1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:05,000 Season two of Love in Context podcast welcomes you. 2 00:00:05,000 --> 00:00:10,000 Get ready for engaging unscripted conversations with your host, Ben and Spencer. 3 00:00:10,000 --> 00:00:16,000 Our mission remains unchanged to explore the Bible through the powerful lens of love. 4 00:00:16,000 --> 00:00:25,000 In this new season, we'll embark on a journey together, unearthing fresh insights and gaining deeper understanding of how we can love God and live out our faith in practical ways. 5 00:00:25,000 --> 00:00:34,000 So let's dive into this season of Love in Context, where love in the context of the Bible intersect to transform our lives. 6 00:00:34,000 --> 00:00:39,000 All right. We are excited. Everybody is with us today. I am Ben. 7 00:00:39,000 --> 00:00:40,000 I'm Spencer. 8 00:00:40,000 --> 00:00:44,000 And we're joined by Les Kronk, the other half of Laura Kronk. 9 00:00:44,000 --> 00:00:45,000 How deep. 10 00:00:45,000 --> 00:00:48,000 Yeah, yeah. It was the only matter of time before we got you here. 11 00:00:48,000 --> 00:00:53,000 He's a busy, busy man, so we had to finagle his schedule to get him here. 12 00:00:53,000 --> 00:00:55,000 I appreciate your flexibility. 13 00:00:55,000 --> 00:00:59,000 Oh, man, if you've ever seen me stretch, you know that I have no flexibility. 14 00:00:59,000 --> 00:01:03,000 So I wouldn't have hurt my back a few years back if I had more flexibility. 15 00:01:03,000 --> 00:01:07,000 So we are in our new series on the spiritual gifts. 16 00:01:07,000 --> 00:01:16,000 And last week we had a conversation with Brian Qualls from the Salvation Army about how the foundation of everything is love God and love other people. 17 00:01:16,000 --> 00:01:29,000 And he says that the foundation, if you're going to operate in any sort of spiritual capacity, we're talking about healing and tongues and prophecy and deliverance ministry and everything that kind of goes with that, it has to come from a foundation of love God and love other people. 18 00:01:29,000 --> 00:01:35,000 Is this foundation isn't right? Nothing else is going to work, which then carries into the next piece. 19 00:01:35,000 --> 00:01:41,000 When you say you love God and love other people, the only way to actually love God is to actually be in relationship with God. 20 00:01:41,000 --> 00:01:45,000 And so we were like, well, you really talk about what does it mean to actually hear the voice of God? 21 00:01:45,000 --> 00:01:52,000 Because I think sometimes when we say hear the voice of God, we're like, I was walking down the street and there was a burning bush. 22 00:01:52,000 --> 00:02:00,000 And a voice said, the black ground you're standing on is holy. And I was like, it's actually a McDonald's parking lot. I'm not sure that it's fit qualifiers. 23 00:02:00,000 --> 00:02:05,000 And how many times have we really wished that would be the case? It's like, I'd really like a burning bush right now. 24 00:02:05,000 --> 00:02:13,000 But that's not really the case. That's not really how it works. And that's not to discount. There are people who have those moments. 25 00:02:13,000 --> 00:02:19,000 In fact, when we were doing the women through church history, I was talking about the lady from the Muslim lady, Bilkis. 26 00:02:19,000 --> 00:02:25,000 And she was talking about how Jesus actually showed up in a physical manifestation for her conversion. 27 00:02:25,000 --> 00:02:31,000 So like these type of things happen. And currently in Afghanistan and a lot of these places that are struggling under a lot of persecution, 28 00:02:31,000 --> 00:02:37,000 Muslims actually talk about that in the desert and they actually have Jesus show up and they say, my followers are coming in a couple of days. 29 00:02:37,000 --> 00:02:42,000 And so these Christians show up and they're like, oh, yeah, he told me he told you about me. So these are things happening today. 30 00:02:42,000 --> 00:02:48,000 So like I don't want to discount like those things happening because they do happen. Absolutely. But I don't think that they happen all the time. 31 00:02:48,000 --> 00:02:52,000 It's not the rule for the churches and for our relationships that we're used to. 32 00:02:52,000 --> 00:02:58,000 And I think generally God speaks in a much more subtle way. And we're meant to more have a life in tune with him. 33 00:02:58,000 --> 00:03:06,000 And so with that in mind, I want to step back and I want to go back to and talk about some things in scripture as like hearing the voice of God. 34 00:03:06,000 --> 00:03:12,000 And like my first story that I always think of when we talk about hearing the voice of God is actually the story of Samuel and Eli. 35 00:03:12,000 --> 00:03:18,000 So if you're not familiar with that story, it's in first Samuel and Samuel is the son of Hannah. 36 00:03:18,000 --> 00:03:23,000 And and she he is dedicated to the temple because she's been praying for a son forever. 37 00:03:23,000 --> 00:03:26,000 And she says that she's going to dedicate her son to ministry. 38 00:03:26,000 --> 00:03:32,000 And so he is now apprenticing under Eli and his very corrupt children. 39 00:03:32,000 --> 00:03:40,000 As Samuel is growing up, he is going to sleep and he hears somebody call Samuel and he runs and he asks Eli, hey, what do you want? 40 00:03:40,000 --> 00:03:44,000 He's had to say anything, go back to bed. It sounds very much like a conversation I'd have with my five year old. 41 00:03:44,000 --> 00:03:48,000 Yeah, I didn't say anything. I heard a sound. I'm sure you did. 42 00:03:48,000 --> 00:03:53,000 What any chance the sound was you, James? Yeah, it's pretty good. 43 00:03:53,000 --> 00:03:58,000 She had the same conversations. But if he came four times, I'd be like, he's also calling my name. 44 00:03:58,000 --> 00:04:02,000 I'd be like, God's probably calling your name, which is actually what Eli realizes. 45 00:04:02,000 --> 00:04:08,000 And Samuel calls out and God starts to tell him about the plans of what he's going to actually be unfolding in Israel. 46 00:04:08,000 --> 00:04:16,000 And I think sometimes being raised in Sunday school, this is the kind of conversation we expect God to have with us when we say, hear the voice of God. 47 00:04:16,000 --> 00:04:21,000 That's what you want it to be. Yeah. That level of clarity. Yeah. 48 00:04:21,000 --> 00:04:26,000 There's no ambiguity there. No. But I don't think that's necessarily what we actually get. 49 00:04:26,000 --> 00:04:31,000 And that's not to say that we don't have those moments because when I was moving back up to Alaska, 50 00:04:31,000 --> 00:04:37,000 there was a very clear moment where I'm not sure that God spoke audibly, but he may as well have. 51 00:04:37,000 --> 00:04:46,000 Because it was very clear, like I can actually recount the entire conversation of what God told me and what I said to him and what he said back to me in the entire conversation, 52 00:04:46,000 --> 00:04:54,000 that it was very clear like he had a plan of what we needed to do. But I don't think it was audible, but it might as well have been. 53 00:04:54,000 --> 00:05:00,000 Well, to describe that, it's hard to put that in terms. We think of audible, the voice, a loud voice that you're going to hear. 54 00:05:00,000 --> 00:05:08,000 In my brain, that's exactly what it sounds like. It is like you and I talking right now. Yeah. I'm hearing that voice and yet there's no sound. 55 00:05:08,000 --> 00:05:15,000 Yeah. And yet it is crystal clear in your mind. Yeah. And that isn't always, that's one of the ways that you get to hear from God. 56 00:05:15,000 --> 00:05:25,000 And it's good to have that kind of experience. I think of Elijah where he's up on the mountain and the wind, the fire comes, storms come, all that. 57 00:05:25,000 --> 00:05:33,000 God's not in it. And it's still a small voice. And it actually ties back over to Psalm, in Psalms where it says, we still know that I'm God. 58 00:05:33,000 --> 00:05:37,000 If you actually look at the verses before that, it's talking about the chaos of the world. 59 00:05:37,000 --> 00:05:48,000 He's like, there's mountains that are going to crumble, oceans are going to rise, there's wars, all this stuff. And then you get to 46, 10, and it says, be still and know that I am God. 60 00:05:48,000 --> 00:05:58,000 Like the world around us can just be absolutely chaotic. And what we still have to do is take time to be still, know that he is God and listen to his voice. 61 00:05:58,000 --> 00:06:01,000 Quiet the noise. Yeah. Yeah. 62 00:06:01,000 --> 00:06:11,000 And I think one of the great missteps that I've heard in, and I'm going to pick on Pentecostals just a little bit because I go to a Pentecostal church now, so I feel like I'm allowed to. 63 00:06:11,000 --> 00:06:19,000 Is I allowed to? Yeah. Is I've heard people talk about, they're like, you really, when you want to learn things about God, you need to just sit and talk to God. 64 00:06:19,000 --> 00:06:29,000 And I was like, okay, yes. But when you're learning to hear the voice of God, you need to know the word of God so that you know who's talking. 65 00:06:29,000 --> 00:06:37,000 And I actually think that if you believe, because there's going to be people who are listening who don't necessarily believe that God speaks in that way, that he only speaks to the word of God, like the written Bible. 66 00:06:37,000 --> 00:06:43,000 That's okay. We're going to disagree because experience. But if that's how God is speaking to you, that's great. 67 00:06:43,000 --> 00:06:54,000 Like you should lean into that. But Pentecostal conservative alike, knowing and embracing the word of God, knowing the character of God throughout the Bible, 68 00:06:54,000 --> 00:07:00,000 is going to be incredibly important in hearing the voice of God because you're going to hear voices in your life one way or another. 69 00:07:00,000 --> 00:07:13,000 And the only way to differentiate is this God or is this the world? Is this Satan? Is this the flesh? To quote from Paul, is how does this compare to the word of God and the heart of God throughout the word of God? 70 00:07:13,000 --> 00:07:20,000 Yeah. And getting to know someone's voice takes time. Yeah. So we're all married here, right? At least I think we're all married. 71 00:07:20,000 --> 00:07:25,000 That's when I left home this morning. At the time of this publishing, we'll see. 72 00:07:25,000 --> 00:07:34,000 But the first time I met Lindsay, who now is my wife, the next time I saw her, I probably would not have been able to pick her voice out of the crowd. 73 00:07:34,000 --> 00:07:45,000 But then as I got to know her more now, we've been married nine years now, it's like I walk into a room and I don't even have to see that she's there. 74 00:07:45,000 --> 00:07:52,000 I can hear her voice and make that out of the crowd. But that takes time. It's not like that didn't come overnight. That takes time. 75 00:07:52,000 --> 00:07:57,000 And the same can be said with a relationship with a father or guardian or parent or whatever. 76 00:07:57,000 --> 00:08:03,000 Like I walk into a room, I can recognize my dad's voice or I can recognize my mom's voice. 77 00:08:03,000 --> 00:08:10,000 Yeah, but it wasn't always that way. So my kids are a little bit younger than yours and much younger than yours. 78 00:08:10,000 --> 00:08:18,000 But when I first brought James home, he did not care about anything that didn't have boobs because their baby's breastfeed. 79 00:08:18,000 --> 00:08:26,000 Hopefully this isn't shocking for people who are listening. Like most of what they care about is sleeping, pooping and eating. That's it. 80 00:08:26,000 --> 00:08:32,000 And so when he found out that dad doesn't have food, he was much less interested. 81 00:08:32,000 --> 00:08:33,000 I'm done with you. 82 00:08:33,000 --> 00:08:38,000 Yeah, unless you do not have what I need. Where is the one who has the milk? 83 00:08:38,000 --> 00:08:46,000 And but as he grew older, you know, and especially as we got into like different types of food, what I started to notice is that when I would enter into a room, he didn't care. 84 00:08:46,000 --> 00:08:50,000 He was looking for mom. He was looking for the smell, the sound of mom. 85 00:08:50,000 --> 00:08:57,000 But you start getting a month in and I would come in, I'd start talking and he would kind of move his head a little bit to where I am. 86 00:08:57,000 --> 00:09:04,000 And then he gets a little older, more talking and he starts to now I would talk and he gets that little grin on his face because he recognizes who entered the room. 87 00:09:04,000 --> 00:09:13,000 Now to the point where James and I have conversations, not always intelligible. Like sometimes he says things I'm like, I don't know. I don't know what that means. 88 00:09:13,000 --> 00:09:18,000 But and that's not even where our relationship is going to end. We're going to continue to grow. He's going to continue to grow. 89 00:09:18,000 --> 00:09:23,000 He's going to be able to share with me like his unique ideas. I'm going to be able to give him like ideas and talk back. 90 00:09:23,000 --> 00:09:31,000 I actually wrote about this in If Anybody Cares. I'm actually writing a book, but I wrote about this in my first chapter about my experience with my son. 91 00:09:31,000 --> 00:09:41,000 I think the scary thing that I see with the church is many of us in the church global never get beyond the point where we recognize God walked in the room. 92 00:09:41,000 --> 00:09:48,000 Yeah. Jesus said my sheep know my voice. It comes from a relationship. 93 00:09:48,000 --> 00:09:53,000 Yeah, we have to have that relationship. We have to you and Lyndon built that relationship. You know her voice. 94 00:09:53,000 --> 00:10:01,000 James is you have that relationship and that comes from time and that comes from time and the word to build that relationship. That's what we have to do. 95 00:10:01,000 --> 00:10:04,000 And everything that we hear from God has to accord with that word. 96 00:10:04,000 --> 00:10:09,000 And sometimes we hear that voice. We don't even realize we're hearing that voice. Right. And it gets instilled in us. 97 00:10:09,000 --> 00:10:15,000 So when Lindsay was pregnant with our daughter, like I would I would talk to the baby and baby still in the womb. 98 00:10:15,000 --> 00:10:25,000 And then when when Denver was born, I walked into the nursery and asked the nurse how she was doing and Denver just flipped her head around and just just she's like, I know that voice. 99 00:10:25,000 --> 00:10:31,000 I know that voice. I know that from somewhere. And she hasn't listened since. 100 00:10:31,000 --> 00:10:36,000 Pretty much. If you know if you know my kid now, you'd be like, yeah, she's so good. 101 00:10:36,000 --> 00:10:45,000 My daughter is she's either going to rule the world or burden or end up in prison. One of the two. That's that's probably the two options. 102 00:10:45,000 --> 00:10:49,000 I have a man. Oh, man. She's a Spitfire. 103 00:10:49,000 --> 00:10:54,000 Knowing that voice and listening to that voice and obeying that voice, there are all the different. Yeah. 104 00:10:54,000 --> 00:11:01,000 And then there's a lot of to your point, like relationship and practice and like putting into practice, learning how to hear the voice. 105 00:11:01,000 --> 00:11:05,000 I know that sounds really strange, but like you can't learn somebody's voice without spending time with it. 106 00:11:05,000 --> 00:11:08,000 Yeah, there's a book Dallas Willard. I don't know if you guys are familiar with him. 107 00:11:08,000 --> 00:11:13,000 He is was a writer and philosopher and theologian. Yeah. 108 00:11:13,000 --> 00:11:20,000 And he wrote a book called Hearing Hearing the Voice, Hearing God's Voice, Hearing the Voice or Hearing God's Voice is one of those two. 109 00:11:20,000 --> 00:11:33,000 And he just go walks through some very practical steps of developing a practice of listening to God and and conversing with God and what some people's experience and like how that has been and what his personal experience has been. 110 00:11:33,000 --> 00:11:37,000 And I think it's an incredibly helpful book. You're probably not going to like everything in it. 111 00:11:37,000 --> 00:11:46,000 That's pretty normal, but it's an incredibly helpful book because I was I was reading John Mark Comer's recent book, Practicing the Way. 112 00:11:46,000 --> 00:11:50,000 And you and I were have a discussion about this before you were preaching this last week. 113 00:11:50,000 --> 00:12:02,000 But he was talking about bringing an apprentice and basically being a student of Jesus, choosing to be a follower of Jesus, not not simply being a fan, but actually being a disciple of. 114 00:12:02,000 --> 00:12:06,000 He told me to comment about the disciple is not a verb, it's a noun. 115 00:12:06,000 --> 00:12:09,000 Yeah. So you can't actually disciple somebody. 116 00:12:09,000 --> 00:12:12,000 Somebody has to choose to be a disciple. Yeah. 117 00:12:12,000 --> 00:12:15,000 Side note, the Dallas Woolard book is called Hearing God, Hearing God. 118 00:12:15,000 --> 00:12:19,000 Thank you. So that that will I will edit that all out and I'll sound very into. 119 00:12:19,000 --> 00:12:24,000 No, I'm just kidding. But he was talking about how disciple is a noun and not a verb. 120 00:12:24,000 --> 00:12:27,000 And so you don't actually like we say, who are you discipling? 121 00:12:27,000 --> 00:12:31,000 That's a weird thing to say. That'd be like saying, who are you Christianing? 122 00:12:31,000 --> 00:12:34,000 Somebody is a Christian and then you're feeding into their life. 123 00:12:34,000 --> 00:12:39,000 Or you're or you're helping them to develop and like pastors we've talked about are built to equip the body for service. 124 00:12:39,000 --> 00:12:45,000 But ultimately, each person in the body is responsible for choosing to be a disciple. 125 00:12:45,000 --> 00:12:53,000 And so then he says, he says one of the reasons he calls it practicing the way is because you don't know what you're doing yet. 126 00:12:53,000 --> 00:12:57,000 And so the only way to get better is to practice, put things into practice. 127 00:12:57,000 --> 00:13:07,000 In fact, he takes it from Jesus's statement in the Sermon on the Mount where he says, if somebody hears these words of mine and puts them into practice. 128 00:13:07,000 --> 00:13:10,000 They're like a person who built their house on solid foundation. 129 00:13:10,000 --> 00:13:18,000 It's interesting to me, I think that people want to jump to what I want to call the the fancy or the the engaging stuff, the exciting stuff. 130 00:13:18,000 --> 00:13:26,000 We talk about walking on water, turning water into wine, feeding the five thousand blind having sight, the deaf hearing. 131 00:13:26,000 --> 00:13:31,000 But we forget about Jesus withdrew to lonely places. 132 00:13:31,000 --> 00:13:41,000 Right. Like there's there's a good portion of the Bible where it says Jesus withdrew, Jesus withdrew and Jesus spent all night praying, communing with God. 133 00:13:41,000 --> 00:13:53,000 Now, I have this suspicion that if Jesus Christ, God made flesh, thinks it's important to commune with God, it might be important for you and me. 134 00:13:53,000 --> 00:13:56,000 No question. Yeah, that comes back to that relationship. 135 00:13:56,000 --> 00:14:03,000 And the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is is the perfect relationship that we have an example to look to. 136 00:14:03,000 --> 00:14:11,000 And but Jesus, as flesh, needed that time to build that relationship, to tune in to that voice. 137 00:14:11,000 --> 00:14:14,000 You know, he could hear the Father better than anyone, but he did it. 138 00:14:14,000 --> 00:14:17,000 He still needed that time. Yeah. 139 00:14:17,000 --> 00:14:26,000 I mean, bringing this back to just as an example, as married married individuals here, like if I never spent any time with my wife, would our relationship get better? 140 00:14:26,000 --> 00:14:28,000 No, no, no. 141 00:14:28,000 --> 00:14:31,000 And if anybody's listening and they're like, well, it depends. 142 00:14:31,000 --> 00:14:34,000 I was like, no, there's no it depends on this situation. 143 00:14:34,000 --> 00:14:37,000 Like, no, not until you're older. 144 00:14:37,000 --> 00:14:39,000 But there you go, Ben. You're welcome. 145 00:14:39,000 --> 00:14:45,000 But if you have a relationship, yeah, just I got to fill in less because he was looking confused. 146 00:14:45,000 --> 00:14:47,000 I was letting it go. 147 00:14:47,000 --> 00:14:49,000 It was not directed at you. 148 00:14:49,000 --> 00:14:59,000 But as we get older, I mean, as we spend more time in relationship with individuals, it takes more and more time to have that relationship go deeper and deeper. 149 00:14:59,000 --> 00:15:02,000 It's kind of like an inverted pyramid. Yeah. Right. 150 00:15:02,000 --> 00:15:06,000 Like, I'm friendly with a lot of people. Yeah, I am. 151 00:15:06,000 --> 00:15:11,000 I am like have passing knowledge of less. Not less. Sorry. 152 00:15:11,000 --> 00:15:14,000 But your name is less. So that doesn't help. 153 00:15:14,000 --> 00:15:17,000 But there's only a few people that I like on my top rung. 154 00:15:17,000 --> 00:15:22,000 The deeper I get in relationship, the fewer people there are. 155 00:15:22,000 --> 00:15:27,000 And in order to go into that next deeper portion of relationship requires so much more to get there. 156 00:15:27,000 --> 00:15:29,000 I mean, you're right. 157 00:15:29,000 --> 00:15:36,000 Like, it's an inverted. It's like it's not going to require the same amount of effort to go from zero to one as it is from one to two. 158 00:15:36,000 --> 00:15:46,000 Yeah. And I can add having been in a relationship for 50 years, married for over 45, Laura's and my relationship is amazingly close. 159 00:15:46,000 --> 00:15:58,000 There's our communication level, our understanding, our personal space is it's absolutely amazing on how we just communicate and we connect and we bonded. 160 00:15:58,000 --> 00:16:01,000 We don't need the it comes from spending all that time together. 161 00:16:01,000 --> 00:16:02,000 Yeah, it does. 162 00:16:02,000 --> 00:16:06,000 And so no matter what's going on, there are no there's no walls. 163 00:16:06,000 --> 00:16:09,000 There's no boundaries between us. There's nothing that's unshareable. 164 00:16:09,000 --> 00:16:11,000 Because we've been through all that. Yeah. 165 00:16:11,000 --> 00:16:18,000 And that's what our relationship and I've and I've learned this the hard way many a time in my relationship with the Lord to the intimacy is very similar. 166 00:16:18,000 --> 00:16:21,000 We can't have any walls and barriers between us. 167 00:16:21,000 --> 00:16:30,000 And when we go through a difficult time in a crisis, either in our personal relationship or relationship with the Lord, once that is torn down and you've broken through that, 168 00:16:30,000 --> 00:16:32,000 you're that much closer and that much closer. 169 00:16:32,000 --> 00:16:36,000 And I can tell you, being this close at this point in time, it's phenomenal. 170 00:16:36,000 --> 00:16:39,000 I mean, we have an amazing relationship after all these years. 171 00:16:39,000 --> 00:16:42,000 That's what we have to work on for the Lord, too. 172 00:16:42,000 --> 00:16:52,000 Yeah. So frequently in the Bible, I hopefully it's not breaking anybody's brain who's listening that God speaks in the Bible. 173 00:16:52,000 --> 00:16:59,000 And he spoke in the Old Testament, he spoke in the New Testament and all throughout church history, there's many a cases of people, people talking about God speaking. 174 00:16:59,000 --> 00:17:05,000 Right. Yeah. Even into, like I said, modern day Afghanistan, like Jesus is literally showing up for people. Right. 175 00:17:05,000 --> 00:17:15,000 So the reality is you can you can have this perspective that God is not currently speaking, but most of the evidence doesn't fall on your side. 176 00:17:15,000 --> 00:17:21,000 So you have to figure out, OK, is God not speaking or am I not listening, which is usually the bigger problem. 177 00:17:21,000 --> 00:17:28,000 I have been especially with my Sabbath practice and different things over the last few years, I've been focusing more on learning how to listen to God in my prayer time. 178 00:17:28,000 --> 00:17:32,000 Talk less, listen more. What does God actually want to say into the situation? 179 00:17:32,000 --> 00:17:36,000 Not what do I think needs to be done? Yeah. Turns out his ideas are better than mine. 180 00:17:36,000 --> 00:17:41,000 I found that to be true. You found his ideas are better than mine. 181 00:17:41,000 --> 00:17:48,000 Yeah. Yeah. Throughout the Old Testament, like there's there's stories and I really wish I knew how God spoke. 182 00:17:48,000 --> 00:17:52,000 So you have got coming to Abraham and saying, I need you to go out to this place. 183 00:17:52,000 --> 00:17:56,000 OK, was that an audible voice? Was that an impression? Did he send him a letter? 184 00:17:56,000 --> 00:18:00,000 You know, there's no real indication in the text. It says God spoke to Abraham. 185 00:18:00,000 --> 00:18:06,000 I don't know exactly what that means. Yeah. You know, he came to Noah and he says, you need to build an ark. 186 00:18:06,000 --> 00:18:10,000 And like, what was that? Was that a vision? Was that a dream? 187 00:18:10,000 --> 00:18:16,000 You know, sometimes we have visions and dreams like you have Joseph being sent in a dream about Mary. Right. 188 00:18:16,000 --> 00:18:21,000 You have Jacob having a dream and where there's the angels ascending and descending. 189 00:18:21,000 --> 00:18:26,000 Joseph was another. Well, both Joseph's. Yeah, both Joseph's Joseph in Egypt. 190 00:18:26,000 --> 00:18:30,000 Egypt's in the Old Testament was the other one. Yeah. 191 00:18:30,000 --> 00:18:36,000 God makes it. He knows us very well. He knows who we are and he makes it personal. 192 00:18:36,000 --> 00:18:39,000 He's going to speak in a language that you understand. Yeah. 193 00:18:39,000 --> 00:18:49,000 He is not going to give me visions or examples and pictures of out on a golf course playing golf because that's not something I do. 194 00:18:49,000 --> 00:18:53,000 OK, so he's going to speak in something that makes sense to me. 195 00:18:53,000 --> 00:19:00,000 Any visions I've had, dreams I've had, it is going to be in something that's meaningful to me. 196 00:19:00,000 --> 00:19:06,000 There are some people that they you want a confirmation of what you're feeling from is from the Lord. 197 00:19:06,000 --> 00:19:10,000 And you're going to get that in the way that you seek out and look for that. Yeah. 198 00:19:10,000 --> 00:19:15,000 If I need to seek counsel and I want to talk to you guys about, you know, this is what I'm feeling. 199 00:19:15,000 --> 00:19:22,000 And that's what I normally do is seek wise counsel. Then that wise counsel is going to give you what the Lord they're feeling the Lord's onto it. 200 00:19:22,000 --> 00:19:26,000 Each one of us has our way of listening and hearing. 201 00:19:26,000 --> 00:19:36,000 And it's going to be it's going to be fairly clear and specific in a language, be it pictures, be it words, be it dreams that you're going to understand. 202 00:19:36,000 --> 00:19:39,000 Yeah. Henry Blackby, we've referenced experience of God's study in the past. 203 00:19:39,000 --> 00:19:42,000 He has the seven realities learning to hear and do the will of God. 204 00:19:42,000 --> 00:19:48,000 And so funny thing about Henry Blackby as a Pentecostal is that he's a Southern Baptist or was a Southern Baptist. 205 00:19:48,000 --> 00:19:55,000 He unfortunately passed recently. But if you are if you are a non Pentecostal who is listening or even a Pentecostal, 206 00:19:55,000 --> 00:20:03,000 I think there's a lot that is valuable in the experience in God series because he talks about God speaks through the word and circumstances by the Holy Spirit, 207 00:20:03,000 --> 00:20:08,000 through the word circumstances, the church and like the relationships around you. 208 00:20:08,000 --> 00:20:17,000 And one of the things that he cautions in there, which I completely agree is when you take one of these things and they don't line up with any of the others. 209 00:20:17,000 --> 00:20:21,000 So God's not going to speak to one of what about knowing the word of God. 210 00:20:21,000 --> 00:20:26,000 God's not going to speak to you something that's complete opposition to the character of God in the Bible. 211 00:20:26,000 --> 00:20:29,000 And there would have to be some really, really extreme examples. 212 00:20:29,000 --> 00:20:36,000 For example, when you have Abraham taking Isaac to the top of the mountain, God is doing something very specific with Abraham. 213 00:20:36,000 --> 00:20:40,000 Most of us aren't going to be called to go to climb a mountain and sacrifice our son. 214 00:20:40,000 --> 00:20:43,000 Yeah. Don't think that's on the agenda. That's not really on the agenda. 215 00:20:43,000 --> 00:20:46,000 That's not really what's happening. But God is telling Abraham's agenda. 216 00:20:46,000 --> 00:20:51,000 You know, it wasn't. At some point, we'll we'll get into that story because it's a really like what God is doing. 217 00:20:51,000 --> 00:20:57,000 There's a very interesting and it's and it's there's some really great imagery and things that God is teaching Abraham. 218 00:20:57,000 --> 00:21:00,000 But that's not what most of us are going to get. 219 00:21:00,000 --> 00:21:05,000 And so generally, God's not going to call you to do something that's outside of what he is doing. 220 00:21:05,000 --> 00:21:13,000 And if he does, I guarantee you it's going to be loud and specific because God is doing something very specific. 221 00:21:13,000 --> 00:21:22,000 Yes. So by like knowing the word of God, it's like so if somebody says, well, God told me that I need to go and rob this convenience store. 222 00:21:22,000 --> 00:21:27,000 I'd be like, no, he did not. No, he did not. Right. 223 00:21:27,000 --> 00:21:36,000 Like there is a way to test the word. And I think that as people call to be kingdom of priests to the world, 224 00:21:36,000 --> 00:21:42,000 royal priesthood, that is our responsibility to learn the voice of God and also test that we're actually hearing the voice of God. 225 00:21:42,000 --> 00:21:46,000 I doubt God's going to get mad at you that you're testing to make sure you heard him right. 226 00:21:46,000 --> 00:21:53,000 I don't get annoyed because James comes back and he's like, OK, I want to make sure that I understood you correctly. 227 00:21:53,000 --> 00:21:57,000 I get annoyed when he's like, OK, I know what I'm supposed to do. 228 00:21:57,000 --> 00:22:02,000 And I was like, I'm not going to do it. You know, and even then I don't get super annoyed because he's a five year old. 229 00:22:02,000 --> 00:22:05,000 He's learning. Right. And maybe. So what's our excuse? What's our excuse? 230 00:22:05,000 --> 00:22:10,000 I mean, can we be can we be perfectly honest? A lot of the church are toddlers. Yeah. 231 00:22:10,000 --> 00:22:13,000 I don't want I don't I'm not trying to be mean. No, that's fine. That's just where we're at. 232 00:22:13,000 --> 00:22:17,000 And God loves you desperately. But he also wants you to grow up. 233 00:22:17,000 --> 00:22:20,000 But don't grow up too fast. There's a process in growing up. 234 00:22:20,000 --> 00:22:23,000 Like just because you're a toddler today, grow into an adult tomorrow. 235 00:22:23,000 --> 00:22:27,000 I mean, I had to convince my five year old this morning that cake is not breakfast. 236 00:22:27,000 --> 00:22:33,000 But pancakes are much different than the flavoring a little more sugar. 237 00:22:33,000 --> 00:22:37,000 Yeah. So I had to convince her. I was like, no, we need to eat some real quote unquote real food. 238 00:22:37,000 --> 00:22:47,000 Yeah. Just cake. But if you make it into a cupcake and you take the the frosting off, now you've got a muffin, which is breakfast. 239 00:22:47,000 --> 00:22:51,000 Now, now we're here to help. 240 00:22:51,000 --> 00:22:56,000 I'm going to I'm going to start giving giving Denver her talking points for you in the morning. 241 00:22:56,000 --> 00:23:00,000 I don't know. She doesn't need it. She seems to be pretty good. 242 00:23:00,000 --> 00:23:05,000 But no, you're right. Like she like that's one. And could you eat it for breakfast? Yes. 243 00:23:05,000 --> 00:23:09,000 Is it going to be good for you? No, no. 244 00:23:09,000 --> 00:23:12,000 This is one of those things also where you come into like Paul's thing. 245 00:23:12,000 --> 00:23:15,000 Like everything is permissible, but not everything's beneficial. 246 00:23:15,000 --> 00:23:18,000 Just because you can eat cake for breakfast doesn't mean that you should. 247 00:23:18,000 --> 00:23:21,000 Yeah. Once in a while, it probably be fine. 248 00:23:21,000 --> 00:23:23,000 But if you eat cake for breakfast every day, I got news for you. 249 00:23:23,000 --> 00:23:26,000 There's a big thing called diabetes. But this is what we on its way for you. 250 00:23:26,000 --> 00:23:32,000 This is what we do as believers. We were like, OK, I'm going to have that thing that looks good and delicious for breakfast. 251 00:23:32,000 --> 00:23:36,000 Maybe there's something else we need that's actually going to sustain us longer. 252 00:23:36,000 --> 00:23:40,000 That's going to be healthier for us. That's going to maybe enact change in our life. 253 00:23:40,000 --> 00:23:47,000 Because, I mean, let's let's be real. Like breakfast is a bad example for me because I like I like sausage, eggs, that type stuff. 254 00:23:47,000 --> 00:23:53,000 But let's let's be real. If it come lunchtime, if it's like, hey, have a nice salad or have a delicious piece of cake. 255 00:23:53,000 --> 00:24:00,000 Like my gut is saying my taste buds are saying, hey, that cake looks really good right now. 256 00:24:00,000 --> 00:24:06,000 Yeah. But my my stomach, my guts like no go for the salad. That's going to be way better. 257 00:24:06,000 --> 00:24:10,000 And so what we we do that where we see what's appealing to the eye, just like just like Eve did. 258 00:24:10,000 --> 00:24:14,000 Adam and Eve did in the garden. We're like this fruit is appealing. 259 00:24:14,000 --> 00:24:18,000 And then took of it. And we've had problems ever since. 260 00:24:18,000 --> 00:24:26,000 So I'll be really careful with I'm about to say, because I think somebody could take one I'm about to say and run the wrong way with it. 261 00:24:26,000 --> 00:24:30,000 But when God's with you and you're going to lunch and you say I have cake and I have salad. 262 00:24:30,000 --> 00:24:34,000 But your long term plan is that you need to run a marathon. 263 00:24:34,000 --> 00:24:42,000 And God says, no, you need to eat the salad. I know the cake looks delicious, but it won't prepare you for what's coming. 264 00:24:42,000 --> 00:24:50,000 Sometimes we in the in the prophetic and in the in the spiritual gifts, we're looking for the cake. 265 00:24:50,000 --> 00:24:52,000 And we forget that we need to actually eat the salad. 266 00:24:52,000 --> 00:24:56,000 We'll pray for healing. We're like, I don't understand why God didn't do something here. 267 00:24:56,000 --> 00:25:00,000 And he knows what's coming and he knows what it's preparing you for. 268 00:25:00,000 --> 00:25:08,000 Now, the reason I want to specify this is I think somebody could hear this and say, oh, I'm sick because God's choosing not to heal me for my own good. 269 00:25:08,000 --> 00:25:12,000 That's not what I want to say, because I'm not God. I don't sit in that chair. 270 00:25:12,000 --> 00:25:16,000 I think that we believe that God's going to heal every time. God's going to move every time. 271 00:25:16,000 --> 00:25:20,000 We believe in the goodness of God. And when he doesn't, we know that he's still good. 272 00:25:20,000 --> 00:25:28,000 But there are things that I have learned in chaos with God walking with me that prepared me for something that was coming. 273 00:25:28,000 --> 00:25:33,000 Right. I've talked on the podcast a couple of times about my church, church. 274 00:25:33,000 --> 00:25:38,000 I'm going to call it trauma. Yeah. The church, one of the churches that I served in that was like incredibly unhealthy. 275 00:25:38,000 --> 00:25:41,000 And it was a long time that God didn't release us from being there. 276 00:25:41,000 --> 00:25:46,000 Like I wanted to leave and but God was very clear to me that God wasn't letting us leave. 277 00:25:46,000 --> 00:25:50,000 Now, on the flip side, God did eventually release us. And then I was stubborn and stayed. 278 00:25:50,000 --> 00:25:57,000 That didn't end up well either. But the reality is that I know that because I stayed in that situation where I was doing some things, 279 00:25:57,000 --> 00:26:04,000 it actually prepared me that five years, five, seven years later, I ran into a situation that because I had been in that situation. 280 00:26:04,000 --> 00:26:09,000 Yeah. I handled completely differently than I would have otherwise. 281 00:26:09,000 --> 00:26:14,000 And it wasn't that God caused it. But what he did do was he took something that I was right, 282 00:26:14,000 --> 00:26:24,000 right in the middle of and he used it for my good and for the good of the kingdom in the future that I'm already going to be in this situation. 283 00:26:24,000 --> 00:26:30,000 Let's learn something while we're here. Yeah. I can give you many examples of that in my little bit longer life than you guys. 284 00:26:30,000 --> 00:26:37,000 And I've learned those lessons. I'll even say the hard way, but probably the one I will share is regarding my wife, 285 00:26:37,000 --> 00:26:44,000 who has had lots of health issues over time and we prayed for healing continually and and it hasn't happened the way we wanted it to. 286 00:26:44,000 --> 00:26:53,000 And yet looking back in her conversations with the Lord and where she's at now, it's like, OK, would you have rather I healed you right then? 287 00:26:53,000 --> 00:26:58,000 Or would you or were the hundred other miracles, a little miracles along the way more important? 288 00:26:58,000 --> 00:27:06,000 And who she is today as a person and as a, you know, amazing human being is because of that process and that growth. 289 00:27:06,000 --> 00:27:14,000 And so it was it was, you know, was it easy along the way? No. Does it change faith in God? I pray for healing every single time. 290 00:27:14,000 --> 00:27:20,000 And God and I've argued when he hasn't done it. I lose. But and he also knows that I trust him. 291 00:27:20,000 --> 00:27:25,000 Well, he's totally fine with that argument. He is exactly afraid to say that. I don't like how this worked out. 292 00:27:25,000 --> 00:27:30,000 It's not I didn't like that this person just passed away. Yeah, that doesn't work well for me, but not my call. 293 00:27:30,000 --> 00:27:37,000 And I trust him because he's got right. Yeah. And there's so many things that like there's no way for us to actually see all the facets that God does. 294 00:27:37,000 --> 00:27:44,000 And I think to your point, especially what you're talking about with Lauren and like the health stuff, 295 00:27:44,000 --> 00:27:51,000 because you've prayed for other people, you saw them get healed. You've seen God do it. So it's not like you're not confused. Can God do it? 296 00:27:51,000 --> 00:27:59,000 There is there is Dominique brought it up. But there's a there's a section in and that I thought that they illustrated really well in The Chosen in the TV show 297 00:27:59,000 --> 00:28:06,000 where Nathaniel is talking about like, why are all these people like I'm even part of facilitating all these people's healing. What about me? 298 00:28:06,000 --> 00:28:14,000 Yeah. And Jesus, you know, Dallas obviously wrote it, but like as the character of Jesus, answer him in that in that story. 299 00:28:14,000 --> 00:28:20,000 And like that's just by the way, don't take that as doctrine. That's just a illustration of a way that you can interpret it. 300 00:28:20,000 --> 00:28:27,000 Dallas is trying to help us understand, like understand a biblical idea of how do you how do you deal with suffering, knowing God can heal all things. 301 00:28:27,000 --> 00:28:38,000 But here's the thing. We as parents let our kids quote unquote suffer. Right. 302 00:28:38,000 --> 00:28:47,000 Because like, OK, so James, the other day, he did not want to eat his yogurt, but he wanted to go and have another piece of cheese. Right. 303 00:28:47,000 --> 00:28:52,000 Now you're like, OK, what's the big deal? Because the kids basically made of cheese at this point. Right. 304 00:28:52,000 --> 00:28:58,000 Like this way, he's basically made of cheese and we needed some different types of protein, different types of different things. 305 00:28:58,000 --> 00:29:01,000 So yogurt and then there's some other things on his plate that we needed to eat. 306 00:29:01,000 --> 00:29:08,000 So we say, hey, this is this is your food. And he I mean, the way you heard him talk, you would think that we were torturing him. 307 00:29:08,000 --> 00:29:12,000 It's not fair. You're unfair is what he said. 308 00:29:12,000 --> 00:29:18,000 You know, and I said, we're actually very fair considering we bought all the food and we're preparing the food and we're feeding you. 309 00:29:18,000 --> 00:29:24,000 You have more than enough. And he's like, and he cries. That's the end of the world. Right. 310 00:29:24,000 --> 00:29:33,000 Yep. I'm not ashamed to admit I'm ashamed of it, but I'm not too proud to admit that that's definitely been me and God at times. 311 00:29:33,000 --> 00:29:38,000 I'm like, you don't get it, God, this situation, you know. 312 00:29:38,000 --> 00:29:45,000 And yet, if in that moment he'd given me cake, then I would never be spiritually where I am today. 313 00:29:45,000 --> 00:29:50,000 We we see on, I'll say three dimensions, we barely see on two dimensions to the time. 314 00:29:50,000 --> 00:29:54,000 God sees on a hundred different dimensions over a timeline we can't fathom. 315 00:29:54,000 --> 00:29:59,000 And so there's so many situations and I've I've got examples as well. 316 00:29:59,000 --> 00:30:02,000 But we were this happened here and I didn't know. 317 00:30:02,000 --> 00:30:06,000 I mean, I never understood why that happened. And I struggled with it. 318 00:30:06,000 --> 00:30:09,000 Twenty years later, I look back and go, oh, wow. Yeah. 319 00:30:09,000 --> 00:30:17,000 Because where am I at now? And you can just see the threads all tied together over this big, huge, complex maze that we don't understand. 320 00:30:17,000 --> 00:30:26,000 And it just what it does is just grounds you deeper in understanding who God is and leaning into that and listening to that. 321 00:30:26,000 --> 00:30:29,000 And that helps you trust his voice and know his voice. 322 00:30:29,000 --> 00:30:36,000 So going back to the Bible, there is in the beginning, God creates this garden and he tells man to go and fill it. 323 00:30:36,000 --> 00:30:41,000 Man and woman together, go fill, be fruitful, multiply, subdue the earth, fill it, you know, expand the garden. 324 00:30:41,000 --> 00:30:44,000 Doesn't end well. I don't know if you've read Genesis three. 325 00:30:44,000 --> 00:30:52,000 It doesn't end well. And then in in the Mosaic covenant, when God comes to Moses and they're at Sinai, he says, now you're going to actually create a space and I'm going to fill that space. 326 00:30:52,000 --> 00:31:03,000 And what says when they actually created the the Mishka, the temple in the desert, that fire falls down, the people fall down on joyful faces and they say the Lord is good, his love endures forever. 327 00:31:03,000 --> 00:31:10,000 That actually happens one other time in the in the Old Testament happens in Chronicles when Solomon opens up the permanent temple. 328 00:31:10,000 --> 00:31:13,000 Fire comes down again, the people fall and they say the Lord is good, his love endures forever. 329 00:31:13,000 --> 00:31:16,000 There's something about the presence of God. They create a space and God fills it. 330 00:31:16,000 --> 00:31:29,000 Yeah. In the New Testament, in the Book of Acts, God opens up a new temple at Shavua, what we call Pentecost, where he now has the people of God built together into a temple and he fills them with the Spirit of God. 331 00:31:29,000 --> 00:31:40,000 Yeah. And there's this inherent invitation in the text that God says, if you create a space in your life for me, I'm going to come in and I'm going to fill it. 332 00:31:40,000 --> 00:31:46,000 And so when we talk about hearing the voice of God, I think it could be really difficult for people because they're like, what does that mean? 333 00:31:46,000 --> 00:31:51,000 Sometimes people hear God in impressions. Sometimes they hear him in pictures. Sometimes they have dreams. Sometimes people hear him audibly. 334 00:31:51,000 --> 00:31:58,000 Sometimes people hear him in their brain. There's a lot of different ways that people hear God because God is a masterful communicator and we're all kind of different. 335 00:31:58,000 --> 00:32:01,000 Correct. The three of us in this room right here, very different people. 336 00:32:01,000 --> 00:32:06,000 Yeah. God's going to speak differently to all of us. Sometimes there's going to be overlap. 337 00:32:06,000 --> 00:32:12,000 Yeah. But the only way to guarantee to actually be able to hear from God is you got to practice and create space. 338 00:32:12,000 --> 00:32:21,000 Correct. There is a couple of practices. I'm going to lay out a couple of things and see what you guys have to say of some ideas about how do people create space in their life. 339 00:32:21,000 --> 00:32:33,000 Finding a way to set your phone aside, away, off, and going out and being able to sit somewhere that you don't have somebody to talk to and you don't have stuff to play with. 340 00:32:33,000 --> 00:32:39,000 And you can take the Bible. You can take maybe a journal and a place that you can write. 341 00:32:39,000 --> 00:32:47,000 But I want you to go out there and be there for an hour just quietly, an hour before you start even reading the Bible. 342 00:32:47,000 --> 00:32:55,000 Like you need to just sit there and get your brain to stop talking. This is the thing for me because my brain won't stop talking. 343 00:32:55,000 --> 00:33:03,000 And then you start to press in to God and start to talk and listen. 344 00:33:03,000 --> 00:33:09,000 You might be surprised what you actually hear at that point. 345 00:33:09,000 --> 00:33:19,000 So we're in Alaska. A lot of people haunt. And if you're listening and you're like, oh man, that's awful. I'm sorry. That's Alaska. That's how it goes. 346 00:33:19,000 --> 00:33:30,000 But I had some family up deer hunting this last year. And I got one friend set up in a spot to look for some deer. First thing he does is down on his phone. 347 00:33:30,000 --> 00:33:37,000 And he's like, oh yeah, I'm just watching. And I'm like, not for deer. You're not. Right. He's just out there down on his phone. 348 00:33:37,000 --> 00:33:43,000 And it was one of those things where I was like, we were up on this ridge. We were overlooking this valley. It was gorgeous. 349 00:33:43,000 --> 00:33:51,000 Perfect spot. It was gorgeous. It was beautiful. The scenery was good. Over the over the valley. You could see the you could see some some of the ocean. 350 00:33:51,000 --> 00:33:57,000 Like it was just gorgeous out. And he's looking at a head buried in his phone. Yeah. All right. 351 00:33:57,000 --> 00:34:03,000 We miss the splendor, the glory when we don't set when we don't take time to set things aside to be intentional. 352 00:34:03,000 --> 00:34:09,000 Yeah. Yeah. It seems like if I if I take my wife out to dinner and I'm just looking at my phone the whole time. 353 00:34:09,000 --> 00:34:12,000 Yeah. We're going to have some fun conversation when we get home. 354 00:34:12,000 --> 00:34:22,000 But and vice versa. Like I've I've had moments where I've been hanging out at home and then my daughter's called me out on it and been like, dad, can you put your phone down and play a game with me? 355 00:34:22,000 --> 00:34:28,000 Mm hmm. Like absolutely. I can. Right. Yeah. Or can you stop that project and come and play with me? 356 00:34:28,000 --> 00:34:35,000 One of our children, probably our oldest many years ago, but he was about probably four years old. 357 00:34:35,000 --> 00:34:40,000 And his mom had walked into the room and he was trying to tell her something. She wasn't paying attention. 358 00:34:40,000 --> 00:34:48,000 And he says, listen to me with your face, with your face. He wanted her to want her attention. 359 00:34:48,000 --> 00:34:54,000 And that is what God wants. It's like, listen to me with your face. OK, let's put this stuff down and let's pay attention. 360 00:34:54,000 --> 00:35:02,000 And I said, OK, you're so right on. I some of the most transformational times in my life were a lot of years ago. 361 00:35:02,000 --> 00:35:07,000 I had a pastor that we were challenging each other to draw into God. 362 00:35:07,000 --> 00:35:13,000 And so we met at the church at six a.m. and spent an hour there together every day of the week for prayer. 363 00:35:13,000 --> 00:35:17,000 And it was individual just hanging out with God like you're talking. No distractions, nothing else. 364 00:35:17,000 --> 00:35:24,000 I've practiced that many a time in my life when I've needed to. Even here, I can't tell you how many mornings. 365 00:35:24,000 --> 00:35:33,000 You know, it's been years since I've done it. But when I was a lot more involved in church leadership here early in the morning and spending an hour at the altar. 366 00:35:33,000 --> 00:35:40,000 And that was transformational for me. That's what helped me understand, build that relationship so I could hear from God. 367 00:35:40,000 --> 00:35:46,000 And I was at a phone conversation. There's tons of good resources I can help you draw closer to God. 368 00:35:46,000 --> 00:35:50,000 But the problem is, is you can't silence everything on your phone. No. Right. 369 00:35:50,000 --> 00:35:59,000 So I mean, so even iPhone has this function where if I'm texting Ben and it says Ben has notification silence, it will be like, do you want to send this one to him anyways? 370 00:35:59,000 --> 00:36:06,000 Like, he gives me that option where it's like, oh, yeah, I want to dig his phone anyways, even though he has a silence for some reason. 371 00:36:06,000 --> 00:36:09,000 So you can't fully get away from everything. 372 00:36:09,000 --> 00:36:17,000 And so and while while there are still great resources, I use the Bible app all the time on my phone, especially for listening to the Bible. 373 00:36:17,000 --> 00:36:22,000 I take notes on my phone all the time. Like a great tool. There's great tools. 374 00:36:22,000 --> 00:36:31,000 Yeah. But there's so many other things with it that it is worth just setting aside and finding time to do that every once in a while. 375 00:36:31,000 --> 00:36:35,000 Yeah. So I'm going to I'm going to say this and see what you guys think about this. 376 00:36:35,000 --> 00:36:40,000 I was thinking about the answer. Why doesn't God just speak very plainly? 377 00:36:40,000 --> 00:36:49,000 And I think the reality from my life and what I've experienced is he's speaking deeper truths than English can convey. 378 00:36:49,000 --> 00:36:59,000 Does that make sense? Yes, it does. He is speaking deeper truths and just saying something to me in English would convey because he's speaking to my soul, not to my ears or my brain. 379 00:36:59,000 --> 00:37:03,000 Does that make sense? Yeah. The spirit knows the deep things of God. Yeah. 380 00:37:03,000 --> 00:37:09,000 And and by the way, I love the story from the road to Emmaus because your dad was recently writing about that. 381 00:37:09,000 --> 00:37:15,000 And they said, don't you remember how our hearts burned within us? Yeah. 382 00:37:15,000 --> 00:37:24,000 So I was doing a doing some reading into a new book that I got called Leviticus Parashah Companion from Rabbi David Foreman. 383 00:37:24,000 --> 00:37:28,000 And yes, I said Leviticus. And it was has been a blast. 384 00:37:28,000 --> 00:37:34,000 But as I was reading and God was kind of illuminating some things in the reading, so I was I'd had my phone off. 385 00:37:34,000 --> 00:37:42,000 I was just reading through highlighting, writing, writing notes. My heart was burning. Yeah. 386 00:37:42,000 --> 00:37:51,000 You know what I mean? Like I was it was very clear God was talking and I was catching some things that I have to sit with because they're they're radically changing some things that I have been doing. 387 00:37:51,000 --> 00:38:08,000 Yeah. Right. That's what learning to hear the voice of God is. And that's why it's so important when you are wanting to walk as a spiritual being walking in with the movement of the spirit, because next week we're going to be talking about the fruit of the spirit. 388 00:38:08,000 --> 00:38:13,000 What is this demonstrative things about the fruit of the spirit? Yeah. 389 00:38:13,000 --> 00:38:29,000 If you're going to be walking with the power of the Holy Spirit, you have to love God and love other people. The only way you can learn to do that is by listening to the voice of God and also hearing how he feels about other people, because how he feels about them is going to radically change the way you treat them. 390 00:38:29,000 --> 00:38:38,000 And then coming into next week, that's going to actually start to produce fruit in your life. Yeah. That shows that you're actually doing those things. 391 00:38:38,000 --> 00:38:54,000 I made a statement to just click on God, teeing us up for next week's episode, right? That based on how you love other people, I know exactly how you feel about God, which may be overstating a little bit. 392 00:38:54,000 --> 00:39:06,000 I don't necessarily think it is though, but it's also not. Yeah. Yeah, because Jesus ties those two commands together. Yeah. I've heard it taught where people have been like, OK, let's talk about the loving God portion and let's talk about the loving people portion. 393 00:39:06,000 --> 00:39:19,000 And then you jump over to the book of James and James does the exact opposite. And James 2, where he's talking about, I will show you my face by my good deeds. That comes right after right after talk about prejudices and favoritism. 394 00:39:19,000 --> 00:39:33,000 Yeah. You treat the well-dressed person different than you treat the poorly dressed person. So James is building off of that saying, OK, I will show you my face by how I treat everybody around me. 395 00:39:33,000 --> 00:39:44,000 And so you can't separate those two out. Like you can't say you can't say, OK, I love God, but you know, there's some people I love. There's some people I don't love. 396 00:39:44,000 --> 00:39:51,000 With that said, there's people I've had disagreements with. There's been people who have who have said mean things to me and my family. 397 00:39:51,000 --> 00:40:03,000 There's been people who, you know, who have just hurled insults are with. We've all been there. And what does the Lord call us to do? Forgive and love. Yeah. 398 00:40:03,000 --> 00:40:15,000 And so we have to lean into that because if we are creatures made in God's image, OK, we are reflecting the glory of God. It is actually an insult to God for me to say I hate Ben. 399 00:40:15,000 --> 00:40:26,000 Yeah. Lord Zach is an attitude. Yeah. And it's not just a feeling, it's an attitude. And you're correct. And how we treat other people shows that we have that love in us or not. 400 00:40:26,000 --> 00:40:34,000 So as we close up here, I want to give out just a few resources because we're kind of skimming a stone across a conversation that likely you're not having. 401 00:40:34,000 --> 00:40:39,000 And so we're just trying to crack open the door for you to have this conversation about how to hear the voice of God. 402 00:40:39,000 --> 00:40:48,000 So I'm going to suggest a couple and see if you guys have a couple that you can suggest as well. We talked about experiencing God from Henry Blackby. Yes. 403 00:40:48,000 --> 00:40:57,000 We have Hearing God by Dallas Willard. And then I'm going to recommend somebody on the Pentecostal side. Translating God by Sean Bowles is a good book. 404 00:40:57,000 --> 00:41:05,000 All of those are from very different backgrounds. So if you read all of those, you're going to have a much you're going to have a lot of different perspectives on hearing that. 405 00:41:05,000 --> 00:41:10,000 And I don't think that it's bad to have multiple perspectives on this. I agree. I've read quite a bit on it. 406 00:41:10,000 --> 00:41:15,000 Sean Bowles is one that's meaningful to me. And you need to have some different perspectives to help understand what's going to make most sense to you. 407 00:41:15,000 --> 00:41:22,000 That's the same way God speaks to us all a little differently. We understand we learn differently. Yeah. 408 00:41:22,000 --> 00:41:30,000 So with that being said, if you have any thoughts or anything about what we talked about today, our Q&A is going to be coming up after the series in James. 409 00:41:30,000 --> 00:41:36,000 So you can start writing your questions now. We won't make less come back and answer random questions, but we're really glad you're here. 410 00:41:36,000 --> 00:41:41,000 I think we are going to have you on later in the series for where we talk about prophetic word. Excellent. 411 00:41:41,000 --> 00:41:50,000 I promise. So we're really looking forward to that. Other than that, till next time. Yeah, till next time. 412 00:41:50,000 --> 00:41:53,000 And that's a wrap for today's episode of Love and Context. 413 00:41:53,000 --> 00:41:59,000 We hope you enjoyed this engaging conversation and gained valuable insights into the powerful message of love within the Bible. 414 00:41:59,000 --> 00:42:02,000 We'd love to hear from you and continue the conversation. 415 00:42:02,000 --> 00:42:09,000 Connect with us by sending us your questions, thoughts, and suggestions to loveandcontext at gmail.com. 416 00:42:09,000 --> 00:42:13,000 We greatly appreciate your feedback and ideas for future episodes. 417 00:42:13,000 --> 00:42:19,000 Stay connected with us on social media for updates, behind the scenes content and additional resources. 418 00:42:19,000 --> 00:42:23,000 You can find us on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and Facebook at Love and Context. 419 00:42:23,000 --> 00:42:28,000 Don't forget to hit that follow button to stay up to date with the latest episodes and join our growing community. 420 00:42:28,000 --> 00:42:31,000 Thank you for being part of the Love and Context family. 421 00:42:31,000 --> 00:42:34,000 Remember, love is at the heart of it all. 422 00:42:34,000 --> 00:43:02,000 Until next time, keep seeking wisdom, embracing love and living out your faith in the context of today's world.