HEARING GOD'S VOICE

HEARING GOD’S VOICE

                The old man said to his wife, “You gotta turn up your hearing aid Ethyl. I didn’t say I’ve got a hot mama, I said I’ve got a heart murmur.”

                Well, we need to turn up our hearing aids in these last days as well. Many Christians are like the children of Israel. They came out of Egypt. They were baptized in the Red Sea. They came to Mount Sinai where God wanted to speak to them from the fire, thus writing His law on their hearts. But they refused to hear God for themselves and so they sent Moses up to be their mediator. So Moses got the real thing as he went up into the fire and into the presence of God, but the children of Israel received only a law, written in negative terms and written on stone.

                Instead of dwelling in their hearts, God had Moses build them a sanctuary where God could dwell. The Law now hidden in the ark of the covenant inside the Most Holy Place where only the High Priest could enter once a year to atone for Israel’s sins with the blood of animals.

                So when Jesus came into the world He fulfilled the Mosaic Law both in letter and in spirit, but even as He was doing that, He was preparing and training His disciples to operate in the New Covenant. So when Jesus said to His disciples, “A new commandment I give to you,” He was not talking about the Law of Moses… and when He said, “If you love me you will keep My commandments,” He was not talking about the Law of Moses. We miss the dynamics mainly because the English language has only one word for Love, whereas the Greek has three words.

                Eros related to sexual attraction and physical love. Phileo was related to brotherly love based on the Law. Phileo is the kind of love we teach our kids… being fair to each other, sharing their toys, and of course as adults we learn to treat each other justly and fairly and we even feel love for one another and treat each other according to the golden rule. This love is genuine and it is a love that will never break the Law for the Law is based upon love for God and love for each other.  So true love will not steal, kill, lie, or commit adultery with someone else’s wife and love for God will make sure that we don’t worship other gods, or take His name in vain.

                But this is Phileo love and it is the best that the Law can produce and we need this kind of love for one another, but in His statements to His disciples Jesus was calling them to a kind of love that the Old Covenant Law could not produce.

                Jesus said, “A new commandment I give to you that you Agape one another even as I have shown Agape love for you.”  John 13:34. This Agape love is the kind of love that Jesus demonstrated on Calvary even as He forgave those who were nailing Him to the cross and jeering and mocking Him. Agape love is unconditional love that is not based on feelings, (either Eros or Phileo) It is the kind of love that reconciles us to God even while we are yet sinners and it is this kind of love that Jesus was calling His disciples into.

                But if we are to live in Agape love, we need to rise above the Law of Moses, for the Law of Moses cannot produce anything higher than Phileo. Agape love requires a New Covenant and a new priesthood. It requires a change of Law also just as it says in Hebrews 7:12

                Because we don’t fully understand the dynamics of the New Covenant we tend to hang out mostly in the Old Covenant and we live largely in the realm of Phileo love in the church. We are therefore satisfied with the level of Holy Spirit we receive when we receive Jesus as Savior and Lord. This Holy Spirit quickens our spirit and makes us into new creatures and saves us. (This is justification.)Jesus breathed on His disciples and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit and they did, but after His death and resurrection, Jesus told them to tarry in Jerusalem until they had received power. (Power for what?

                Now whereas Pentecost celebrates the giving of the Law on Mt. Sinai according to the Jews, it also represents the giving of the New Covenant … a new Law and a new High Priesthood and we are told that it is not like the first covenant, for Hebrews tells us that we have not come to Mt. Sinai and to the flame of fire and smoke that even left Moses full of fear and trembling, but it says: “But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem and to myriads of angels to the general assembly and church of the first-born who are enrolled in heaven and to God the judge of all and to the spirits o of righteous men made perfect and to Jesus, the Mediator of a New Covenant and to the sprinkled blood which speaks better than the blood of Abel.” Heb. 12:22-24

                What Jesus is looking for in His people under the New Covenant is Agape love… unconditional and principled. It is a love that reaches beyond the self to the needs of others. In fact if we had this

Agape love we would be crying out for all of the gifts of the Spirit that were poured out at Pentecost because these are the gifts that were poured out in order to facilitate Agape love, that is “To loosen the bonds of wickedness, to undo the bands of the yoke and to let the oppressed go free, and break every yoke? Is it not to divide your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into the house; when you see the naked, to cover him; and not hide yourself from your own flesh? Then your light will break out like the dawn and your recovery will spring forth; and your righteousness will go before you;  The glory of the Lord will be your rear guard. Then you will call and the Lord will answer; You will cry and He will say, “Here am I.” Isa. 58:6-9.

                Do we want to see our prayers answered more directly? Well then, we need to operate in Agape, the true and unconditional love of God. But most Christians are still fumbling around in Eros and struggling with Phileo… finding it difficult to forgive one another let alone love them unconditionally .

                The gifts of the Spirit are given to minister to others, to feed, to heal, to cast out demons, to prophesy to them, to discern the spirit behind things. They are listed in 1 Cor. 12: 7-11 All of the gifts of the Spirit listed here are for the blessing of others. The only gift that is given for the edifying of self is the gift of tongues, but even the gift of tongues is for the building up of our own spirit so that we will have power to minister to others. In other words, we can’t give to others that which we do not have ourselves. So we” build up our most holy faith praying in the Spirit” Jude 20. (See  also 1 Cor. 14:2,13-15,18,22,26.)

                If we want to be overcomers as Jesus describes them in His messages to the 7 churches, we need to learn to live in Agape love.

                John baptized with a baptism of repentance and we indeed need to pass through that baptism, but we must move on to the baptism of Jesus which is the baptism of the Holy Spirit and fire. This promise Jesus fulfilled on the day of Pentecost and yet, how many Christians today eschew the gifts, trading the living dynamic life of the Holy Spirit for intellectualism, institutionalism and creeds… all of which are manmade rather than Spirit breathed.

                It is easy to sit back in smug security looking down our noses at those poor deluded Pentecostals, who shamelessly manifest the gifts of the Spirit even though they don’t seem to have our superior list of doctrines… but which is truly operating in the New Covenant and which is still slugging it out in the flesh in the Old Covenant? Christianity was never intended to be a religion. It became a religion when our right and ability to hear God was taken away from us and assigned to the Pope and to the clergy and to various institutions that now dictate to us what we must believe… even as we become more and more blind as to the meaning and dynamic of the New Covenant that Jesus brought to us with His blood. Christianity was meant to be a living and dynamic relationship with Jesus through His Holy Spirit and His living Word. It was never intended to be mediated to us through various institutions. Jesus Christ alone is our Mediator and we need to learn to relate to Him directly even as He asks.

                Jesus gave us a new commandment to Agape one another and yet the Law cannot produce Agape. And you can’t manifest Agape while sitting on a shelf, or hiding out away from people, for Agape is manifested in the gifts of the Spirit as we use them to set captives free.

                When we have true Agape love, then we will begin to cry out for the gifts of the Spirit… not as party favors like some treat them, but so that we can truly minister to the needs of others.

                We need to learn to hear God’s voice. We often miss it because we are waiting for Him to say what we want to hear. But if we are to follow Him we must deny self and take up our cross and follow Him. We must enter into this realm of the Spirit in which we begin to operate in agape love for then just as it says in Isaiah 58:9. “THEN YOU WILL CALL AND THE LORD WILL ANSWER; YOU WILL CRY AND HE WILL SAY, “HERE AM I.”