The Spoken Word of God
All of us want for God to touch our hearts. We want to truly experience Him in our lives. In order for this to happen, we must learn to live out of not only the written word of God, but also the SPOKEN WORD of God in our hearts!
The New Testament uses two different words for ‘word’: Logos and Rhema
The Dictionary of New Testament Theology says: “Whereas logos can often designate the Christian proclamation as a whole in the New Testament, rhema usually relates to individual words and utterances.”
In fact in every use of the word ‘rhema’ in the New Testament – some 70 uses – not one of them refer to the WRITTEN WORD, but everyone refers to SPOKEN word!
Ephesians 6:17 says: “Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word (RHEMA) of God.” Ephesians 6:17, NIV.
This is important because what Paul is saying in Ephesians is that when we are doing battle against the enemy – we need for God to give us specific scriptures that are appropriate to the situation!
Learning how to hear the voice of God means that we allow the Holy Spirit to touch our hearts with the SPOKEN words of God!
What I am discovering is that the SPOKEN WORD OF GOD – Rhema – gives me the precise word that I need when I need it!
SO – HOW DO WE RECEIVE THE SPOKEN WORD OF GOD?
First of all –
Affirm by Faith that our God is a Communicating God!
From Adam and Eve to today God speaks to His people!
“And they heard the sound of the Lord God…” Genesis 3:8
“Now the Lord said to Abraham…” Genesis 12:1
“The Lord said to Moses…” Exodus 4:13
“The Lord spoke to Joshua…” Joshua 1:1
“I, John, was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like the sound of trumpet saying, ‘write in a book what you see….’” Revelation 1:10
And Jesus said in John 10:27…
“My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.” John 10:27, NIV.
Affirm by faith that God has not changed and that you and I – as simple people of faith – can and will hear His voice spoken to us!
Now that that is settled –
Learn to distinguish the voices inside.
In our lives – we hear voices – some have said “it’s like having committee in my head…”
The voices include:
• Satan – seeking to deceive and destroy us.
• Our fleshly mind – which is analytical and cognitive – desiring to figure everything out. The fleshly mind wants answers and doesn’t allow for that which cannot be understood.
• Our my own heart – which has an agenda of it’s own – desiring what it wants, when it wants it – or ---
• The Holy Spirit – which is intuitive and doesn’t not answer to the fleshly mind, yet is exactly Who we need in order to genuinely hear His voice. The Holy Spirit is Spirit-to-spirit communication expressing God’s SPOKEN words through spontaneous thoughts, ideas, words, feelings or vision.
Distinguishing the voice of God – that is the Holy Spirit within – means that we learn
1. To recognize and reject deception and embrace truth! That shuts up Satan!
We know that Christ has said: “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” John 10:10, NIV.
The key to recognize who is speaking here is to know what kills and to know what leads to life!
Do you know what kills? Do you know what leads to life?
Jesus said: “I am the way and the truth and the life. No-one comes to the Father except through me.” John 14:6, NIV.
IF WHAT YOU ARE HEARING doesn’t lead you to Christ – it doesn’t lead you to life!
Reject it! Renounce it! And then – embrace what leads to life! Embrace truth!
Secondly – we must learn to…
2. Turn our head away from demanding analytical answers and instead to simply come to Him in love and worship, praise and passion! That takes the human mind off that throne and returns Christ to His rightful place as Lord!
Do you want to hear the voice of God? Worship Him! Sing of His praises!
Worship and love for God is a powerful prerequisite to hearing from Him! Listen to Psalms 100:
“Shout for joy to the LORD, all the earth. Worship the LORD with gladness; come before him with joyful songs. Know that the LORD is God. It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture. Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name. For the LORD is good and his love endures for ever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.” Psalms 100:1-5, NIV.
Frequently, the time that I need to hear most is when I am in trouble – and that’s when the Enemy doesn’t want me to praise and worship the Lord, and he whispers in my ears: “You aren’t worthy! God doesn’t want to hear from you…”
But that’s exactly when I need to worship the most – I need to do just the opposite of what the enemy and my mind demand – I need to come up against this with an opposite spirit – and nothing could be more opposite than worship and love!
WHEN you need to hear – love! Reach out! Praise His name!
By worshiping and by loving God, I am telling my mind: “You are not in charge! You cannot demand answers! God is greater than my ability to understand!” Which then enables me to hear God’s voice instead of my demanding mind!
If I am going to hear the spoken word of God than, I must learn…
3. To submit my heart’s desires to the will of God, coming to a place of sweet surrender to Him and His plans!
How can we hear to voice of God when our heart is screaming: “I want! I want! I want!”
Ezekiel 14:4 speaks of the danger of “setting up idols in our hearts.” And one of the biggest idols that I can set up in my heart is MY WILL being done! So long as I demand my will – over God’s – than how can I anticipate hearing His voice?
When I come to the Lord in prayer, I am to be a living sacrifice. It isn’t about what I want, it is about what He wants for me! If pray about an issue where I have a preconceived notion of what I want, that notions interferes with what the Spirit of God may be desiring to say to me. How can I hear one thing, when I am so fixated on another? What needs to happen is that my focus has to change – I must focus on Him and His love, kindness, mercy and grace far more than I focus on what I want to have Him do. As I do this, I am set up to receive pure revelation from Him!
As I do this, I begin to live in a place of sweet surrender where the concerns of my heart are silenced by His love!
Now, the next part of preparation to hear spoken word of God is much more positive:
4. To embrace the Presence of the Holy Spirit as the vital key to hearing God by accepting that God is speaking to us through those spontaneous thoughts, ideas, words, feelings of vision that come to us as we seek Him! This opens us up to the Holy Spirit!
Let me give you an illustration that I think most of you will relate to: Have you ever been doing something – driving, cleaning, walking – when suddenly someone’s name popped into your mind and you just knew that you were supposed to pray for them? You hadn’t been thinking about them, but ‘out of nowhere’ you know that you are supposed to pray for them – right then. And, furthermore, you accepted this as God leading you to pray for them. That is intercession.
The Hebrew word used in the Old Testament for ‘intercession’ is paga – which literally means a ‘chance or spontaneous encounter’
This is the voice of God – a chance or spontaneous idea that intersects your mind, not flowing from the normal process, but simply appearing. That is God’s voice – an idea from God lighting upon your heart and being registered in your mind as a spontaneous thought.
In order to hear the voice of God – we must be willing to simply listen for spontaneous thoughts that He puts on our hearts and minds.
As these spontaneous thoughts come to us we then filter them:
Is it Satan deceiving me and taking me away from Christ?
Is it my mind demanding that God answer?
Is it my desires demanding their own way?
OR – is it from the Lord showing me His ways?
CONCLUSION:
I’ve included in the bulletin a list of every time that the word “rhema” is used in the New Testament – I think it would be a great study for you to do this week on your own.
Moving from an analytical and cognitive approach to spiritual life in Christ is not easy. We’ve all been trained to live in our heads. But the Lord is calling you into deeper waters with Him and that requires that you open yourself up to the eyes of the heart and to spiritual intuition.
I want to encourage you – to exhort you – to challenge you – to conduct an experiment this week.
• Take a pen and paper.
• Using spiritual vision, see Jesus with you in some comfortable scene.
• Write down: “Lord, what do you want to speak concerning the things I am learning?”
• Then, focus yourself on the eyes of the heart and tune into spontaneity.
• In simple faith, begin to write down the thoughts that begin to flow into your mind. Don’t challenge them or doubt them for the time being, just receive them in child-like faith and record them as they flow.
• Now, after several minutes, go back over what has been written – test it. Does it line up with Scripture? Does it sound like something God might say? Does it point me to Christ?
In this simple exercise, you are beginning to dialogue with God.
Jesus said in John 6:63:
“The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words (rhema) I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life.” John 6:63, NIV.
The New Testament uses two different words for ‘word’: Logos and Rhema
The Dictionary of New Testament Theology says: “Whereas logos can often designate the Christian proclamation as a whole in the New Testament, rhema usually relates to individual words and utterances.”
In fact in every use of the word ‘rhema’ in the New Testament – some 70 uses – not one of them refer to the WRITTEN WORD, but everyone refers to SPOKEN word!
Ephesians 6:17 says: “Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word (RHEMA) of God.” Ephesians 6:17, NIV.
This is important because what Paul is saying in Ephesians is that when we are doing battle against the enemy – we need for God to give us specific scriptures that are appropriate to the situation!
Learning how to hear the voice of God means that we allow the Holy Spirit to touch our hearts with the SPOKEN words of God!
What I am discovering is that the SPOKEN WORD OF GOD – Rhema – gives me the precise word that I need when I need it!
SO – HOW DO WE RECEIVE THE SPOKEN WORD OF GOD?
First of all –
Affirm by Faith that our God is a Communicating God!
From Adam and Eve to today God speaks to His people!
“And they heard the sound of the Lord God…” Genesis 3:8
“Now the Lord said to Abraham…” Genesis 12:1
“The Lord said to Moses…” Exodus 4:13
“The Lord spoke to Joshua…” Joshua 1:1
“I, John, was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like the sound of trumpet saying, ‘write in a book what you see….’” Revelation 1:10
And Jesus said in John 10:27…
“My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.” John 10:27, NIV.
Affirm by faith that God has not changed and that you and I – as simple people of faith – can and will hear His voice spoken to us!
Now that that is settled –
Learn to distinguish the voices inside.
In our lives – we hear voices – some have said “it’s like having committee in my head…”
The voices include:
• Satan – seeking to deceive and destroy us.
• Our fleshly mind – which is analytical and cognitive – desiring to figure everything out. The fleshly mind wants answers and doesn’t allow for that which cannot be understood.
• Our my own heart – which has an agenda of it’s own – desiring what it wants, when it wants it – or ---
• The Holy Spirit – which is intuitive and doesn’t not answer to the fleshly mind, yet is exactly Who we need in order to genuinely hear His voice. The Holy Spirit is Spirit-to-spirit communication expressing God’s SPOKEN words through spontaneous thoughts, ideas, words, feelings or vision.
Distinguishing the voice of God – that is the Holy Spirit within – means that we learn
1. To recognize and reject deception and embrace truth! That shuts up Satan!
We know that Christ has said: “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” John 10:10, NIV.
The key to recognize who is speaking here is to know what kills and to know what leads to life!
Do you know what kills? Do you know what leads to life?
Jesus said: “I am the way and the truth and the life. No-one comes to the Father except through me.” John 14:6, NIV.
IF WHAT YOU ARE HEARING doesn’t lead you to Christ – it doesn’t lead you to life!
Reject it! Renounce it! And then – embrace what leads to life! Embrace truth!
Secondly – we must learn to…
2. Turn our head away from demanding analytical answers and instead to simply come to Him in love and worship, praise and passion! That takes the human mind off that throne and returns Christ to His rightful place as Lord!
Do you want to hear the voice of God? Worship Him! Sing of His praises!
Worship and love for God is a powerful prerequisite to hearing from Him! Listen to Psalms 100:
“Shout for joy to the LORD, all the earth. Worship the LORD with gladness; come before him with joyful songs. Know that the LORD is God. It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture. Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name. For the LORD is good and his love endures for ever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.” Psalms 100:1-5, NIV.
Frequently, the time that I need to hear most is when I am in trouble – and that’s when the Enemy doesn’t want me to praise and worship the Lord, and he whispers in my ears: “You aren’t worthy! God doesn’t want to hear from you…”
But that’s exactly when I need to worship the most – I need to do just the opposite of what the enemy and my mind demand – I need to come up against this with an opposite spirit – and nothing could be more opposite than worship and love!
WHEN you need to hear – love! Reach out! Praise His name!
By worshiping and by loving God, I am telling my mind: “You are not in charge! You cannot demand answers! God is greater than my ability to understand!” Which then enables me to hear God’s voice instead of my demanding mind!
If I am going to hear the spoken word of God than, I must learn…
3. To submit my heart’s desires to the will of God, coming to a place of sweet surrender to Him and His plans!
How can we hear to voice of God when our heart is screaming: “I want! I want! I want!”
Ezekiel 14:4 speaks of the danger of “setting up idols in our hearts.” And one of the biggest idols that I can set up in my heart is MY WILL being done! So long as I demand my will – over God’s – than how can I anticipate hearing His voice?
When I come to the Lord in prayer, I am to be a living sacrifice. It isn’t about what I want, it is about what He wants for me! If pray about an issue where I have a preconceived notion of what I want, that notions interferes with what the Spirit of God may be desiring to say to me. How can I hear one thing, when I am so fixated on another? What needs to happen is that my focus has to change – I must focus on Him and His love, kindness, mercy and grace far more than I focus on what I want to have Him do. As I do this, I am set up to receive pure revelation from Him!
As I do this, I begin to live in a place of sweet surrender where the concerns of my heart are silenced by His love!
Now, the next part of preparation to hear spoken word of God is much more positive:
4. To embrace the Presence of the Holy Spirit as the vital key to hearing God by accepting that God is speaking to us through those spontaneous thoughts, ideas, words, feelings of vision that come to us as we seek Him! This opens us up to the Holy Spirit!
Let me give you an illustration that I think most of you will relate to: Have you ever been doing something – driving, cleaning, walking – when suddenly someone’s name popped into your mind and you just knew that you were supposed to pray for them? You hadn’t been thinking about them, but ‘out of nowhere’ you know that you are supposed to pray for them – right then. And, furthermore, you accepted this as God leading you to pray for them. That is intercession.
The Hebrew word used in the Old Testament for ‘intercession’ is paga – which literally means a ‘chance or spontaneous encounter’
This is the voice of God – a chance or spontaneous idea that intersects your mind, not flowing from the normal process, but simply appearing. That is God’s voice – an idea from God lighting upon your heart and being registered in your mind as a spontaneous thought.
In order to hear the voice of God – we must be willing to simply listen for spontaneous thoughts that He puts on our hearts and minds.
As these spontaneous thoughts come to us we then filter them:
Is it Satan deceiving me and taking me away from Christ?
Is it my mind demanding that God answer?
Is it my desires demanding their own way?
OR – is it from the Lord showing me His ways?
CONCLUSION:
I’ve included in the bulletin a list of every time that the word “rhema” is used in the New Testament – I think it would be a great study for you to do this week on your own.
Moving from an analytical and cognitive approach to spiritual life in Christ is not easy. We’ve all been trained to live in our heads. But the Lord is calling you into deeper waters with Him and that requires that you open yourself up to the eyes of the heart and to spiritual intuition.
I want to encourage you – to exhort you – to challenge you – to conduct an experiment this week.
• Take a pen and paper.
• Using spiritual vision, see Jesus with you in some comfortable scene.
• Write down: “Lord, what do you want to speak concerning the things I am learning?”
• Then, focus yourself on the eyes of the heart and tune into spontaneity.
• In simple faith, begin to write down the thoughts that begin to flow into your mind. Don’t challenge them or doubt them for the time being, just receive them in child-like faith and record them as they flow.
• Now, after several minutes, go back over what has been written – test it. Does it line up with Scripture? Does it sound like something God might say? Does it point me to Christ?
In this simple exercise, you are beginning to dialogue with God.
Jesus said in John 6:63:
“The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words (rhema) I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life.” John 6:63, NIV.
posted by Doug Love at 6:15 PM
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