Week 6: Hearing God's Voice

Lecture 1: John 3:6
- The absolute best that flesh can produce is flesh, but Spirit gives birth to Spirit. What would happen if there was no communication between the King and the Heir, the Father and the Son, the Bride and the Groom, One friend to Another (John 15:13). The disbelief and the lies affect our ability to communicate with Him even if its just one drop of disbelief. Like the flavoring of vanilla, spreading throughout the whole batch of bread, the essence of disbelief carries over to our thoughts when we try to hear God's voice.
- Why is it important to hear God's voice? We don't know what's good for us. God wants what is best, but when we come to him with a prideful posture of our heart, which He opposes (James 4:6), we think this is disapproval. Or He is with-holding from us. But when we come to him in humility, you HEAR him and KNOW what's best. How you approach (humility) is key to hearing God.

Lecture 2:
- When we signed up for Jesus, we signed up for war. The enemy is smart, he has been in this game for a long time. When the enemy targets the foundation of our faith, our tower of beliefs collapses. What would you do if you were Satan? You would try to break the Holy Spirit from us because all truths are revealed through the Spirit. The importance of Holy Spirit is EVERYTHING. However, to us, Holy Spirit is closer than close. He is in us.
- God's language: Humility - 1 Peter 5:5-6, Proverbs 3:34.
The Son's language: Surrender - Luke 9:23-24, John 10:17-18
The Spirit's language: Obedience - Matthew 4:1, Acts 5:32
- When you are holding onto self-preservation, you are lucky to see God move in your life.

Lecture 3:
- He is not governed by our temper tantrums or our urgency. He speaks in His time and is not restricted by our deadlines. Jesus healed the bleeding woman on his way to heal someone else, He deliberately waited until Lazarus was completely dead, when he could've raised him up from the dead instantaneously. There's very little willingness to be still in our generation. (Psalm 46) - Be still.
-Application: 1. Examine a passage 2. What stands out 3.Ask Holy Spirit, how does this apply 4. Ask Holy Spirit, what you're inviting me or leading me to do in response to this. Then linger for a bit.
- Parenting is hard. Relationships are hard. But you have no right to hold on to your grudges on your parents or on others when Jesus went to the cross naked, beaten, and tortured and saying 'Father, forgive them for they don't know what they're doing.'

Lecture 4:
- Obedience is ours to do, the results are not up to us. Cheyne (lecturer) was at a grocery store and felt Holy Spirit asking him to pray for a lady. The lady refused, but he still thinks that he did the right thing. The language God Speaks: humility, surrender, and obedience.
- What if prayer is not praying to God, but prayer to God WITH God? From Him, through Him, to Him. If we can hear His voice, He will give us what we need to pray for. He prays with you because Holy Spirit guides us, and He answers you. For all things are his.

Lecture 5:
- Intimacy is the underlying reason for all the miracles and gifts from God. The purpose of all things, including miracles, is for us to find intimacy with the Lord. Matthew 7:22 - They perform miracles, drive out demons, and prophecy in His name, but God will say 'depart from me, I never knew you'. They didn't have intimacy with God, they were false teachers.
Find intimacy with God (Isiah 50:4-5).
- It's never God that's the problem when intimacy is broken with Him.
Intimacy cycle: Repent => Intimacy => Break in Intimacy => Repent
Don't let the enemy fool you into thinking you can't hear God. In Romans it says God speaks as if it were and we are given the authority to speak things into being.