Though you’d never know it in most of the church today, knowing God intimately—as a wife knows her husband—is the plan. This is what God wants for you. This is what He expects from you. This is His glorious plan for the Messiah’s bride—and that is who we are.
It is really sad, but we have heard many dozens of people tell us they are afraid to tell anyone in the church that they hear from the Lord or that God does indeed speak to them. They may have had a vision, or received a prophecy. But they fear that they might be considered crazy. In fact, in modern American society it is very risky to tell anyone you hear from God.
“Yeh, right, of course you do. That’ll be all right. You’ll get over it…”
You know the drill. If you know the Lord at all, you’ve heard things like that directed at you or other believers you know.
Hearing from God
In Pentecostal, Charismatic, and non-denominational churches, you’ll hear quite a bit about hearing from God. That is certainly a large part of what we are talking about here. But often it is taught that you hear from God by listening to the Sunday sermon or conference teaching.
Plus they are insistent that the only reliable way
to hear from HaShem is from the Scriptures.
Preachers and teachers are good—if the speaker is anointed by the Holy Spirit and is diligently seeking to be used by God to speak to everyone in the congregation. But it is supposed to direct you toward the Lord. Even the Bible is less than Jesus Himself.
You need daily input from the Lord—in fact you need minute by minute help. You cannot come to know anyone well without talking with him or her constantly. Paul called it praying without ceasing. Not talking at him—but with Him. You have to hear Him to have a conversation with Him.
But hearing from God is just a part of knowing the Lord. It is an essential part, but it misses the point. You hear from your boss, but there is rarely love or intimate knowledge there. The same can be said for most pastoral relationships in denominational churches. Intimate knowledge goes far beyond the norm—it is outside the box, as it were.
Knowing scripture
If you do not have knowledge of scripture (and even if you do), you are dependent upon constant prayers for the guidance and protection of the Ruach HaKodesh. This is why Yeshua asked the Father to send Him to you.
I have to assume that you have read and studied the Bible. Without that knowledge of the only objective standard we have, you can easily be led astray. Verse by verse study is best, How to Teach the Bible with Power will help you if you need it. It will give you some idea of how to pursue the truth in the Bible.
Prayer is the answer?
Prayer is the beginning. But we are obviously not talking about written liturgical prayer. Nor are we talking about the common gimme lists. This is prayer as it is defined in Christian terms, a dialogue—talking back and forth, a conversation. Like teachings about knowing God, teachings and examples of true, powerful prayer are rare. Part of the problem is that most of this type of communication is consummated in the privacy of a person’s “prayer closet”. In fact, in Matthew 6:6, Jesus tells that we are to pray in secret and that the Father will answer in secret.
The second definition of prayer on dictionary.com is a good place to start in understanding prayer:
A spiritual communion with God:
as in supplication, thanksgiving, adoration, or confession.
Here’s some quotes to help us:
“Prayer is not monologue, but dialogue. God’s voice in response to mine is its most essential part.” Andrew Murray
“Prayer does not fit us for the greater work; prayer is the greater work.” Oswald Chambers
“Those persons who know the deep peace of God, the unfathomable peace that passeth all understanding, are always men and women of much prayer.” R. A. Torrey
Communication is the bedrock upon which knowledge is built. The need for prayer cannot be over-emphasized. Communion with God is the core of our being. Prayer is a lifestyle, a constant communication. You need to be continually talking things over with God. This is the meaning of Paul’s command:
Always rejoice, pray without ceasing, giving thanks in everything…
I Thessalonians 5:16-18
We see this in common speech, “She’s constantly watching TV.” “He’s always talking about football.” We are talking about a person whose focus is clearly seen. For believers, this focused center of your being should be prayer—communication with God.
This type of prayer takes a while to develop. It takes practice, experimentation, and persistence. Very few start out praying this way—and many who do start this way have it trained out of them by religion. But if you are serious and ask the Lord to show you how, He can do it quickly.
Religion is anathema to this
In most religious groups the entire level of communication discussed here is very much frowned upon. By their very nature religious organizations do not have this type of relationship with God.
Direct, personal engagement with the Lord almost always steps outside the bounds of religious policy very quickly. Jesus was [and is] always in trouble with the religious establishment. In fact, it is not far wrong to say that religion killed Jesus.
To cover the reasons why this is true I suggest you get a copy of Watchman Nee’s Love Not the World. In this marvelous book, he discusses what happens when a true ministry of God, started by an apostle and led directly by the person called by God to lead it, continues on after the death of the leader.
This problem has been exacerbated by the growth of corporate ministries. Corporations step entirely outside the idea of God calling a person by replacing the person with a group who is actually legal fiction. Nee’s point is that any ministry which can survive and stand on its own without God quickly loses all contact with God. Corporations are not real people and are designed specifically to stand on their own perpetually. Once the original leader called by God goes home, they should be shut down [in my humble opinion]. Ministries do not have inherited leadership, and attempts to promote that are commonly disastrous.
Watchman Nee believed [and I agree} that any ministry which can survive and thrive without the direct daily need of the anointing and intervention of the Holy Spirit has become religious as opposed to being a part of the Kingdom. If I remember accurately (though this may be my experience now nearly forty years after I read the book), the distinction is between an organism whose life flows from the vine and a self-sustaining organization. The Kingdom is an organism. The visible church is thousands of organizations.
Organizations do not need God and have no direct contact with God as a group—unless there is a godly person in charge who has been called to that position by God himself. Ministries in the kingdom are not led by committees, but by apostles [people called and sent by God to start a work] or more rarely prophets, evangelists, pastors, or teachers. The biblical examples of a calling committee are non-existent in the New Testament except for Mathias (and that happened before the Holy Spirit was poured out—plus he was never heard of again). Leaders were normally appointed by experienced elders. As mentioned, I believe that most ministries should be shut down when the person with the vision goes home to be with the Lord.
Obviously, this calls into question the viability of denominations and helps explain why mainline churches and long-existing denominations are usually lifeless. For example, Luther, Wesley, and Aimee Semple McPherson were radical believers filled with life. That life barely lasted eighty years or so after their death.
Only when God calls and sends an apostle to head up an existing congregation of a denominational church does one come to life. But sadly, even then, many denominations regularly rip the leadership from a lively church and move it elsewhere. The conscious plan, believe it or not, is that believers should not become attached to a local leader.
(How could a denomination retain control in that case?)
So, you may well be on your own as you develop the relationship you need with the Lord. This is not a large problem because the Lord is more than enough to help anyone. Plus, He will normally bring you into contact with other believers on the same path as yourself.
Finding a church home
You will probably have a difficult time finding a church which will encourage you in your development of direct communication with God. You do need to find regular fellowship and a church is a good place to start. But there may not be one close to where you live.
Let’s give you a list of things to look for in a church home:
The leader seeks to give control and authority over the church to Yeshua Messiah: This is key. If the leader has illusions that he or she is in control, there is a major problem with the leadership. Run, do not walk, away from this.
Scripture is regularly read & explained: Public reading of scripture has great benefit. Explanations of scripture normally do more than topical sermons on events of the day with little or no scriptural justification.
The leadership is local: If the real leadership is denominational the local church will find it almost impossible to react to local needs and minister to the people in the neighborhood.
Fruit is seen in the leaders as well as the sheep: love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, self-control. They should be friendly, warm, and include you in what they are doing. An anointed leadership will nurture fruitfulness in the people.
The elders are mature: “Youngers” are a real problem today. Unless the elders have maturity and experience, the church is in trouble sooner or later. Age factors into this, though age does not automatically produce maturity. An elder needs to have lived long enough to have much good life experience. An elder also needs spiritual maturity of the kind talked about in Ephesians 4:1–16 and 1 Timothy 3:2–7.
The list can go on and on but these are starting points. You really need to find a spiritual mentor. We tend to call them pastors now in America, but they could be called bishop, elder, pastor, evangelist, teacher, apostle, and many more names that are biblical. Seek the Lord diligently, asking Him where He wants you to learn and grow. In this day and age this can be a difficult search.
Developing skill in prayer
I find that it helps me to think of prayer (and many areas of spiritual growth) in terms of human development. When a baby starts learning to talk, it first doesn’t know the words. When the baby learns words, it is entirely self-centered.
Much of early childhood training centers around teaching a child to talk with you about anything other than its own needs and wants. Original sin shows up in children before they can walk or talk in their selfish, self-centered life. They want what they want when they want it—or else.
In very young Christians the same thing happens—at least for a time until the Holy Spirit can get the newly reborn believer’s attention. Even rare thoughts of ministry are usually more about building themselves up. This is normal behavior—but certainly not acceptable in an adult.
Though it can get quite irritating, it’s a real breakthrough when your son or daughter starts asking why. Why? Why? Why? Thankfully, we serve a God with infinite patience who is willing to answer and train us—if we begin to listen. The why questions are the first focus outside themselves.
The next major step is seen when the why questions convert to hows. Then growth begins to happen much more quickly. The parallel progression of behavior during this questioning phase normally runs through sharing your toys to treating others the way you want to be treated, and finally graduating into how can I help? That helpfulness hopefully coalesces into the more mature “what do you want me to do, Lord?”
But even at this point, it is common that there has been little or no sharing about likes, dislikes, gifts, talents, calling, purpose, or anything real that is necessary for adult growth. In modern America, children regularly never think about these things until they go to college or worse yet, graduate from college. Many are approaching thirty before they begin.
Prayer follows the same path. First comes the self-centered gimme prayers, then adding prayers for others, then asking the Lord for guidance, then asking Jesus what He designed us to be. But the real breakthrough comes when a person starts seriously seeking the Lord Himself—wanting to know Him better, desiring intimacy with Jesus just because of a genuine love for the person of the Lord.
We’ll talk about the practicalities in Part 3.
What Andrew Said 👇 💙 your passion David.
This is great, David. Thank you, and thank you Jesus 🙌🏻