In the first part of this two part article, I wrote about overcoming hindrances to hearing God’s voice by drawing near to God in an approach based off of the tabernacle experience.
1. Enter through the gates with Thanksgiving, clothing ourselves with Christ’s righteousness.
2. Offer our lives as a living sacrifice.
3. Look intently upon the Word and cleanse our lives in Bible meditation.
4. Fellowship with Others and let our will submit to God’s will.
5. Examine the Word under the illumination of the Holy Spirit finding revelation and knowledge and transforming our lives.
6. Offer continual praise.
Now we are ready to ascend directly into His manifest presence, fixing our gaze upon His glory and speaking face-to-face and mouth-to-mouth with the Most High God. (Heb. 10:19,20). When storms and gales hinder our access before the King of Kings, we can go back and re-walk the path which He has prepared for us.
You can find the first part of this article at:
http://www.cluonline.com/blockstoheargodsvoice.htm
Usually, I find that if I walk through the tabernacle experience, any block I may have as I approach God in prayer is erased. If not, God has provided a fine-tuning dial in Hebrews 10:22:
“Let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.”
In this verse are found four more keys for removing blocks to effectively hearing the Master’s voice:
1. Have a Sincere Heart:
The first key is that we must have a sincere heart. There can be no hypocrisy, no double-mindedness, no halfheartedness. Only total, pure, childlike dedication to the desires and purposes of Almighty God.
2. Have Full Assurance of Faith:
Secondly, we must have a full assurance of faith. In other words, we cannot doubt that there is a river flowing within us. (Jn. 7:38,39) Therefore, we must believe that He is a Rewarder of those who earnestly seek Him, and receive in faith that which is flowing within us, trusting that indeed it is the Spirit of Almighty God (Heb. 11:6).
3. Clean Our Hearts of Sin:
Thirdly, we must have our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience. If there is sin, it must be brought before the cleansing flow of Christ’s blood and removed as far as the east is from the west (Ps. 103:12). Then it must be forgotten, as all of our attention is turned upon our Maker.
4. Be Cleansed With the Word:
Finally, we must be cleansed with the washing of water of the rhema word, or the voice of God (Eph. 5:26). Those things which God is speaking to us must be acted upon and obeyed, or our ability to go on with God is destroyed.
When I come before God in prayer, I begin by quieting myself in His presence. I use the eyes of my heart to see Him present with me. I tune to the inner river (i.e. spontaneous flow), and I begin writing down and recording the flow that is welling up within me. (See this pattern in Hab. 2:1,2.) If I am stuck and some block seems to be hindering my ability to hear God’s voice and see His vision, I review the above questions concerning living the tabernacle experience. Often as I go through this checklist, I identify the block and remove it. If the block still remains, I ask myself the four questions found in Hebrews 10:22 – Is my heart sincere, honest, and committed? Am I free of reservations as I approach God? Do I have a full assurance of faith that He is within me and welling up through my spirit (which is joined to His Spirit – I Cor. 6:17)? In addition, I must ask whether I have been obedient to the previous words which God has spoken to me.
These two patterns, the tabernacle experience, and the fine-tuning dial of Hebrews 10:22, (when coupled with the example of Hab. 2:1,2) offer ready access for most of us almost all of the time, so we can readily hear God’s voice within our spirits, and write down the spontaneous flow of thoughts, visions and feelings which bubble up within us as we seek the face of God. Thus, we find that many of the most common blocks and problems to hearing the voice of God are removed as we follow these biblical patterns.
Once we begin recording the things we sense God speaking to us, we may still find errors, or “supposed errors,” in our journals. This can come from many things. I will list very briefly only a few of the most common situations.
One problem is that when we pray, we often fix our eyes on the thing we are praying about, rather than on Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith. Therefore, the answer comes back from the thing, rather than from our Lord. The solution to this problem is to be very careful to fix our eyes on Jesus (Heb. 12:2), rather than on any thing, or person, or issue. If we are bringing a person or issue to God in prayer, then we should actually see ourselves presenting this before Him and watch what He does or says concerning it. Then the spontaneous flow will be more pure.
Positioning
A second issue is that some of God’s commands are simply positioning moves and are never meant to be fully carried out. Instead, God re-directs us in midstream. An example of this may be seen in Genesis 22, when God asked Abraham to sacrifice his son. However, as Abraham began to act in obedience to this order, God changed it, telling him not to sacrifice his son. Now, was Abraham’s first word from the Lord wrong? No, God was simply positioning Abraham in order to fulfill one of God’s goals for his life. Once the test was completed, God discontinued the action midstream with new orders. I find this happens often in my journal. Many orders are simply positioning moves, both for me and for others.
A third, and final, problem which we will discuss is the problem of improper interpretation. It is very easy to interpret the words of your journal to say what you think they mean, rather than simply seeing them for what they are. Often, as I have gone back to my journal, thinking my journaling had been wrong, I have been amazed to see that the actual words of the journaling were fulfilled. It was my inner interpretation of these words that was not correct. Let us be careful to hear that which the Lord is speaking.
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