Heart Journey, 131-135

– Hearing God is a romantic circle where we seek God, God answers or invites and then we respond. 
– Hearing God is an intimate time where we hear with the heart and not just the head. It grows in an atmosphere of love, trust and surrender. We hear God best when we come with a simple desire to please Him no matter what it takes. 
– Hearing God is like a relationship of two lovers that bind themselves to each other with honesty, deep affection and love. 
– Hearing God covers many emotions but it is mostly a relationship of love and longing to spend time together. 
– Hearing God requires patience, persistence and passion. It longs to be one with whom it loves. Patience builds character. Persistence builds strength. Passion builds intimacy. God longs to speak with us. He knows we will make mistakes in hearing He already has all our mistakes covered when we just desire to please Him. 
– Hearing God means that He is more concerned about who we become from hearing Him rather than what we accomplish by hearing Him.
– Hearing God draws us to love Him. Loving Him produces obeying Him. 
– Hearing God means we give up our opinions and desires so that we can show the heart of God to others. 
– Hearing God means we become as little children who desire to love and please their father. 
– Hearing God means we jump in faith, run to God and rest in His love for us. Hearing God means that the message we speak is not ours. 
Hearing God means that we try and try again because that is how we will best learn. Perfection is not the room where we will hear from God. Hunger, humility and love will be where we will find Him and hear Him. We grow in hearing God by overcoming little annoyances that naturally occur in life. 
– A pure heart and a pure life help us to hear God. 
– We hear God and speak it out in the amount of faith He has given us. 
– Hearing God is not for the weak but will make us strong. 
– God knows that we are but dust. In His great kindness to us, He will repeat what He wants us to hear and say it over and over again to us. 

How do we know it is God talking? 
– It will conform to the Bible. 
– It will be spoken with love.
– It will cause others to love or stand in awe of God. 
– It will directly or indirectly exalt the person of Jesus. 
– It will bring gentle conviction or grace to the speaker and or the hearer. 
– It will have authority that will be more than the person who speaks it. 

It will ring as a truth in your heart and spirit over a period of time. It will change the situation for those who hear it. Even during our driest and darkest hour, God is preparing us for the time when we will hear Him even more deeply and clearly. 

We are a people who sadly lack affirmation from God and from each other. God Himself is constantly speaking blessing to us; however, we very rarely speak blessing to each other. 

I would like to take some time to discuss the power of blessing in our lives and how it can be a benefit to us in our walk with Christ. We have many reasons to receive blessings from God and to receive blessings from each other. The first reason is that God did it for us first. The very nature of God is to bless us, for without His blessing we could not survive the wiles of the devil and the temptations of the flesh. 

Let me define blessing as the presence or the influence of God’s favor upon our daily lives. Because God is the author and giver of life, nothing positive can occur in our lives without Him giving it to us. Another reason for us to bless one another is that it makes us more open to the presence of God in our lives. In other words, when we bless in God’s name, it gives His presence to others. (read more)

The reason we are simplifying our lives is to draw closer to the Lord. Then we will have more time for Him in our minds, in our heads and in our spirits. Therefore, it is important that we do not view simplifying our lives as a fad. The Holy Spirit wants to prepare us for more of Himself and more room for the Kingdom in our hearts and in the heads of other people around us. 

It is also important that we look at ourselves as soldiers in a war. When we go to war, we only have the weapons that we need and not a whole pile of extra stuff. God wants us to be well prepared, but He doesn’t want us to be overburdened with excess baggage. When we are in a war, we become lean, tough and mean. That’s the way we need to be to win the war. We do not speak of God being efficient very often, but He is extremely efficient. He is the One who thought of the Word and He is the One who’s the most efficient and focused. I believe God does things very efficiently and very exactly. We need to be willing to cooperate with Him and make as much room as possible for Him. 

I have some principles I would like to share with you on how to simplify your lives. It is important for us to start with the first priority. (read more)

The world’s definition of success is relative to temporary circumstances. God’s definition of success is that we end up living forever with Him! 

The phrase “don’t give up” is important in many ways. It is the key for success in our life. This is also true of our spiritual life. When we fail, then we have been doing things in a negative manner through these three ways: 

1. We give up the hope in God’s love. It is important, not to prescribe to God how He should love us. If we do so, then we will be disappointed and discouraged. This will lead to failure due to mistrust. We should work in God’s plan because He never gives up. If we give up, then we are trouble as Satan will try to discourage and disappoint us. When we are disappointed, then we will fail. However, if we give up, then who will give us the good gifts? (James 1) 

2. We give up the hope in other people. We fail because we give up on those who love us. In the moment that we turn away from them we will slowly lose the power to lead a successful life. 

So, how can we be successful? Trust in God that He holds everything in His hand. Everything that God does is good for us. The one who tries to understand God will lose Him; the one who loves God will win Him. Our believing God and loving God leads to success. Our ego [pride] separates us from God and others and leads us to failure. (read more)

Being beloved is actually a lifestyle that comes from being intimate with God. When you say you are someone’s beloved, you are intimate with them. You don’t see your beloved once every ten years. You think about your beloved, you want to spend time with your beloved, and you long for your beloved. All these are qualities of an intimate relationship. Being beloved is learning to be intimate with God. That is why we need to learn how to be God’s beloved and have belovedness (this is a Michael word that is probably not in Webster’s dictionary). 

Part of being beloved means that God wants to have an intimate relationship with us. We need to know how God looks at us. God does not have a big scale and say the right stuff outweighs the bad stuff. He already decided to take out the bad stuff when Jesus died for us on the cross. We are beloved because Jesus died on the cross. Jesus was the beloved of the Father and because He died for us, we are God’s beloved, not because we are so good. Only our relationship to Jesus can do that for us. 

Now the Father sees all of us as being His beloved because He looks at us as He does His son Jesus. Jesus is beloved to God and so are we when we repent of our sins. Jesus is our righteousness, and our holiness because He is our righteous because He died to pay the penalty of sin for us. 

How does God see us from His heart? This is a condition of intimacy because God has a heart relationship with us. God loves us with His heart and not just His head, and we are beloved because His heart is toward us. (read more)

“Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Bible Publishers. Quotations and/or reprints in excess of one thousand verses, or other permission requests must be directed and approved in writing by Zondervan Bible Publishers.” All verses are NIV except those that are otherwise noted.