Hearing God

Personal Relationship Leads to Personal Worship

~ kathrynspen ~ 2 Comments

Welcome!  This post today is about the personal fellowship of worship that God wants to have with each one of us – but first let’s take a very brief look at a few of the main reasons that some born again believers feel that they don’t know “how” to worship the Lord on their own.

One reason would be  “church without a personal knowledge of  Jesus”…..  a place only of rules and regulations – apart from a personal knowledge of and fellowship with – the One  that “inhabits” the praises and worship of His people.  Most people that are like that themselves – or – go to a church like that for very long will find nothing there that teaches about – or  lends to personal worship.  But you know what –  even in some churches like that -.the Word of God still has a place – and that word has a way of weaving it’s way into people’s hearts – if they should begin to feel a hunger to know the “Author” more personally!

And when any  heart begins to hunger to touch God – to know and to hear Him, the promise in His word is that these will find Him – for He is very near to every one of us – if just perhaps –  we should decide to call on Him.  It is that way with getting born again – and it is that way afterward – if we will ourselves seek to know Him … and to worship Him.

But a second reason we may think (after being born again) that we do not know how to worship God outside of church – being that we may be looking too much for some kind of “soulish excitement” if I may call it that.  When the fact of the matter is that sometimes we just need to get quiet and still – and set our mind and direct our focus on Jesus.  Personal worship does not have to be loud or even with music.  You can start by just laying everything that would hinder or interrupt aside – go to a quiet place, start thinking of different things He has done or given that you should  be thankful for ….  and the further down that road of giving thanks to God and getting to know Him that you go – the easier it will be to just have a heart full of thanks – and that will lead to adoration and worship as night follows day!  And that is because God is so incredibly good – and great – that it is just natural  – to want to know Him more – as you get to know Him!!

….. But – we can be born again and yet  choose to stay right where we began – but myself (and plenty of others like me) didn’t want to camp there….  because one good taste of what it is like to know Jesus and God the Father. ..and there was no question of not pursuing to have more of the same!  So, I/we kept choosing  to go after Him.  In this scripture,  the Psalmist did the same …. ..

Psalm 91:1,2,9,14,15 …… The Psalmist – or you and I – “choose” to stay close to God;  and thereby we “learn”  to trust Him and make Him our refuge;  you and I choose to “set” our love (the deepest affection of our heart) upon Him – and that is not at all hard to do as you get to know and trust Him! ….  (Did you notice all the choices that He put into our hands to make – or not?!)  and the promise for choosing  those things is this:  “He/she will call upon Me and I will answer them;  I will be with them in trouble; I will set them on high because they “know My name;  I will deliver them and honor them;  and I will show them my salvation!”    There is no money on earth that can buy those things and the peace and gladness that come with them!  Hallelujah what a Savior – and what a Friend He has turned out to be!  !!!!!

Psalm 16:7-11 (paraphrased) …..  I will bless the Lord – for He has given me counsel – which will be there within my heart and mind to instruct me even in the night seasons.  And….. because I have set the Lord always before me – He is at my right hand so that I shall not be moved…..  therefore my heart is glad, and my tongue rejoices (in thanksgiving and worship to this One to whom I owe so much) … and my flesh also shall rest in hope …. because He will not leave my soul in those dark places ;  and He will show me and direct me onto the path of life;  and here and now – as I worship Him – I find in His presence there is fulness of joy – and at His right hand are the pleasures of eternal victory – forevermore with Him!

I hope that you received some things here to encourage you to choose to start worshipping the Lord at home in your own one on one time with Him.  And I hope that you will come again to this site to check for the next post about some more things that will lend to your becoming more and more sensitive to hearing His voice!  .

“These Three Things”……. Training Your Spirit to Hear

~ kathrynspen ~ Leave a comment

Hi!  This is just a little FYI that I am sharing with you about several posts that I will be adding to this blog in the coming days and weeks – the essence of which will  be bible teaching and sharing experiences that have to do with “These Three Things” …..  Personal Worship, Understanding and Placing the Value on God’s Word that is truly there ,  and Praying in the Spirit.  I don’t think that I can over state the value of these three precious things God has brought to my life for how much they have helped develop the sensitivity in my spirit to hear.

I will be starting these posts with a study about  “personal worship” – with teaching and  sharing about having a very personal – “one on one” time of worship between you and God – something He wants from every one of His children.  It’s an open avenue for Him to touch the deepest part of your being.

I’m not starting the study itself in this post, but below I want to share with you one of the many devotional writings and poems that I have received from the Holy Spirit – more often than not – I begin to HEAR these in my spirit at times when I am alone and worshipping God and our Lord Jesus.

THE DREAM OF FREEDOM

 Note: This writing was given to me for a dear friend – in whom I have been blessed to witness a remarkable growth and maturing of gifts into the call that God has for her – but it is also “an invitation”  to any and all who will read it and “believe” that God has more for them too.

The dream of freedom – lifting up as it were on eagle’s wings …..

The dream of healing – oh wonderful marvelous thing…….

Closer to Him who loves me, now I’ll be ……

Free to fly – and free to see – with the vision  that He gives me!

Heavenly dream – I can only imagine …..

What soaring with Him – yet still down here – could be!

(And now – I’m thinking ……   and writing…………….. still held captive by Him  and all that He is doing.)

As I watch you, I think of how incredible all of this is …….

And –  “Why do I not also want to fly?

Is it a laziness in me – or did He put this burning that is within me ……..?

To stay down here and help others as they dream of and aspire to get there

Where they can be free (still being here – and yet soaring with Him.)

Oh Jesus – I love the fellowship with You – the spiritual gifts and my call –                   And if that call keeps me ……

On the ground where I can see …….

All the marvelous things You are doing in others – then so let it be!

For this passion that burns within me – is to be –

Here and now – exactly “where and what”  You made me to be!

For I know that one day I will fly there too …..

Glory, oh glory – what a dream, Jesus, I have from You!

(And now as I am winding down, one last thought comes to me – an awareness that You gave each of those who love You their very own dream – and as you and I take that dream and spend time with Him – we will do exploits …. and we will indeed fly like the eagle – right here with Him!)

Part II – How’s Your Hearing? …. More About the Born Again Spirit

~ kathrynspen ~ 2 Comments

Did God equip us to hear Him?….  There are a good number of verses in the bible that indicate clearly that this is so.   We find just some of these scriptures in the first three gospels of the bible:    Matthew 13:9,43     Mark 4:9,23 & 7:16      Luke 8:8   “If any man have ears to hear, let him hear.”  (Note that in Matthew 13:16  a “blessing” is pronounced for the ones whose ears do hear – and I would add that it is indeed a blessing to hear a word in our spirit when we’re searching for the right way to go!)  “He that has ears to hear, let him hear!”

Is this only a “natural” hearing – or does God equip us with ears that have the capacity to hear in the spirit?

Just hours before Jesus went to the cross for us, He had some very special last words  to share with His disciples – for them and for us – words which we find in John 14 – 17.  Now last words are often very important – especially when they are spoken to and for those that you love.  It is good to read all of those four chapters, but for our purposes today, we will only look at some verses that pertain particularly to our hearing – and the provision that God made for us through the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The first and very beautiful thing to remember  that Jesus tells us in John 14:1 is “Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God – believe also in Me.” Jesus then proceeded to tell them that He would be going away – but (v 16-17) “I will pray to the Father and He shall give you another Comforter that He may abide with you forever – even the Spirit of Truth – whom the world cannot receive because it seeth Him not, neither knows Him; but you know Him – for He dwells with you – and shall be in you.” …. + (v 25,26) These things have I spoken to you while I am yet present with you – but the Comforter, who is the Holy Ghost (Holy Spirit),  whom the Father will send in My name – He shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance – even whatsoever  I have said unto you.”  Obviously, to be taught – you must hear! And it is clear in these verses that this is a Spirit to spirit communication.

In John 16:12-15  Jesus continues speaking to those who have chosen to follow Him –  “I have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now – however, when He, the Spirit of Truth (aka the Spirit of God/Holy Spirit/Holy Ghost/Comforter) is come, He will guide you into all truth.”

Seeing then that the Spirit of God purposes to “teach us all things, remind us of the things that He has already shown us, show us things to come  -and  guide us into all truth” – we need to learn to hear  with those ears that He gave us.  God has ways of getting things across to His own, but He purposed for each one of us to hear and be led by His Spirit. (Romans 8:14)   This is a part of the capacity in our born again spirit that God provided for us.  (John 1:12 and John 3:1-8)

I just mentioned that “we need to learn to hear” with the ears of our born again spirit….  But seeing that there are many voices  out there to be heard ….  and the bible says that every one of those voices have some kind of meaning – the question then becomes “How will I know the difference between hearing in my mind (ie. with the natural man’s hearing) – and actually hearing with the ear of my spirit?  This is very important because “the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God; neither can he know them  – because they are “spiritually discerned.”  (I Corinthians 2:14).

How then will you know the difference between what comes to your mind versus the hearing by your spirit?  The quick answer to that would be to tell you that you will come to know the difference between the two the same way that a baby learns to recognize his mother’s or his father’s voice from that of any other.  And that is true, but there are a number of things given us in  the Word of God that you and I can do that will “lend” to developing that God given capacity to hear Him.

There are three very foundational things that I can look back to and say that those are the things that most helped me along the way to notably increase the hearing in my spirit.  There are also a few others which I would call “supporting factors” that I will touch on as well – but to just “throw these out there” would be like handing you a box containing something that needed to be assembled without giving you any instructions with it…. So I will just name the three major things that helped me (and I would tell you here that these are the things which I have observed and therefore come to believe – that without these three foundational things in our relationship with the Lord – we are not going to get the development of our spirit to Spirit relationship that is needed to hear well.  That’s you, me or anybody else – it has nothing to do with our salvation – but is strictly an observation that I have seen in my own spiritual growth and that of others.)

The three major things I will be sharing with you about in coming posts concern:  Personal Worship, Understanding and placing the value on God’s Word that is truly there – and Praying in the spirit  (not necessarily in order here).  I would like to share some things about each of these three major “gifts from God” that have been such a help and blessing to me as I learned about them.  I also want to stress before hand that this is not an exhaustive study – because “I DON’T KNOW THAT MUCH” – but I am called to teach in the Body of Christ and these things are strong within me to share because I know how much they have helped me.

Hope you are “hungry enough” to check out these short studies in some coming posts on this blog.

I just now “felt” God’s love for you – and want you to know that.  See you later!

How’s Your Hearing?…. More about the Born Again Spirit

~ kathrynspen ~ Leave a comment

Are you able to hear the voice  of the Spirit when you have a decision to make? You really want to know what God would say – the direction He would tell you to go – but oftentimes it is not a lack of desire to hear Him, but a lack of knowing how  that thwarts us in our pursuit to hear.  That can be very frustrating – believe me, I understand that – I’ve been there and still have some times that it is harder for me than I would like; but I have come a long way in that area so that I can share some things about that with you.

First of all, our years in being born again or by virtue of growing up going to church – are not – the best measuring stick for determining how well we will hear God.  Before I start sharing what the scripture does say about hearing God, let me voice a couple of things that will affect your hearing negatively “right off the bat.” Which are these …..

Sometimes we have been taught that God does not speak to His people today – and even though that is totally unfounded by scripture – if we have grown up with that mindset, we tend to think  that is  what the Word of God actually says ….  And unless we are willing to ask God to show us as we search it out for ourselves in His Word – then the premise that  “God does not talk to us today”  becomes what we “believe.”

Another  fallacy we need to see for what it is – is that we necessarily know more about God than the person beside us because we have been born again longer …. or we have family ties or “closer connections” inside the church – these things making us to be more spiritually advanced than most others! Indeed we can learn some good things from any of those three things that I just mentioned – but the best “yardstick” to use in measuring how well you are hearing and experiencing the leadership of God is this … “How well and how often – do you hear an answer that you KNOW is from Him – when you have needed help and asked for His input?

Also, you should be – at least occasionally – hearing His voice giving some kind of input as you read His Word.  By and large we get to know God for who He is by actually spending time with Him and in His word – for ourselves!  – and then we need to go on and follow any instructions that He gave as we spent that time with Him.  (The Holy Spirit is a very good teacher – actually He’s the best! )  And learning to hear God speak to us personally comes the very same way – spend time with Him and in His word  – and then do anything that He has shown you to do!  And yes, we do need good teachers – God particularly gifted some to teach others in the Body of Christ  (Ephesians 4:11,12) – but we need to follow up on that teaching by doing what the Apostle Paul said of the Berean Christians in Acts 17:11 … that they “received the teaching of God’s word with all readiness of mind, then searched the scriptures daily to see whether those things they had heard were so.”

Can you and I hear the voice  of God?                                                                                   ….. and should we be hearing Him for important decisions that arise in our day to day living?  The answer to both those questions is unequivocally – YES!  But you and I need to go with what the word of God has to say – so let’ s begin to look at that.

First of all, we are all on an “equal footing” with God when we are born again – in that He gives to every person who receives Jesus the capacity  to begin to see and understand the things of the Kingdom of God (John 1:12; John 3:3-6).   And when the Spirit of God speaks to us/reveals something to us, it will be from His Spirit to our spirit…..  because the things of God are “spiritually discerned.” And “the spirit of man is the candle of the Lord” (Proverbs 20:27)  God “lights our candle” (Psalm 18:28)  in order to illuminate us with the understanding of things He wants us to know –  because “the natural man (our flesh man) is not equipped to receive and understand  the things of the spirit.”  See I Corinthians 2:9-14.  (Note that it is not talking strictly about the things God has for us in the afterlife/Heaven – for we will not need Him to reveal them to us there – but right here is where we need that revelation of what belongs to us.)

In John 10:3,4 Jesus – our Good Shepherd – tells us that as we grow from babes into more mature ones – we will know His voice so that we can follow His leading.  It is normal for those who know Jesus to begin to hear His voice….  And there are some things we can do – according to God’s word that will lend to more hearing.

I will begin to share about some of those things in another post.  Until then, if you have not already read the posts that I put on this site about what happens to you when you are born again,  they are titled “A Post About Beginnings”  Jan.15 and “The Best Beginning of All” on Jan 22.  You can find them the most quickly by going to the right side of this post – at the top right – just under the picture of the sunrise –  and listed under “Recent Posts.”

WHILE I WAS “AWAY”….. and THINGS THAT TRULY MATTER

~ kathrynspen ~ 2 Comments

I’ve wanted to post on my blog for over a week,  but important things were happening that needed my attention.  Sunday, I lost my mother – she had been very sick – with things rapidly deteriorating over the last couple of weeks.  Mom was 90. Yesterday we had her funeral – returning her body to the ground from which the word of God says that God formed and created man – finishing the master piece of His creation by blowing “the breath of life” into man.

My two sisters were with Mom when she took her last short breaths – for her, they told me,  there was no struggle – it was very peaceful.  There was some sadness of course as I heard that she had passed (from this life into the next)- but I am okay.  Actually  I am “more than okay”-  because I know and am very confident about where she is.

The last 3 days before Sunday, she was becoming unresponsive to the point of  being almost in a coma-like state.  A day or two before that, we had tried to engage her in humorous or otherwise memorable things that we had all experienced together as we were growing up – and got only small interest roused in her about those things – but accolades should go to my  two sisters for trying.  Just knowing some of her children were there with her must have meant something to her.  All of us very much wanted to do something that would make things easier for her – we knew she couldn’t be here with us very much longer and we did not want her to suffer …..

Then on Saturday afternoon while I was at home in the kitchen,  I began singing “How Beautiful Heaven Must Be” – an old song that I hadn’t heard in years (note here that I am NOT a singer) – but it was coming out of my spirit; and when I stopped singing for a minute or two, I caught myself humming the song.  All of this was happening while my mind was still pretty distraught – wondering what we could do to help Mama turn her mind away from all the pain we knew was filling her body – and look Heavenward.

The song just kept coming – until the realization came that although it was beginning to help my mind a little – “this song is for Mama!”  The Lord had spoken a scripture to me for her a day or so before – and with the added song, that realization stirred me to action.  I called my mother’s room – a sister answered the phone …. I told her that I knew Mama couldn’t answer me, but I wanted to give her a scripture verse and sing a song to her. Then as the phone was held up to Mama’s ear, I began singing the song, and talking to her about  Heaven and Jesus.  When my sister took the phone away from Mom’s ear, she said to me … “She heard you …. Her lips began to move as though she wanted to speak and her eyebrows moved as you were talking …. and her face, which had carried the look of death – my sister said – looked “happy.”  My sister was almost weeping as she told me those things and later my other sister who was at the end of Mama’s bed told me she saw the same thing.  That was all I needed to hear.  I had done what the Lord had shown me to do – and I was filled with peace!   A peace that has not left me since it filled my heart and mind that evening.

I got “the call” just about 24 hours later – my sweet mother had just passed – “about ten minutes ago” – my sister told me.  I had dreaded to face this day we all knew was coming…. but it hasn’t been that way for me.  If you think really knowing Jesus – and knowing how to “hear Him,”  doesn’t make a difference -think again!!