Hearing God's Voice...

Hey everyone,

I just wanted to start out by thanking all of our wonderful supporters!!! You guys are making our experience here possible and we want to thank you all.

This past week we learned about the Holy Spirit & Listening to God. Listening to God through His spirit is every Christian's basic right. We learned about the different ways this happens and the different voices we hear.

PROVERBS 1:7 says, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline."

I learned this week why it is important to "FEAR:" – which means to have awesomeness or reverence towards - the Lord and His loving characteristics and TO HATE EVIL. This is the beginning of wisdom because God hates evil and evil hinders our relationship with Him. I thought it sounded pretty simple but i also find it REALLY HARD to put into practise when under attack from the enemy.

4 VOICES

1. The first voice can be our own. So we must learn to die to our own thoughts when we pray and burdens. We also must not allow our own limited knowledge to interfere with how God might be speaking to us.

2. The second voice is the voice of others. Other opinions formed by our families and friends can often get in the way of what God is trying to say to us. We must have the 'fear of the lord' which means to hate evil, rather than the 'fear of man' which can to lead to worry about what others think. The media and other influences can interfere with our hearing God's voice as well.

3. The third voice is that of the enemy. The enemy's voice is opposite to God's character which I have written about already. So the enemy is not loving, compassionate etc. The enemy uses any opportunity to try to make us stumble in what God is trying to tell us. Satin is crafty and once doubt enters the picture, we start to believe what he and his demons are saying. Fortunately, one way to test this out is in your spirit. Everyone has the Holy Spirit and if something doesn't settle within your heart then it probably isn't God.

4. The fourth voice is God's voice. He will use those amazing qualities that make up His characteristics to speak to us and tell us things. One important thing to realize is EVERYTHING God does or wants for us LOVING. If it’s not loving or does not resemble one of His character traits then it isn’t truth and not from Him. He will always creates opportunities or paths for those who obey His commands. His truth will always set us free JOHN 8:32. It takes practise to hear God’s voice. When we blame Him for things that go wrong in our life we often don’t trust him. I realized that doing God’s will man’s way, never works and if we judge Him for the things that happen to us we aren’t looking at what makes up His loving character and how He truly feels about us. He loves us.

One way to hear God's voice better is to repent. In the Greek, repent means literally "to change one's perspective." Therefore, if we have un-confessed sin in our life or we are holding onto burdens it is often difficult to hear God. The reason being is that WE are pushing away from HIM. Everyone has the Holy Spirit within and if our thinking (perspective) is not in line with the thinking of our creator, how are we supposed to hear Him? He created us for intimate loving relationship and if we don't attempt to be like Him and His characteristics, then technically we are not following in the ways we were create to hear Him to begin with. If we are not following in His ways by asking in prayer, repenting or spending time with Him and His word then we aren't going to get our daily bread and the enemy will have the opportunity to weaken our defences. If our defences are weakened we then can be susceptible to sin or other temptations or frustrations pushing us away from a loving God, thus changing or perspectives away from God's.

This is all stuff that Lydia and I are both are processing in our journeys on getting to know God better and just wanted to share some of our highlights with you :)

Thanks again for all those who support us. I hope you can get a little taste of what we are learning by reading our blog.

Godbless,

KYLE AND LYDIA.

God's Character

We just thought we'd share a little bit with you about what we were learning :)

This week we learned about God's character, what He is like and some common misconceptions about how He is percieved by people. If there are misconceptions about the nature and character of God then people will be left confused in what He expects from us in our day to day lives in how we relate to Him, ourselves and others in a relationship concept. The speaker described God as a personal God - that means he is intelligent, self concious, reasonable, imaginative and he has a memory (we also share these same characteristics). God also feels, joy, grief, anger, compassion and humility for example just as we do. You can't have a personal relationship with a God who is impersonal.

We also learned about the Will of God, in the big things and the little things. Gods Will is whats best for us, its up to us to choose to listen or not. It's our choice, whether it be in dealing with family members, friends or our life decisions - this is not the be all and end all however because God can be reasoned with in a loving way- if it is in his Will and we have a passion for somthing He can make it happen, we just need to ask. We are called to become more loving, holy, wise, faithful, just, merciful, gracious, good, kind and forgiving - all the things that GOD IS and wants US to become (these things are not always easy to do as a humans - but we need to try). If don't try or we go against any of these things (which are going against Gods Will then we are technically Sinning) - Sin hurts God because He sees what it will do to us and He feels what we feel. However the beauty of God is that no matter what mistakes we make He will always provide doors for ways in which we can get back on track e.g. if we need to apologize to someone or we know or follow through on somthing major in life He can make it happen if it's in His Will, it's never too late with God. There is also a difference between conciously, blatently choosing to ignore Him regularily because we are not acting loving, holy, wise, forgiving etc... OR we just honestly are missing his instructions (if thats the case he will somehow work with us in a loving corrective manor to try and get us back on track in relationship).

Finally, only He is infinite, omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent and holy (we are not these things, nor are we expected to be). We are also not called to Judge people because we are not God, we are only called to do our best in becoming the characteristics that make up God's true character; loving.....merciful, forgiving, good, kind to one another etc) Finally I learned that when you truly love God, you will love yourself because of all that He is and wants us to be (all that He is are the things that make up His characteristics). Finally the coolest thing i found out was that - The bible is a Record of God's Will, Man's response to God's Will and God's response to mans response (He sent us Jesus to restore the broken relationship that was happening to all humans recorded throughout the bible). I thought it was really really cool and although i maybe knew some or most of what the speaker was saying already, it was a nice refresher course in life with God if anything. I also thought that He is a friend that wants a relationship with me just like i want with you guys or Lyd or anyone and it's never to late to say just say "HEY" and ask what HE thinks of me and how i am doing and possibly let some things go in my own heart (that is what i have been processing since i've got here). What i just talked about is in scripture and i have verses to illustrate the points i made.