"One word placed in your heart by Yahweh is more valuable than one thousand [scriptural] words memorised". Academic study of the Bible is very important to Messianics and to not a few Evangelicals. Careful scripture study is indeed very important but there is nothing as important as hearing directly from Yahweh yourself.
"Today, if you will hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, in the day of trial in the wilderness" (Heb.3:7-8, NKJV).
Yesterday we looked at those people who approach prayer as the Baalists in Elijah's day did and noted that the reason for Yahweh's silent response to them was because they were in rebellion. No knowledge of the Scriptures will ever compensate for a rebellious heart.
At the same time we are not to neglect proper and thorough scripture study. Scripture trains our minds to think correctly so that when Yahweh speaks to us directly, we can recognise Who it is. Any revelation we receive from Him never contradicts what He has said before - He will not, for example, ever negate one of His moral or ethical commandments. And if a voice, feeling or impression does, you can immediately know it is from a false source.
Yahweh's voice comes to us in many forms. It's not just a question of finding a quiet time (Ps.46:10) for there will be urgent times when we need to hear Him in the midst of chaos and noise too. His voice does not just come as in the stillness of a meditative period but can be very loud sometimes:
"Have you an arm like Elohim? Or can you thunder with a voice like His?" (Job 40:9, NKJV)
His voice can be heard like lightening!
"He thunders with His majestic voice, and He does not restrain the lightnings when His voice is heard" (Job 37:4, NASU).
There is no timidity in it:
"The voice of Yahweh is powerful; the voice of Yahweh is full of majesty" (Ps.29:4, NKJV).
The masculine side of Elohim is very different from the feminine of the Ruach haQodesh (Holy Spirit)! It is a voice that can crush the opposition when necessary:
"The voice of Yahweh breaks the cedars, yes, Yahweh splinters the cedars of Lebanon" (Ps.29:5, NKJV).
You see, one authentic word from Yahweh to your spirit can extinguish all the consuming fires of sin - it can make a path for you for your deliverance:
"The voice of Yahweh shakes the wilderness; Yahweh shakes the Wilderness of Kadesh" (Ps.29:8, NKJV).
Yah'shua (Jesus) came into the world both to deliver us from sin and to bring us near to Yahweh where His Word is "sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart" (Heb.4:12, NKJV). Do you want this kind of cutting-edge communion with El Elyon, the Most High, as Abraham and the Patriarchs did? Then prepare yourself for such encounters. However, it won't be some kind of wishy-washy New Age 'Nirvana'-type experience - it will shake your being!
Like Elijah on Mount Carmel, you don't need to try and 'force' an experience. You just need to draw close in the simplicity of a child's faith and with a determination and resolve to be obedient to what you hear Him tell you.
Why am I bringing up this topic again? Because, as I have been telling you, we are rapidly moving into a time of great change where such communication with the Most High will be essential both for survival - and for those with greater faith - for prosperity. Remember also that when difficulties and calamities strike those around you that it is both because Yahweh is punishing for sin and His given opportunity to you to become separate - or holy - to Him. He wants you fully apart from the system of death that surrounds you. You can make this a time to get right with Him like no other time.
I realise, of course, that the vast bulk of people - including believers - will disregard this message until the devil is right up at their face with a knife at their throats, because that's just the nature of the carnal man. Hopefully, though, some will have responded beforehand, have started communing with Yahweh, and have received concrete instructions how to save themselves and their families. It is to these few that I am principally addressing my words today. The rest must continue dancing with the devil and pay up with their souls when he demands his legal rights for their sinning at the end of the day.
As you probably discerned long ago, I am gearing up to move. I can sense it in my whole being. Over the past few weeks Yahweh has been getting me to confront any false spiritual authorities that may still be hanging on in my life because a soul that is drawn in more than one direction has no basis for stability and can't be much use to the Creator. We have to decide - finally - to whom we really belong.
I know one or two of you who are following these devotionals are still wondering whether it's possible that God even exists. Though it may very well be getting a little late in the day to be wondering about such an elementary question, I know that for some it is still very important. There have been many contrary motions in the heart that don't always synchronise with the mind. Clearly, if there is no Creator, none of these thoughts or feeling can ultimately have any meaning or purpose, which itself poses as dilemma if I refuse to accept the inevitable of a Divine Creator, since if there isn't one, there can be no purpose in thinking either, which means we can never use thoughts to disbelieve in Him either. If atheism is true, we should, to be consistent, just switch off all life functions...unless, you think, wandering around aimlessly like a checken with its head cut off is lots of fun.
Not that I believe there is such a thing as an atheist, as you know - we just like to pretend we are sometimes so as not to have to face reality. What we really want, and desperately need, actually, is to hear that 'one word' from Him that I spoke of earlier - a word powerful enough to change our inner world.
I realise that there is a great deal of suffering everywhere going on around us. You, the hearer or reader are quite likely one of those who is suffering. In fact, I would be surprised if you are not. If you are, I have a question for you that Michael Wells once asked:
"Did Christ love His Father in Heaven any more when He was on the Mount of Transfiguration, where His disciples beheld His Glory, than He did when He was hanging on a cross at Calvary where He was crucified?" (Michael Wells, Problems, God's Presence, and Prayer: Abiding Life Press, Littleton, CO: 1993, p.56).
Whatever our circumstances may be, surrendering to the will of Yahweh is loving Him in the midst of the bad as well as the good times. In either situation, we can hear Him, know Him, communion with Him, and have concrete direction from Him. Yahweh loved Yah'shua as much on the Mount of Transfiguration as He did on Calvary's Cross and He loves you as much in your struggles and He does in the good times. Struggles are opportunities for growth and deeper communion. Actually, struggle will give the the opportunity to thrive!
We do not totally surrender to Yahweh in order to get a stream of constant blessings because if we expect that, painful circumstances have a way of making those who have this wrong attitude to seize back control of their lives in order to work everything out for themselves. Such then refuse to wait on Him any longer and go their own way, trying to do the impossible - to make sense out of the world and to have a life-purpose that matters in the eternities.
Moreover, don't expect to receive encouragement from others to surrender to Yahweh when trouble comes. Mrs.Job did not support her husband, did she? You are quite simply going to have to go back to Elohim. The only way to maintain peace in the midst of tribulation is to take up your cross in surrender and see how Yah'shua carries you through it to greater strength of character. For choosing the cross is actually choosing Yah'shua, not repeating His Name as some cure-all mantra for blessings from a heavenly dispensing machine.
This is not an easy lesson to learn but is one you will be given ample opportunity to learn in the days ahead. The spiritual man does not see 'good' or 'bad' events but only YAH'SHUA because that is what he is focussed on. The more you do this, the easier the yielding becomes, and along with it the greater the shalom or peace. When this is happening, the self-life is dead or dying as it should be.
Finally, surrender does not require great strength, but merely a yielding to Yahweh's strength and living daily in the awareness and experience of it. That is the "Way" we spoke of yesterday. It isn't the way of the 'Prosperity Gospel' or of the world but it is absolutely the Way of the True Gospel. Are you sure you really want 'truth'? Well, that's the only way you'll ever find it.
Try this on for size. You'll then hear His voice then and won't be disappointed.
Comments from Readers
"Amazing, we are speaking of the same topics today and hearing alike what the Master is giving! Just read and confirmed! Blessings! (RDR, USA, 8 January 2011)
