I can’t help but to wonder if so many people who seem to be saying such very different things might really all be talking about the exact same things. This is something that Frank Viola touches on in a recent post over at his blog. It’s a great article which kind of helps to sort out and make sense of the confusion which can take place in the midst of an otherwise healthy diversity. Please check it out!!

In a sense, this is also what the Lord has put on my heart to share here and now.

“Hearing the voice of the Lord”.

Now for some this is a very simple matter. It is a matter of going to church and hearing what the pastor or teacher is saying to them. It’s a message which has been given to one or two folks who, in turn, give that message to the masses.

Is there a biblical example of that?

Sure. There are numerous biblical examples of that from the earliest texts of the old testament straight on through much of the new testament.

When these people spoke, they were to deliver the message that God gave them to deliver. Nothing more, nothing less. And what was that message? Well, while it seemed to take different shapes over the span of time, all in all it has more or less been “The Kingdom of God”.

For a very insightful look into what this message is, I encourage you to take a look at this series of messages over at brother Jerald Hill’s web journal where he is posting the teachings of brother John Brown, a gifted teacher of the scriptures who can be found sharing (regularly?) at New River Community Church in Douglasville, Ga.

This church-place is where you can also find Pasture Scott Mitchell  and others sharing the Lord among a most loving group of believers who certainly seem to be on a journey to discover all that the Lord Jesus has for them.

My family and I have been to visit New River a couple of times as I have been in virtual conversations with a couple of folks there for quite some time. It was good to meet in person, some of the warm and loving people that I have only known via the blogosphere and email (and good, also, to see a few folks that I actually have met in person before, too)!

During one visit, after the message was given, the congregation was asked to come up and give testimony of what the Lord has been doing in their (our) lives.

One dear sister shared how the Lord had totally healed a relative of brain cancer which consequently contributed to the doctor recieving Christ as his Savior, and another shared how one of her relatives was protected by a riddling of bullets from an automatic weapon in Afganistan,… Matrix style!!!

Praise the Lord!

I love hearing about that kind of stuff!!!!

(You shoulda been there Scotty!)

Again, I was deeply encouraged how, after the services, the congregation was asked to share. This is such a vital matter for the body of Christ and something that more and more sincere believers are beginning to recover in their own church practices.

And that last sentence brings us back to the thought of this post; the voice of the Lord.

Did I hear it while I was at New River? Well sure. The Lord said to me,

 ”Johnny, the law cannot do anything for you other than reveal your weakness and imperfection. Only I can live the Christian life. By the way if you need a reminder as to how good and faithful I Am, let me tell you what I did for these folks who were in trouble, these folks who needed me when they weren’t capable of fixing or protecting themselves…”

Pretty impressive, eh? That I could hear the Lord say all of that to me at an “institutional” church, no less!!

I didn’t tell you how I heard His voice though,… did I?

It was from a preacher.

  “Surprise!” 

It was from a member of the Body of Christ, a man who was not only willing, but prepared to share what the Lord was speaking to his heart. And you know what? I believe that the body was edified. I was.

Not only that, but the Lord also revealed Himself to me through the music, the fellowship and the testimonies shared at the end of the meeting. (You probably wouldn’t believe me if I were to tell some of the different ways that the Lord has spoken to me.)

So, yeah…the Lord does still ’speak’!

Does He speak in other ways?

 Certainly. I would be willing to go so far as to say that His expressions can be as diverse and varied as are His people. And then some.

 Not only that, but I believe that we all need to come into ‘the more’ of what the Lord Jesus would have for us including a more pure apprehension of this reality.

Does He personally use an audible voice?

 Not with me, He hasn’t (not unless it’s by using someone elses’). But He has spoken to me just as clearly in my own spirit as any human voice could speak into my ear.

Does He always speak?

Hmm. Now that’s a good question.

I would say, “Not necessarily”.

Why not? Because He has already spoken:

Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world….

Now don’t think that I have just contradicted myself, because I really haven’t. You see, nothing that God has to say to mankind hasn’t already been said by Jesus Christ and yet His Word is living and active and shall reverberate truthfully through all time.

 You see, much of what He had to say was this:

“YOU NEED ME. I AM YOUR ONLY HOPE.”

I’m not only talking about ’salvation’ here. I’m talking about ‘Lordship’ as well.

Something that we need to get a better grip of is that YHWH is salvation (that’s actually what the name ‘Jesus’ means) and everything else that we will ever need.

Unfortunately when so many of us hear words like authority, reign, lordship…., we can’t help but to immediately imagine our earthly types of authority and rule. Ideas like “Play ball or get beat with the bat”  kind of ‘government’, or images of stone faced rigid dictators who are always but an inch away from declaring war on any person, tribe, or nation who might disagree with their principles or practices.

But when Jesus was asked about authority, he seemed to redefine it, to present it in a way which just didn’t make sense to even His closest followers:

Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

But he that is greatest among you shall be your servant.

And check out this passage!: 

 

 

And James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came up to him and said to him, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” And he said to them, “What do you want me to do for you?” And they said to him, “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.”

 Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?” And they said to him, “We are able.” And Jesus said to them, “The cup that I drink you will drink, and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized, but to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared.”

 And when the ten heard it, they began to be indignant at James and John. And Jesus called them to him and said to them,

 “You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” 

 

Wow! So the ways of ‘authority’ that us gentiles are so familiar with are not the same as Jesus’ concepts of authority at all. Quite the opposite, in fact!

So what does this have to do with hearing the voice of the Lord again???

Oh…

Yeah…., right.. 

The connection, I believe, is in the fact that we don’t really need people ‘lording over us’ to tell us what to do, how to think or even what to believe. We need the Lord.

We need Christ in us to express Himself naturally and organically, rather than bible studies and sing-alongs (not that those things aren’t beneficial in some ways).  

This is not to say that we do not need encouragement, or admonishment, or sometimes even ‘rebuke’!Contrarywise, we desperately need all of those things, but we need them in the context of brother/sisterhood not an atmosphere of authority/subservient.

What says the scripture?:

“Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion,
on the day of testing in the wilderness,
where your fathers put me to the test
and saw my works for forty years.
Therefore I was provoked with that generation,
and said, ‘They always go astray in their heart;
they have not known my ways.’
As I swore in my wrath,
‘They shall not enter my rest.’”

Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end.As it is said,“Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.”

What are His ways? It is the way of the cross, the way of doing only what we see Father doing, the way of seeing and doing what Jesus does.

Given enough time, in authentic community life, all will realize who ‘the least’ are, but it will be a very natural and undeniable recognition, and they will be examples to follow as opposed to instructors to obey.

Totally different.

In the church, we do not need to sit above (or below) others in a ‘trickle down’ method of spiritual guidance. It has already trickled!!

It went from God to Jesus to us in Spirit.

What we need from one another is HIM. How do we access that? 

Mutual submission.

I’m not saying that we ought not recognize and honor those who are more mature in the Lord than we are, but I am saying that such maturity ought not be manifest a way which “Lords over” anyone.

“Love one another” is the mighty exhortation that we hear from God!

Therefore, brothers,  since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.

 Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.

What we just read could be considered to be an insight as to how the voice of the Lord is heard. By our consideration of how to stir one another up to love and good works, spending time together in frequent, meaningful encouragement. That, my friends, requires your participation!

You see, our God is a LIVING GOD. He is not simply a ’sitting’ God!!!!

Consider these words from Paul:

Now concerning  spiritual gifts,  brothers,  I do not want you to be uninformed. You know that when you were pagans you were led astray to mute idols, however you were led.

Before these brothers and sisters came to Christ, they served mute idols; “gods” which did not speak!!

They were led by idols who had no voice!!

I suggest to you that we are created in the image of our God, and that the God that we serve is living, active and vocal!

As He is, so shall we be!!

Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking in the Spirit of God ever says “Jesus is accursed!” and no one can say “Jesus is Lord” except in the Holy Spirit.

Now I certainly do not wish to make things mechanical for us, but surely we can take that last bit of scripture and verify that if we can proclaim nothing else in a church meeting, we may proclaim that JESUS IS LORD!!

Now let me jump down the letter a bit…

Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills.

For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.

All that I can say here is WOW!

There is so much that we could take away from just this little snippet of holy writ, but I’ll let you just baste in it at your convenience.

And now for one of my favorite passages in this entire letter:

What then, brothers? When you come together, each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation. Let all things be done for building up. If any speak in a tongue, let there be only two or at most three, and each in turn, and let someone interpret. But if there is no one to interpret, let each of them keep silent in church and speak to himself and to God. Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others weigh what is said. If a revelation is made to another sitting there, let the first be silent. For you can all prophesy one by one, so that all may learn and all be encouraged, and the spirits of prophets are subject to prophets. For God is not a God of confusion but of peace.

Considering all of the scripture that I have used in this single post, I think that it is sufficient to say that the Lord requires all of His members to fully express Himself. Not only that, but it is just the nature of God Himself to be a Person of freedom, a Person who desires to express Himself, a Person who just cannot and will not sit still for very long.

Our God is One whom reveals Himself in a vast plurality of ways, one of which IS YOU, if so be that the Spirit of God is in you…. and He does so for the benefit and sake of the whole Body of Christ, and for the sake of that Body being added to and expanded upon the earth!!!

May we all learn to hear His voice when He speaks through His members, and may we all be courageous enough to express what He speaks to our own hearts.

AMEN!!!!