Part 2: Hearing from God (Part 2 of 3)

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Real life presents the Jack Hibbs podcast with intention and boldness to proclaim truth, equip the saints, and impact our culture. Listen, we're talking about the voice of God and now we're talking about hearing from God. Do you have ears to hear what the spirit of God is saying to you? We're gonna find out in just a moment. You can get the outlines of this podcast by going to jackhibbs.com/podcast. Today, if this podcast lifts you up and encourages you to live a more fulfilled life in Christ, then make sure you leave us one of those five star ratings. To us, that's like saying, amen or yes, then that rating will encourage others to listen. Now open your hearts to what God's word has to say to you. Here is Jack Hibbs. Alright. So here we are talking about, in fact, last time together, we saw and I don't know if you viewed it or not. It'd it'd probably be better if you viewed the first installment of this where we talked about How do we hear the voice of God? How was that discerned? We talked about his voice. How does he speak to us? That was in our first episode. So now we're following up with hearing or ears. So we've got the voice of God. And secondly, in this installment, we're talking about the ears. Not the ears of God. Your ears, my ears.

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It's amazing to me how often Jesus announced in scripture to the churches, to the seven letters to the seven churches, he who has ears to hear let him hear what the spirit is saying to the churches. And that's not just limited by the way to the seven letters of the seven churches. It's often challenged when Jesus in the gospels would say things like this. If you can handle this, this is what was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah sane. Or he would reference Jeremiah or Moses, what was Jesus doing? He was saying, can you hear me? Are you listening? So here's the funny thing about spirituality. It's completely irrelevant our fleshly ears. Obviously. I mean, in the technical scheme of things, your ears matter in the sense that they process, the sound waves that are being spoken, but here's the beautiful thing about what god does when he speaks and how we can hear, is that we begin to nurture, not our ears To hear from God, we nurture a heart to hear from God. So I'm gonna paint this corny picture, but it's gonna help you remember. Imagine your heart right now from this time forward having ears on it. Your heart has ears. And so how does your heart here. So again, Jesus warned us, be careful. Two things he said, by the way, in the in the gospels. Be careful. What you hear? And he said, be careful, how you hear? This is great. So how do we nurture a hearing heart. And that is something that is going to be I think really difficult for us, not because God made it difficult. It's because we've made it difficult. And that is what we need to discipline ourselves to be able to receive. Stuffed for us. We have got to get into the habit of watch. In fact, I'll just do I'll just do it now unscripted. Like this. This is how we hear. And by the way, this is Bible Ruelette. I didn't I didn't know. I don't know where I'm at right now even. This is Psalm fourteen.

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The fool has said in his heart there is no God. They are corrupt. They have done abominable works. There is none who does good. So this is how I hear from God.

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Lord, Speak to me about what's being said in this portion of scripture. The fool has said in his heart. Interesting. The fool has said in his heart. That just backs up what I said a moment ago. The heart can hear. The conversation is internal. It's the spiritual part of who you are. You're processing this.

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The fool has said in his heart. It means there's a lot of communication taking place in the realm of the heart. So there's voices in there. The fool is speaking, but I just read that in the bible. Me, now we together. So the bible's telling me the fool has said in his art.

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So the place of listening is the heart. So for my heart to listen, it's gotta be open. It's gotta be tender. It's got to be tenderized, meaning, I need to discipline my heart to hear. I need to get away from the narrative. From the noise of this world. And this is what almost seems impossible for us. Stop with the TV. Stop with the streaming. Stop with the radio. Stop with the other broadcast. Turn them off. Get alone. Do what you must. Listen, I guess, today, I mean, I know.

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I I have a pair of these ear pods where you can squeeze them and they they have noise cancelling characteristics to and everything goes quiet. Somebody invented that for a reason. Think about the guy that invented it or the bose, you know, the head headset to noise counts canceling capabilities. Why was that important to somebody who invented that? Because they use the word noise and they use the word canceling. Why? Gotta get quiet.

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And so for us when we wanna hear from god in our hearts when god is speaking, we need to put our place on the frequency. Of what God or where God is communicated. The frequency is so important. You know what I mean by frequency, like dialing into that channel? I know you on Peter one. What are you talking about? You know you press the button or whatever it is, the the preset frequency. Broadcasting, at, you know, at one zero seven point nine. Well, that's how the radio systems work and other things work.

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But what about your heart? You've got to dial in your heart to a place where it's quiet. And you determine, I'm gonna hear from him. And I believe what I'm about to tell you. Now look, this is one reporter's opinion. It works for me, but I have to put my place, listen, in the attitude of hearing. So I have to engage the spirit of who I am, my mind, I'll use that, my soul. Lord, I wanna hear from you.

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Some people might say meditation. Some people might say contemplation. I don't care what they're talking about, whatever they do, they do. I'm talking about you and I exercising the discipline to here. And in that discipline is an automatic prayer life, but automatic Lord speak to me. What is it that you want me to hear regarding this issue or moving forward or for today? God, before the sun comes up, before the phone starts ringing, before things start happening, what is it that you want me to hear?

0:07:51
Now if you were with me last week, you know that when God speaks, he uses the Word of God. So when I open up the Word of God to hear him speak, I am immediately making a grand assumption that when he's going to speak from the word, my heart's got to be listening. Say Jack give me an example of when I'm not listening. It's very simple. Have you ever read a portion of scripture, could be a verse, could be a paragraph, could be a chapter, and if you stop You can't even you can't even If I were to ask you, what did you just read, you'd go? You read it, but you weren't listening. Were you? You heard your voice. Maybe you were reading out loud. You heard your voice, but you can't tell me what you just read. You wanna know why? Your heart didn't have its ears on. So your heart's gotta have the ears to hear what the spirit is saying.

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The spirit of God, listen, Jesus promised this. It's so simple. The spirit of God will speak the word. Jesus said there's a lot more guys I wanna tell you, but you're not able to bear it. I'm gonna go away to heaven. And when I leave, I'm gonna send the holy spirit to you. He will bring all things to your remembrance, and he will speak to you things. That right now you're not able to bear. He's gonna talk to you. And so by the way, that is the new testament. That's what he put into print. The thing is this to to hear God's voice is to nurture a heart of listening. So friends from this time on, from this time forward.

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What you really really what you must do is discipline yourself starting today to have time with God. Listen to where you sit with everything off, with with listen. Get everything away. And just, Lord, what what is it that you'd like to say? And I'm gonna tell you right now that is one of the hardest things in the world to do. Because you're gonna drive yourself crazy at first. It's almost like detox. You're gonna think, okay, Lord, just speak me and your mind is gonna be swirling with your car needing servicing, what's for dinner, You know, did I mow the lawn? You didn't even have a lawn? Your mind's gonna go all over the place. Let it go. Just let's get that vamed it out. Purgit detox the concerns. Get them out there. Clear the slate. By the way, this is a great time to do this is worship.

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Now, I don't have a voice. I wish I did. I don't. I when God blessed, he left me out of that loop. But I don't care because nobody's with me in this moment. I'm alone. So I will begin to sing him praisees, and I might even speak to him and make a prayer or a request in a song to him, and I'm not gonna rehearse it, so don't even think I'm gonna try. That's between him and I. It's personal. That helps clear the webs out of the way. The get my heart then secondly begins to become more still, more calm. Few things pop up, get those out of the way.

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Lord, I'm waiting on you. Think about it. If you say Jack, I I don't need to listen podcast. Well, let me ask you this question before you turn it off. When's the last time you waited on the Lord? Because we're commanded to wait on the Lord? See how bad you need this podcast? Exactly. We all need to wait on the lord.

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And as we sit and be still, the bible tells us, be still. And know that I am god. I will be exalted among the nations. I will be exalted in the earth. And that word be still and know in Hebrew is Yada. Y a d a. Yada. Be still and here's the definition. Here's the meaning of the word. Be still and discover my will in that situation you're in. That's what Yada means. Be still and discover me in the moments, discover me in that situation. So we're called to be still so that we might hear and listen to what he's saying. That is a matter of the heart. Far too many of us as Christians have not taken the time to nurture our hearts to hear. And so we don't do that. So we think we're hearing because we're busy. Or there's a lot of people talking to us. So friends, listen.

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Before I wrap this up, keep this in mind. It's highly suspect if you're hearing from God unless you have a disciplined alone time with God. So you're asking the question, is there a husband out there for you or a wife out there for you that God has? I don't know. Why don't you find out? Oh, yeah. Yeah. I'm going to the singles group. That's not what I said. Ask him. Talk to him about that. Well, I'm not I'm not fulfilled in my job, and I'm wondering if I should change jobs Don't ask people that. Ask him that. Get alone. Get still. Listen to what he says, you're gonna be shocked by the way. You're gonna be blown away.

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I have discovered God's not all that concerned about the money part of things. He's well able to pay your bills. He's more concerned about you fulfilling the call that's upon your life. Feeding the kids in the home, in the car, in the those are those are things that he'll take care of. Matthew six thirty three says seek first the kingdom of God, and he'll take care of all these other things that they'll he himself will add to you.

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So friends listen, ending now with this. Pursue God for this request. God put ears on my heart. I wanna discipline my life to be able to hear from you. And friends listen. This little insight for us personal. People will come to me often I get phone calls and people will come and visit or they'll put me on a speaker's lineup at a conference Oh, Jack's gonna speak to us about courage. He's gonna talk to us about being courageous.

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Every time I hear that, I want you to know personally, I cringe. I just cringe because I don't have any of that stuff. But if I hear god's voice speaking to me about something, it becomes like an iron or steel rod in my spine. It's not, you know, courage is the management of fear. Did you know that? That's a courageous. It doesn't mean people who are courageous have no fear. It means that people who are courageous know how to manage fear. I'm not to manage fear. I don't know how to do that. But my god knows how to speak.

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And if he says, God if he's a god who speaks, then it's up to me to figure out how to listen. And if I hear from him, when he says it, I'm gonna know it. It's gonna align one hundred percent with the bible, and it doesn't matter what anybody says to me. We hate you. Doesn't matter. We love you. Doesn't matter. You're gonna get in trouble with the Governor are with the pope or I don't care.

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God said it. Do you understand that? It's so wonderful to live like that. God said it. I don't need to worry about anything else. Is it God's word? Did he remit did he reveal that and make it clear from the word? That's what he spoke to me. That's what I spoke to you, Jack. Well then, let's move forward. I don't have to understand everything. He said it. Let's do it.

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And then the final thing is once he has spoken because he's a god with a voice, and our ears are able to hear when at the heart, then the next thing is, what do we voice? What do we say? And that's next time in our third installment. So listen. Tell everybody about joining us. We encourage you. Obviously, you're here at jackhibbs.com, but tell other people, invite them. So we end here. It's time for you to live out what you believe in. It's time for real life and until next time. Just be bold for Jesus. Stay in the word. This Jack Hibbs podcast is well as all the broadcast outreach opportunities are listener supported. Will you consider partnering with us through a special gift? Go to jackhibbs.com to learn more and stay connected.