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.