The great unchanging basic requirement for an ongoing relationship with God is to hear God’s voice. In other respects God’s way of relating to mankind has changed with the different dispensations. But this one requirement of hearing God’s voice continues unchanged throughout all dispensations.
This requirement is summed up in the prophet Jeremiah 7:23 where God says through Jeremiah to his people Israel obey my voice and I will be your God.
And this is what God requires of his people in all ages. Many Christians don’t realize that the basic requirement of the New Testament is the same. God says if you want me to be your God obey my voice.
What marks out the true followers of Jesus is not being part of a denomination, it is not a certain form of worship, it is not adherence to some particular doctrine, it is hearing his voice and following him.
John 10:7 Jesus says my sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me.
These three things go together.1- It begins with our hearing the voice of Jesus. 2-and when we hear his voice he knows us, he recognizes us, he takes note of us, he acknowledges that we are his. 3 and then we follow him. This is according to the pattern of Shepherd and sheep in Bible lands.
Sheep follow the Shepherd, the Shepherd does not drive them, and the sheep follow him. And the reason they follow is because they heard his voice.
And if they didn’t hear his voice they could not follow him. If we don’t hear his voice we cannot follow, we cannot walk with him. We have to hear his voice before we can follow him. This is what makes us his sheep.
To be his sheep begins with hearing the voice of the Sheppard and then following him. If we follow him it is going to change many things that we are doing in our life. It will change our standards, it will change our values, it will change the way that we live.
Hearing God’s voice is very personal. Every voice is individual and unique. No two voices are exactly alike. Voices are one of the most individual features of human personality. This is why Jesus said about his sheep, that they will not follow a stranger, because a stranger’s voice is different.
Our protection is hearing God’s voice, relating to him individually, personally. Not just relating to a historical figure not just relating to some move of God, or some doctrine, but relating to the Lord himself through his voice.
There is a way for designing a safe in the use of a bank, and the thing that will open the safe that triggers the combination is a certain voice, the voice of the bank manager. And no other voice can cause that safe to open.
This shows us how absolutely individual and distinctive a person’s voice is. There is a voice that can open that safe and it will not open to any other voice. That is what our heart should be like. Our Heart should be like a safe, something that treasures the most valuable things we have. And there should be only one voice that opens that safe, the voice of the Lord himself.
We come into problems if we open the safe door of our heart to the wrong person. This is what causes most of the problems in world today, people open up their hearts to the wrong person. We need to think of our heart from now on as a safe, with a combination in the door, and that combination will respond to only one voice, the voice of the Lord.
When we open up our heart to the voice of the Lord, we will never be harmed, we will never be deceived, and we will never be disappointed.
We have learned by experience that if we open the door to the wrong person, if we respond to the wrong voice many harmful troubles and problems result.
This is the shepherd sheep relationship. David said in Psalm 23 the Lord is my shepherd, I shall lack nothing.
Out of that personal relationship every need of David was assured and supplied. How can the Lord be our Shepherd, only if we hear his voice? When we begin to hear his voice and follow him, then he is our Shepherd and all our needs will be supplied.
Hearing God’s voice is always present in the sense of time. Hearing God’s voice is always now. Only now can we hear a voice. A voice brings us into the now.
Much of religious people’s thinking is always of the past or of the future. Christians talk about what happened in the days of Moses or in the days of Jesus but that is all in the past. Or they talk about what will happen in future, about going to heaven.
We are not living in the past or the future we are living in the present. Today while it is still called today if you hear my voice do not harden your heart.
When we realize that to have a personal relationship with God, we must hear his voice, this brings us into the now, into the present, the present relationship, a present experience.
When God called Moses to deliver his people out of Egypt, Moses said what if they ask me your name? God said, I am who I am. I am has sent me to you. I AM is present it is not past and it is not future. God’s name is present. Our relationship with God needs to be now. And as we learn how to hear God’s voice we have that present, personal relationship with the Lord.
When you relate to hearing God’s voice you’re relating to the eternal now.
The result of hearing God’s voice is faith. Many people desire to have faith, seek to have faith, struggle for faith but they do not receive, because they haven’t discovered the secret of faith. Faith comes by hearing God’s voice. Hearing God’s voice produces faith.
Romans 10:17 so faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ. Hearing the word of the anointing, the ability to God gives us to hear his voice.
There are two different words in the Greek that describe the word of God, Logos and Rhema.
Logos means mind, counsel, reason, it is a comprehensive word. Logos in the Bible is the mind of God, it is the Council.
Psalm 119:89 forever old Lord thy word is settled in heaven.
The word of the Lord is eternal, it stands firm in heaven. This is God’s Logos, his total counsel, it never changes, it’s eternal, it’s all time it is settled from beginning to the end. It is there in the heavens all the time. It is the mind counsel and purpose of God. This Logos, this counsel of God is summed up in a person, the Lord Jesus Christ.
John 1:1 in the beginning was the word – Logos – and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.
Jesus is the personified Logos. Jesus said he that has seen me has seen the Father, I represent everything the father is and the Father does. It is settled for ever in heaven and it cannot be changed, it is eternal.
Rhema has a different meaning; at times of course both these words overlap. It means a spoken word. It is not a Rhema unless it is spoken. But the Logos is settled forever in heaven whether it is spoken or not.
Matthew 4:4 it is written Man shall not live on bread alone but on every word (Rhema)that proceeds out of the mouth of God.
We are to live by every Rhema, every word that proceeds from the mouth of God, God speaking to us personally.
We cannot understand the whole counsel of God – Logos. But God measures it out in a Rhema. In a word that is spoken to us, in a word that we receive personally. Man lives by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. The total counsel of God is imparted to us in portions as we are able to receive it.
God has a Rhema for us each day. Man shall not live by bread alone but live every day by the Rhema”s that proceed out of God’s mouth. The Rhema that comes out of the mouth God gives us our portion for that day.
Logos is eternal in the heavens, unchanged. The Rhema coming down out of heaven to us personally, it comes through our spirit into our soul, so that we can understand it and act on it. A Rhema is a word that we hear, something that is spoken
Romans 10:17 faith comes by hearing and hearing from the Rhema of Christ.
We cannot hear the Logos, the whole counsel of God. But we can hear the Rhema that brings the portion of God’s counsel that we need at any given moment . And this is how faith comes. We go from faith to faith.
The word of God does not say that faith comes by reading the Bible. Many times we read the Bible and hear nothing. We can read the Bible for an hour and hear nothing. God has to quicken the word so that it becomes a Rhema.
At another time we can read the Bible and suddenly a word or a sentence leaps out at us. That’s it, that’s what God is saying to you right now.
The Holy Spirit will focus our eyes on a verse and it becomes our Rhema for the day. The Rhema is the personal word of God’s voice to us.
Faith comes by hearing the spoken word of God. It all centers around hearing God’s voice. Obey my voice and I will be your God. We have to listen diligently for the voice of the Lord.
There are two different words in the Greek that describe the word of God, Logos and Rhema.
Logos means mind, counsel, reason, it is a comprehensive word. Logos in the Bible is the mind of God, it is the Council of God.
Rhema is God speaking to us in our spirit. Our spirit is the part of us that is conscious of God.
Jesus is the Logos of God. When we receive Jesus as our Lord and Savior, we receive the Logos into our spirit, the mind of Christ.
The kingdom of God is within us, it is within our spirit. Christ is within our spirit the hope of glory. That glory is Christ being fully formed within us.
When we receive Jesus we receive the Logos in seed form. That seed will grow up into a manifested son of God, if we learn how to hear God’s voice and walk in it.
The Holy Spirit takes the Logos and speaks a portion of it, which is called the Rhema of God. And as we walk in that word our spirit begins to grow.
Faith is a fruit of our spirit, and it comes by hearing God’s Rhema, the word that he speaks to our spirit.
Faith comes, if we don’t have it we can get it. There is a process by which faith comes. Usually there is an element of time in hearing. Hearing isn’t usually something that is instantaneous.
We have to get into a certain attitude; we had to come to a certain frame of mind. We can read the Bible or listen to a sermon and it’s just words. But then we settled down into an inner stillness, our mind is at rest. Our busy mental processes are suspended for a moment. We are hearing, now in that hearing faith comes.
We have to cultivate this ability to hear. We have to be open to what God says to us personally, it will be in line with Scripture. But it will be Scripture quicken, made alive, made personal by the Holy Spirit.
The People who learn how to hear God’s voice lead a life that is different from other people. They just can’t be the same anymore.
Mat 4:4 “It is written, ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.’ ”
Man lives by every Rhema, every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. Proceeds are in the continuous voice. Man lives by every word as it proceeds out of the mouth of God.
Hearing God’s voice indicates a direct personal relationship with God. We are in tune with God in the present.
We surrender control of our life, to Jesus the logos, the living Word. We join our spirit with the Lord’s. He then speaks a personal word to us, a Rhema through the Holy Spirit.
The more our spirit grows the easier it is to hear God’s voice. The proceeding (to come forth) word flows out of our spirit into our soul, so that we can understand it. Our spirit is the part of us that is God conscious. Our soul is the part of us that is self-conscious; our body is the part of us that is conscious of the natural world.
We need to cultivate hearing the voice of God. We meditate upon a scripture like-Rom 12: 1 Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.
We meditate until the Holy Spirit quickens the word. This is called getting the word in our spirit, where our spirit becomes conscious of it, then it flows into our mind with a power, it flows into our emotions, and we feel it.
This is called revelation knowledge (epignosis) it is different from just the knowledge (gnosis) that is in our mind by reading the bible. It is hearing God speak to you personally through His word.
It is a penetrating knowledge that comes with the power to obey the word.
It is more intensive than gnṓsis , knowledge, because it expresses a more thorough participation in the acquiring of knowledge on the part of the learner
The word is our sustenance it is our life. As natural bread feeds the natural body the proceeding personal word of God feeds our spirit. It nourishes our spirit.
We need the spiritual food just as much as we need natural food. If we don’t eat natural food we will die. And if we don’t eat spiritual food our spirit will not grow.
To keep our bodies alive we need natural bread. To keep our spirits active, alive and healthy we need the spiritual bread, the voice of the Lord coming to us. Now this comes only through the Holy Spirit.
We are totally dependent upon the Holy Spirit. It is always the Holy Spirit that brings to us in any given situation the Rhema. The Holy Spirit makes the word of God a living voice. The Holy Spirit leads and guides us by the Rhema He gives us.
For all who are being led by the Spirit of God these are sons of God. So what makes us the mature sons of God is being led by the Spirit of God.
There are many different ways in which the Holy Spirit works in our lives. As newborn babies desire the pure milk of the word, but that doesn’t make us mature grown-up sons of God.
How do we become mature grown-up sons? Only by being led by the Holy Spirit, where we have a walk with God.
All who are being led by the Spirit of God they are the sons of God, they are the mature. They are not babies. All who are being continually led, by hearing the voice of God and walking according to it, these are the sons of God who are maturing, who are growing up into the image of God.
It is not something that just happens once or even once a week, not just in church on Sunday. It is something that’s going on all the time in our daily life. It is our daily bread. It is hearing the voice of the Lord through the Holy Spirit that we are being led or directed in our daily lives. When we hear the voice of the Lord we are directed by the Spirit.
When we are led by the Spirit we are always in the right place at the right time. The Holy Spirit leads us, he prompts us go here, or go there and then we meet the person we need to talk to. In order to grow up we have to be led continually by the Holy Spirit. Lord, give us our daily bread!