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!