point, and shoot.  As we point our faith toward a situation and pull the trigger of prayer, the Holy Spirit releases energy into the situation that our heart and prayers are focused on.

So, when we pray, we are assaulting enemy strongholds and when we and the others praying with us have released the power of the Holy Spirit into that situation long enough with faith and fervor, the wall must eventually fall and when it does…we will see the kingdom established quickly in that place and the enemy in wild retreat.  Undoubtedly, many things related to prayer are still a mystery.  However,  we do know that the one in us is greater than the one that is behind the wall.  We do know that the power that overcame hell and raised Jesus from the dead is at work within us.

So, in those moments when you are weary and you wonder if you should continue to pray because you have seen no change – pray again.  Perhaps, the wall is already beginning to crack and crumble.  Perhaps, the next volley will see its collapse and hearts will be opened, bodies healed, and cities transformed.  Remember, Jesus told us that the gates of hell will not prevail against his church.  In Christ, we have the enemy surrounded. Victory is assured. Just keep firing away in the faith that we are more than conquerors in Christ – every time.  Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and never give up (Lk.18:1).

Few of us are ever aware of the provision and power that God offers us when we face impossible moments in our lives.  I admit that I am one who often misses it as well.

I love the story of Elisha when he was surrounded by the army of Aram in the small town of Dothan.  The king of Aram was at war with Israel. Each time he set an ambush for Israeli troops, Elisha would receive a word of knowledge from the Lord, warn the leaders of Israel, and the King of Aram’s plans would fail miserably.  His initial thought was that a spy was leaking his battle plans to Israel but one of his captains convinced him that the prophet Elisha was the one informing on the King.

The King ordered a nationwide manhunt for the prophet who was to be found and captured.  Word got back to the king that Elisha had been seen in Dothan in northern Samaria and so he commanded his army to surround the settlement.  We’re told in 2 Kings 6, “When the servant of the man of God got up and went out early the next morning, an army with horses and chariots surrounded the city. ‘O my lord, what shall we do?’ the servant asked.  ‘Don’t be afraid,’ the prophet answered. ‘Those who are with us are more than those who are with them.’ And Elisha prayed, ’O Lord, open his eyes so he may see.’ Then the Lord opened the servant’s eyes and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.”

The Lord had already responded to the need of Elisha and his servant with the power of heaven poised to do battle on behalf of the man of God. The servant was terrified because he had no faith to see what God had already made available in this impossible moment.  Apparently, God left the fate of those soldiers in the hands of his prophet who could have called on the angelic army to destroy his enemies.  Instead, he asked the Lord to strike the army blind for a season while he led them to Samaria where they were eventually released. After a demonstration of God’s power on behalf of his people, the text says, “So the bands from Aram stopped raiding Israel’s territory” (2 Kings 6:23).

Here is the lesson.  If God is for us, who can stand against us?  God is never taken by surprise.  When the King of Aram ordered the capture of Elisha, God had already provided for Elisha’s victory. The servant was overcome by fear.  Given the chance he would have stolen away in night and hidden in the hills. Elisha, having faith in both the power and the character of God, stood without fear and saw the provision of God that others could not.

We will all face our impossible moments when no strength or resource of our own will provide the victory we need. Failing marriages, children bent on self-destruction, financial crisis, cancer, or the overwhelming loss of a loved one. We all come to moment when we feel as if we are surrounded by an overpowering force that we cannot stand against. In the moment, pray Elijah’s prayer for yourself, “O Lord, open my eyes that I might see!  Lord, show me by faith and by your Spirit, the power and provision that you have made available to me for this impossible moment. For with you nothing is impossible.” In the kingdom of God, those who are with us are always more than those who are with them.

I have a 97 Honda Accord.  It’s paid for, gets good mileage, and most of the paint is still stuck to the body.  It runs good and the insurance is cheap. But, I think the front end may need to be aligned. It tends to drift to the right instead of staying in the center of the lane. One or both front wheels have turned a few degrees from the factory settings.

I also live in West Texas which is the galactic center of pickup-world.  Most of the pickups are new and shiny and pricy but a few are beat up, rusty, and old enough to smoke.  Occasionally you will see one of these “classics” running down the road with one front wheel pointing at a 45 degree angle from the other. That is seriously out of alignment. When that is going on the front end shakes, the tires get exceptionally hot and the tread wears off like a pencil eraser in the hands of a five year old.  At any speed, these pickup trucks put everyone around them in danger and may be life threatening to those actually along for the ride. In the automotive world, alignment is important. Both front wheels need to track together and need to be set to the “specs” of the one who designed it.

In the arena of spiritual warfare, alignment is even more critical.  Spiritual alignment is the metric that tells us whether of not we are tracking with God.   When our lives begin to diverge from the track God that has laid out for us, shaking occurs, friction increases, and control becomes an issue. If not corrected, we will end up in the ditch and probably take others with us. The primary strategy of the enemy is to get us out of alignment with God.  This strategy appeared first in the Garden when Satan convinced Adam and Eve to alter their view of God and, in doing so, they altered their alignment.  Rather than tracking with God they began to track with Satan.  In some ways it was a subtle realignment.  It was just a question of whether God was being totally fair with them or whether he could always be trusted to have their best interest at heart.

God had given them a clear commandment to steer away from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil but they began to steer toward the tree as they came into agreement with Satan about God’s commands and character.  God had said that eating the fruit of that tree would be disastrous. Satan said it would be liberating and enlightening.  God had said that the fruit would leave them impoverished and touched by death. God said the barriers he had erected around that tree were for their safety.  Satan said the barriers were there to keep them away from the best things in life and that God was only bluffing about the death thing.  We all know the rest of the story.

By coming into agreement with Satan while rejecting the word of God, Adam surrendered the glory and dominion that God had given him.  Adam and Even had been given dominion (authority) over all of God’s works on the earth. When Adam aligned himself with Satan, and chose to act from that place, he forfeited his dominion and gave his authority over the earth to Satan – who then became the “prince of this world.”

The Old Testament prophet put is this way.  “How can two walk together unless they be agreed?”  The corollary could be stated, “If two are agreed, then they end up walking together.”  This verse implies equality, but Satan never grants equality to anyone. He is determined to rule. If we align ourselves with Satan, then he will eventually exercise his dominion and control over us.

Jesus, has taken away all of Satan’s rightful dominion over those who are in Christ. But we, like Adam, can give Satan dominion over a piece of real estate in our own lives when we come into agreement with him about that slice of our life.  When we refuse to repent of a persistent sin, refuse to acknowledge our responsibility, when we refuse to forgive, or when we put an ungodly relationship ahead of God, we give Satan authority in that part of our life. From that position, he can create havoc in all kinds of ways.

To confess is to agree with God.  It is to say what God says about Christ or a sin or any other truth that God has declared.  In the arena of spiritual warfare, we need to be sure that we stay in alignment with the Father. We need to be careful to say what he says about Jesus, about life, and about ourselves. Declarations from our mouths that are contrary to God’s word begin to move us from an aligned position with Christ toward a position aligned with Satan.  Sometimes, the misalignment is just a few degrees.  Then that minor vibration becomes the norm.  We don’t even notice it anymore.  Then a few more degrees of departure may occur, and then a few more. Before we know it, we have given authority to Satan to have access to our lives and family, and we are headed for the ditch.

The solution is always careful realignment based on a Holy Spirit scan that tells you where adjustments need to be made. A life of saying what God says about everything and quick repentance when we notice our misalignment disarms the enemy and restores our authority in Christ. Watch for spiritual vibrations, shaking, and wobbling or persistent pulls to the left or right.  Alignment or agreement with God in every area of your life, thoughts and words is a powerful weapon in the arsenal of divine weapons God has given you.

Every believer’s birthright in the Kingdom of God is freedom and healing–both physical and emotional. Scripture emphatically declares that Jesus came to heal the brokenhearted and to set captives free from every form of bondage (Isa.61). If that is true then …

• Why are so many Christians still in bondage to anger, addictions, depression, and relational brokenness?
• Why do destructive behaviors devastate Christian families from generation to generation?
• Why do so many Christian marriages end in divorce even after dozens of sessions with Christian counselors and therapists?
• Why do so many Christians experience minimal life transformation after coming to Christ?

If you are a follower of Jesus Christ, you possess a birthright of healing and freedom that far too many Christians have yet to experience. Too many of us have accepted the idea that the power we see on every page of the New Testament faded away centuries ago.  Yet Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever.  The Spirit in us is the same Spirit that brooded over the face of the waters in Genesis, that empowered the prophets, and that rested on Jesus.  He has not changed and He is a Spirit of power. Jesus did not die on the cross so that we could merely manage crippling and destructive issues in our lives, but so that each of us could be set free from bondage and brokenness. The promise is this: “So if the Son sets you free, then you will be free indeed” (John 8:36).  Don’t settle or live with a sense of resignation in the face of pain and brokenness. Go after everything Jesus paid for.