Hearing God's Voice

2 Samuel 22:14

The Lord thundered from heaven, and the Most High uttered His voice.



The Bible makes is very clear that God speaks. I know that sometimes when I say to people that God spoke to me, they look at me like I am crazy. I believe that God does communicate with His people. No, I have never heard God audibly, but God speaks by His Word through the Holy Spirit, God speaks through others through the Holy Spirit, and God speaks through circumstances through the Holy Spirit. But the bottom line is God does speak.



Psalm 29:3-4

The voice of the Lord is over the waters; the God of glory thunders, the Lord, over many waters. The voice of the Lord is powerful; the voice of the Lord is full of majesty.



God speaks with power. Creation was done by God speaking. The power of God’s voice accomplished creating all that was created.



Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is experiencing the power of God as He speaks.



Numbers 8:3-4

Aaron did just that. He installed the lamps so they threw light in front of the Lampstand, as God instructed Moses. The Lampstand was made of hammered gold from its stem to its petals. It was made precisely to the design God had shown Moses.



God speaks precisely. What God says is clear and understandable.



Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is hearing God’s voice and knowing it is God and understanding what He says.  



Hebrews 4:12

For the Word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.



God speaks in a penetrating manner.



God does not speak just to speak; He speaks with purpose. God speaks to transform people’s lives.



Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is allowing God’s word to change our lives.



How do we respond when God speaks?



Luke 1:38

And Mary said, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.”



We respond in obedience



Genesis 6:22

Noah did this; he did all that God commanded him.



We respond in trust.



James 4:7

Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.



We respond in surrender.



1 Peter 5:6-7

Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time He may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on Him, because He cares for you.



We respond in humility.



Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is responding in obedience when God speaks to us, fully trusting Him and surrendering in humility to His will.



Hebrews 3:7-8 encourages us that, when we hear God’s voice, we do not harden our hearts. God will never tell us something that is not true or that is not the best for us. So, trust God, hear His voice and obey all that He tells us. When we do that, we will experience the full blessings of God.



Hearing God’s Voice and Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls,

                                             Joe

God is the God Who Speaks

Hebrews 1:1-2

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 He created the world.



God is the God who speaks to His people. God communicates. God does not just speak to be speaking, God also always speaks with a purpose. He speaks to reveal Himself, His purpose, and His ways.



How do we hear God’s voice?



His voice will always be consistent with His Word.



Throughout the Scripture, hearing God’s voice is synonymous with obeying His Word. This hearing is not a function of the ears but a willing response from our heart. God speaks to our heart which is the seat of our will.



Luke 8:21

Jesus replied, “My mother and My brothers are all those who hear God’s Word and obey it.”



Those who belong to Jesus are those who hear and obey God’s Word.



Hebrews 3:7-8

Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, “Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as in the wilderness.”



The writer is reminding the people to obey when they hear God’s voice and not to harden their hearts or will as did their forefathers.



Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is hearing God’s voice through His Word and obeying it.



God’s voice is received and applied by the Holy Spirit



1 Corinthians 2:9-12

But as it is written: “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, not have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.” But God revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of God? For what man knows the things of man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God.



We will not hear God’s voice by human reasoning, but only by the Holy Spirit revealing God’s Word to us.



Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is receiving God’s Word through the Spirit and being empowered to obey His Word by the Spirit.



God’s voice is comprehended and confirmed among the community of faith, the church.



Acts 13:2

While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for Me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.”



We as American Christians tend to see Christianity as individual, but the Bible reveals that Christianity is about community. God speaks to us as individuals, but He also speaks to us as the ecclesia, the gathering of the called-out ones. God’s voice is made clearer and confirmed in the community of faith.



Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is do life together as the family of God and, in doing life together, to hear His voice more clearly.



God does not speak in an audible voice, but He does speak to His people by His Word through the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit. Our job is to listen and obey.



1 Samuel 15:22

But Samuel replied, “What is more pleasing to the Lord: your burnt offerings and sacrifices or your obedience to His voice? Listen! Obedience is better than sacrifice, and submission is better than offering the fat of rams.” 

Listening to and Obeying God’s Voice

by Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls,

Joe

God Chooses the Ordinary

There are many things about God that I love and many things about God that I am in awe of. I want to mention two today and yes, they are related.  



I have a gift that many would see as a curse. My gift is that I am ordinary. I didn’t say I am normal because I am constantly being told that I am not normal. But I am ordinary. I don’t have extraordinary talents or abilities. I am not famous. I don’t have great material wealth. I am not related to or connected with anyone who is famous or wealthy. I see being ordinary as a gift because all that God has done in and through me and all that God will do in and through me, He can do through anyone who will let Him.



One of the things about God that I love and am in awe of is that He chooses and uses the ordinary.



God used ordinary people like:

Moses

David

Peter

Timothy

Amos



God also chose and used a man named Gideon.



Judges 6:11-16

Now the angel of the Lord came and sat under the terebinth at Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, while his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the winepress to hide it from the Midianites. And the angel of the Lord appeared to him and said to him, “The Lord is with you, O mighty man of valor.” And Gideon said to him, “Please, my lord, if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all His wonderful deeds that our fathers recounted to us, saying ‘Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the Lord has forsaken us and given us into the hand of Midian.” And the Lord turned to him and said, “Go in this might of yours and save Israel from the hand of Midian; do not I send you?” And he said to him, “Please, Lord, how can I save Israel? Behold, my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house.” And the Lord said to him, “But I will be with you, and you shall strike the Midianites as one man.”



God chooses Gideon to deliver Israel out of the opposition from the Midianites.



Gideon saw himself as

Weak

Unqualified

Insignificant

A Nothing



Gideon was basing that on who the world identified him as. Who the world told Gideon he was is not who God said he was.



God said that Gideon was:

Mighty

A Man of Valor

A Man that God Was With

Equipped By God



Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is believing what God says about us, not what the world says about us.



Gideon was angry and disappointed with God because God was not doing what Gideon thought He should. God was waiting to use Gideon to deliver His people. Gideon saw himself as someone that God could not use. God saw Gideon as just the kind of person that He wanted to use.



The ability for God to use Gideon was centered in God, not Gideon. When Gideon believed what God said about him and about how God would use him then Gideon obeyed and God used him.



Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is believing who God is and who He says we are.



The second thing I love about God and am in awe of is the broken- heartedness of Jesus when He sees the hurt of people and the unbelief of people.



John 11:35

Jesus wept.



Jesus was weeping over the pain and grief of people that He loved. Jesus knew that He was going to raise Lazarus back to life, but He wept over the pain He saw in Martha and Mary.



Jesus identifies with His people’s pain and hurt. He does not dismiss it or see it as insignificant. He hurts with us.



Raise the Roof and Remove the Roof is knowing and experiencing God walking through everything in life with us.



Luke 19:41-42

And when He drew near and saw the city, He wept over it, saying, “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.”



As Jesus enters Jerusalem the last week of His earthly life. He looks at the city and weeps over the fact that they will reject Him. He weeps that the peace He could bring into their lives they will not receive. Jesus’ reaction to sin is not anger but broken-heartedness.



Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is feeling the broken-heartedness of Jesus when we see people rejecting Jesus.



God choosing ordinary people and being broken-hearted over people who reject him are related. When God chooses us to use for His awesome purposes and we say no, it breaks God’s heart. None of us is qualified in our own goodness or ability to be chosen by God to be saved or serve Him, but when God chooses us, it qualified us. When we say yes to God, it brings Him great joy.        



By God’s Choice Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls,

                                         Joe

Our Abba

How do you view God? In my childhood I saw God as someone who was distant and harsh. In my youth years God was a figure at the very edges of my life. In my early adult years God was present and important but not intimate. That all changed when I was about thirty years old. God moved from just being Lord, Savior, All-Power, All-Knowing, and Creator to being All-Loving and my Abba.



In Mark 14:36 Jesus refers to God as Abba. Abba is an intimate term for father. It is the name that a son or daughter would call their father and something only they would call him.



You may be thinking what I used to think, that God the Father was Jesus’ Abba. Jesus could know Him that way because He was Jesus, but that cannot be true of me or you.



Paul in Romans 8:15 says, “For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’”



Also, in Galatians 4:6 Paul says, “And because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’”  



Not only is God the Father Jesus’ Abba, He can be the Abba of every follower of Jesus.



God being our Abba means that God is our Provider.



Philippians 4:13

I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.



Our Abba has all that we need and He gives us all that we need.



Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is looking to and receive all we need from our Abba.



God being our Abba means that God is our Protector.



Exodus 14:14

The Lord will fight for you, and you only have to be silent.



Many of the things that come against us and threaten to destroy us are too big and powerful for us to handle. God is bigger and more powerful than anything we will face in life, and He will fight and protect us.



Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is trusting God to fight for us and protect us as our Abba.



God being our Abba means that God will never abandon us.



Hebrews 13:5

God says, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”



Many people in our lives leave us. Some choose to leave us and some by circumstances have to leave us. God promises to never leave us or forsake us. He will never abandon us; He will not even ignore us.



Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is knowing we will experience the presence of God continual for eternity.



God being our Abba means that God will love us and not let anything separate us from His love.



Jeremiah 31:3

The Lord appeared to him from far away. I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you.



God loves us with a love that will never end.

God loves us with a love that will not ever wafer.

God loves us with a love that is not based on how we behave.



Romans 8:38-39

For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angles nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.



God loves us with a love no spiritual authority can separate us from.

God loves us with a love no physical authority can separate us from.

God loves us with a love no time or distant can separate us from.



Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is experiencing the love of God and knowing nothing will be able to separate us from His love.



God is our Abba, our Dad, our Daddy, our Pops. He wants to put His arms around us and love us and for us to truly experience His provision, His protection, His presence, and His love.



Experiencing God as Our Abba Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls,

                                                    Joe