The School of the Holy Spirit 20 of 52: Part 8 – The Anatomy and Secrets of the Secret Place with God – The Secret of Hearing, Listening and Journaling in the Secret Place + 8 key Ways to Hearing Listening and Journaling Gods Voice in the Secret Place Using Soap Principle
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The School of the Holy Spirit 20 of 52: Part 8 – The Anatomy and Secrets of the Secret Place with God – The Secret of Hearing, Listening and Journaling in the Secret Place + 8 key Ways to Hearing, Listening and Journaling God’s Voice in the Secret Place Using Soap Principle
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Date: Sunday, 5th of April 2020
Blog Link – https://www.otakada.org/secret-of-hearing-listening-and-journaling
Podcast link : https://anchor.fm/otakada.org/episodes/The-School-of-the-Holy-Spirit-20-of-52-Part-8-ecmbeq
Quotes on Hearing, Listening and Journaling in the Secret Place:
“God speaks in the silence of the heart. Listening is the beginning of prayer” – Mother Teresa
“It’s hard to hear the gentle whisper of the Spirit amid the noise of Christendom.”
― Shane Claiborne
“Listening to God – which is a key part of practicing His presence – is not a method, but a walk with a person.” – Leanne Payne
“Whenever there is stillness there is the still small voice, God’s speaking from the whirlwind, nature’s old song, and dance…”
― Annie Dillard
“Unless we see God’s activity in the midst of them, we will be unaware of their spiritual significance. They will simply be events in a long succession of confusing occurrences. A miracle could take place, and we would miss it. But if we are sensitive to God’s voice, these same events can hold enormous significance for us.” – Hudson
“It’s amazing what we lose in life by listening to fear, instead of listening to God.” – Joyce Meyer
“We live in a culture where everyone wants to have his or her voice heard but has so little to say. And that’s because we do so little listening, especially to God. The best way to get people to listen to us is for us to listen to God. Why? Because we’ll have something to say that is worth hearing. Ultimately, all of us need to find our voice. And by voice I mean the unique message God wants to speak through our lives. But finding our voice starts with hearing His voice.”
― Mark Batterson
“When God speaks, he does not give new revelation about himself that contradicts what he has already revealed in Scripture. Rather, God speaks to give application of his Word to the specific circumstances in your life. When God speaks to you, he is not writing a new book of Scripture; rather, he is applying to your life what he has already said in his Word.”
― Henry T. Blackaby
“If this inner and critical voice has kept you safe for many years as your inner voice of authority, you may end up not being able to hear the real voice of God.”
― Richard Rohr
“Some of the most miserable people we have known were those who received God’s call to full-time Christian service but spent a lifetime rejecting it.”
― Henry T. Blackaby,
“If your life is off-key, maybe it’s because you’ve been deafened by the negative self-talk that doesn’t let God get a Word in edgewise! Maybe you’ve listened to the voice of criticism so long you can’t believe anything else about yourself. Or maybe it’s the Enemy’s voice of condemnation that speaks lies about who you really are. If you don’t silence those competing voices, they’ll eventually deafen you. You won’t be able to sing God’s song because you won’t be able to hear His voice.”
― Mark Batterson
“When Jesus raised Lazarus to life, the miracle was so spectacular many people believed in Jesus. However, some witnessed the same miracle and were motivated instead to betray Jesus (John 11:47–48). How could people witness such an event yet miss God’s message? It was a matter of spiritual perception.”
― Henry T. Blackaby
“God speaks repeatedly and in many different ways”
― Sunday Adelaja
“The only way we can validate the integrity of the foundation upon which we stand is in the storms of life. Storms are incredibly outstanding in pointing out fault lines in the foundation stones of our lives and belief system so that we can go back to the drawing board to avoid unnecessary casualties in our faith work with the Lord – This can only happen not in the crowd but when we listen attentively to His voice in the secret place and obey Him fully” – Monday Ogwuojo Ogbe – Otakada.org
Key Verses:
Matthew 6:6 Amplified Bible, Classic Edition (AMPC)
6 But when you pray, go into your [most] private room, and, closing the door, pray to your Father, Who is in secret; and your Father, Who sees in secret, will reward you in the open.
Matthew 7:24-27 Amplified Bible, Classic Edition (AMPC)
24 So everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts upon them [obeying them] will be like a [a]sensible (prudent, practical, wise) man who built his house upon the rock.
25 And the rain fell and the floods came and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock.
26 And everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not do them will be like a stupid (foolish) man who built his house upon the sand.
27 And the rain fell and the floods came and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell—and great and complete was the fall of it.
John 10:27-30 Amplified Bible (AMP)
27 The sheep that are My own hear My voice and listen to Me; I know them, and they follow Me. 28 And I give them eternal life, and they will never, ever [by any means] perish; and no one will ever snatch them out of My hand. 29 [a]My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater and mightier than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. 30 I and the Father are One [in essence and nature].”
Matthew 13:9 Amplified Bible (AMP)
9 He who has ears [to hear], let him hear and heed My words.”
Zechariah 7:8-14 Amplified Bible (AMP)
8 Then the word of the Lord came to Zechariah, saying, 9 “Thus has the Lord of hosts said, ‘Dispense true justice and practice kindness and compassion, to each other; 10 and do not oppress or exploit the widow or the fatherless, the stranger or the poor; and do not devise or even imagine evil in your hearts against one another.’ 11 But they refused to listen and pay attention and turned a stubborn shoulder [stiffening themselves in resistance] and stopped up their ears. 12 They made their hearts [hard] like flint, so that they could not hear the law and the words which the Lord of hosts had sent by His Spirit through the former prophets. Therefore, great wrath came from the Lord of hosts. 13 And just as He called and they would not listen, so they called and I would not listen,” says the Lord of hosts; 14 “but I scattered them with a storm wind among all the nations whom they have not known. Thus the land was desolate after they had gone, so that no one passed through or returned, for they [by their sins] had made the pleasant land desolate and deserted.”
Psalm 95:7-10 Amplified Bible (AMP)
7 For He is our God
And we are the people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand.
Today, if you will hear His voice,
8 Do not harden your hearts and become spiritually dull as at Meribah [the place of strife],
And as at Massah [the place of testing] in the wilderness,
9 “When your fathers tested Me,
They tried Me, even though they had seen My work [of miracles].
10 “For forty years I was grieved and disgusted with that generation,
And I said, ‘They are a people who err in their heart,
And they do not acknowledge or regard My ways.’
Introduction.
Dear friends, this is a continuation of our series on the school of the Holy Spirit. Today, we bring you – The School of the Holy Spirit 20 of 52: Part 8 – The Anatomy and Secrets of the Secret Place with God – The Secret of Hearing, Listening and Journaling in the Secret Place + 8 key Ways to Hearing, Listening and Journaling Gods Voice in the Secret place – Use Soap
If you missed the Wednesday post where we discussed in Series 19 of 52 – School of the Holy Spirit – Part 7: Faith is a Spirit and fear is a spirit – Get 7 Time Tested Practical Activation Steps You Can Use in Elevating Spirit of Faith to Fight and Knock-out the spiritual vibration of the spirit of fear in and around you! + Included 365 “Fear Not” Scriptures! please visit the link.
Before we disclose 8 key Ways to Hearing, Listening and Journaling God’s Voice in the Secret Place Using SOAP, we will first discuss some background information and then the secret of Hearing, Listening and Journaling Gods voice in the secret place will follow afterwards.
Key note: It is very important that for journaling purposes, we must have a notebook that we can use to record what the Lord is saying to us as we recline to His presence. Date it, time it if you can but by all means, record what you sense the Lord is saying to you as you enter to dialogue with Him.
Let me give some background information on hearing and listening from the physical perspective which we are accustomed to and listening using our 5 spiritual senses so we see how listening flows.
Someone rightly said, “Hearing is through ears, but listening is through the mind.” The two activities hearing and listening involve the use of ears, but they are different. The hearing is nothing but a sense that helps you receive sound waves and noise by ears. It is the power of perceiving sounds.
On the contrary, listening is when you receive the sound waves and understand it by paying full attention to the words and sentences of the speaker. It is one’s ability to correctly receive and interpret the message transferred by the other party in the process of communication.
Now let’s look at how the listening posture happens using our 5 spiritual senses – called “senses of the heart”
First I present these five senses of my heart – Ears of my heart, Eyes of my Heart, Mind of my heart, will of my heart and emotion of my heart to the Holy Spirit to be used in biblical meditation and communion with Him. God is spirit and those who come to worship must of necessity worship in spirit and in truth – John 4:23-24
I start as follows as I meditate on God’s word in the secret place, i will be attentive to these five spiritual senses:
- Ears of my Heart – I direct my whole attention to God’s word as I begin to read. I incline my ear to the words and have an attentive attitude so that I hear what He is saying to me from the passage since His voice comes to me as flowing thoughts. I tune to these as I read the scripture He has led me to for the day.
- Eye of my Heart – I sanctify my imagination, deliberately offering up to the Father, the eyes pf my heart to be filled with pictures and visions of eternal reality that I am reading about in the bible. I picture the biblical scenes as I am reading and I tune to flow, inviting the Holy Spirit to make them come alive and to minister anything to me He wants to reveal to me. As flow bubbles up and the scenes come alive and begin moving, the picture in my mind transitions from godly imagination to divine visions.
- Mind of my Heart – Throughout the day and night, I ponder the words and visions I have recorded in my journal, seeking greater revelation and how they are to be integrated into my life
- Will of my Heart – I set my will to fully understand and obey all that God has spoken to me. I confess verses and truth and principles out loud, personalizing them by putting my name in the bible promises I am meditating upon.
- Emotions of my Heart – My deep underlying emotions are stirred as I gaze at the picture I am holding on the screen of my heart. These emotions move me to action. In addition, I have a sense of peace and assurance in my heart when the Holy Spirit is saying “yes” or unrest when He is saying “No”. My heart lets out victory cry when it gains new insights through the Holy Spirit, and when He convicts me of sin, it is broken and contrite before Him
Let’s apply the above when we read the bible and listen to God as an example using SOAP – Scripture, Observations, Application and Pray – 8 Keyways to hearing, listening and journaling Gods voice in the secret place:
- Read with a Pen – Make notes, circle stuff, ask questions
- Hunt for Promises – Underline or highlight the promises
- Key Words – Look for those words that make the section make sense.
- Repeat, repeat – If a word or phrase is repeated, it’s important.
- If/then or So/That – Look for the cause and effect phrases in the Bible
- Therefore- If there’s a therefore what is it there for?
- Apply it – Ask how this part of scripture applies to me today
- Pray – Pray about what He has shown you as you are led to action that brings lasting transformation
Now, The Secret of Hearing, Listening and Journaling in the Secret Place
When God brought the people of Israel from Egypt, through the Red Sea, to Mount Sinai, He appeared to the nation as a visible fire on the mountain and spoke to them with a thundering audible voice. The experience was so awesome it totally overpowered the Israelites, who asked that Moses go instead and speak to God by himself on their behalf.
The psalmist described this scene with a most unusual phrase: “I answered you in the secret place of thunder” (Psalm 81:7). God viewed the convocation with His people on Mt. Sinai as a “secret place” encounter with His people. He called them aside to a deserted mountain in order to speak with them and give them His commandments.
God has always designed that a secret place is a place where He answers us and speaks to us. Sometimes, He even apprehends us by thundering to us with His awesome voice. There is nothing more glorious in all of life than hearing His voice! God has always longed to have the kind of intimate relationship with His people wherein they hear His voice and respond accordingly. If and when we close the door to our secret place so that we might shut out all distracting voices and tune our hearts to the one voice which We long to hear. “The secret place of thunder”—what an awesome description of the place where we come aside to be with our Lord!
Jesus talked about the necessity of hearing. For example, He cried out, “‘He who has ears to hear, let him hear!’” (Matthew 13:9). I realized that everything in the kingdom depends upon whether or not we hear the word of
Nothing can replace the confidence and authority that comes from hearing God.
For this reason, I strongly advocate for a prayer life that is comprised mostly of silence. It’s a great delight to talk to God, but it’s even more thrilling when He talks to us. I’ve discovered that He has more important things to say than I do.
Things don’t change when I talk to God; things change when God talks to me.
When I talk, nothing happens; when God talks, the universe comes into existence. So the power of prayer is found, not in convincing God of my agenda, but in waiting upon Him to hear His agenda. I do not mean to give the impression that hearing God’s voice is my daily experience in the secret place. Far from it! Most days I come away with unfulfilled longings, unanswered prayers, unrealized aspirations, deferred hopes, and incomplete understandings but the Holy Spirit always brings comfort at those times. But then along comes one of those days—you know what I mean—when heaven leans over and God speaks a word directly to the heart. He breathes upon a portion of Scripture and personalizes its meaning precisely to my felt needs. Oh, what glory! That moment is worth all of the knocking and seeking of the preceding days. I will endure months of silence if He will but speak one creative word from His mouth to my spirit.
When worshiping this morning in the secret place, I began to speak in tongues, charging up my spirit man to collide with His and Isaiah 59 coupled with Mark 16 came on the screen – in the eyes of my heart. I quickly opened up the passages and began reading and a Rhema – A specific word, for the church and a specific purpose of returning back to Him came to me from Isaiah 59:19-21. I knew it because my spirit confirmed with the Spirit of God in me. On opening Mark 16, I was led to pray through the enter passage for the body of Christ of which I belong to return to the first love and do the last command of reaching out to the lost.
My role in the secret place is to listen for anything God might want to speak. If He doesn’t speak to me, my time spent in silent listening is not futile or in vain. I haven’t missed something or failed to connect. I’ve done my part. It is so important to me that I put myself in a posture of listening. I’m convinced there have been times I have not clearly heard God’s word to my heart because I have not been listening at the time He was speaking. I realize I can’t tell God what to speak, or when to speak it. But I can position myself in the secret place so that, when He chooses to speak, I am found listening.
Scripture says, ‘“Today, if you will hear His voice’” (Psalm 95:7). So hearing the voice of God is largely a matter of the will, using the will of our hearts. We must choose to hear Him. We make the choice by setting aside time to listen quietly. This hearing is a “today” thing that we do. It says “if’ because hearing His voice is conditional— built upon the condition of quieting our hearts to listen.
These messages we receive from the Lord need to be journaled. There is a tendency to forget as we step out of the secret place. Some last a few minutes… It is imperative that we jot down in our journal what we sense the Spirit of God is ministering to us.
All of us want God to hear our prayers. But the Lord said, ‘“Therefore it happened, that just as He proclaimed and they would not hear, so they called out and I would not listen’” (Zechariah 7:13). In other words, God is saying, “When I spoke, you didn’t listen to Me; therefore, when you speak, I won’t listen to you.” The inference is that when we hear God’s voice, He in turn listens to our voice.
Do not believe your adversary’s lies. He would tell you that you are unable to hear the voice of God. Nothing could be further from the truth. Jesus said of you, “‘My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me’” (John 10:27). You Can hear the voice of God. Stop everything, come aside, listen, and wait on Him. Wait until. He longs to commune with you.
When listening, it is a common experience to be bombarded with thoughts about all that must be done in our daily duties. A practical suggestion: Take a notepad to the secret place, and write down “things to do” as they interrupt your listening. Then, you can put those thoughts out of mind and maintain your focus where you want it, knowing that you’ll not forget about those details later.
Be encouraged by the fact that you’re not the only one who finds listening a very challenging discipline to master. The best attainments in God always come the hardest. Be prepared to make the discipline of attentive listening a lifetime pursuit that will become easier in the doing of it. Let’s grow together!
Prayer:
Our Father, thank You for the privilege we have to engage with You in the secret place. Thank You for revelations that brings direction, peace and joy to our hearts. Thank You for the special gift of access. Help us to make this a habit powered by our love to be with You in the secret place. Anoint our spiritual senses afresh – the Ears of our hearts, Eyes of our Heart, Mind of our hearts, Will of our hearts and emotions of heart to be sensitive and tuned to Your promptings Lord God. Propel us into Your specific plans and purpose for our lives Lord God. Spirit of the living God, use this period, where there is less distraction to speak mysteries to us and convict the world of sin so that they can receive our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Draw them to Yourself Father. Thank You for You always hear us when we pray. Especially salvation for the lost. Thank you for helping us to make this our core mission in life to direct and disciple the lost to You by Your help. Grant us grace to do this always as we are willing this time around to propel this desire forward in Jesus name. We silence every accusing voices from the realm of wickedness that is sapping us of the willingness to give birth to that which You have deposited in us. We bring forth that vision, that dream by the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit in us. We come against the arrows of fear that the evil one is sending our way and we decree and declare that we are continually heed in Christ in God, as we remain the apple of Gods eyes in Jesus name, Amen
Now, experience all round-success this week and beyond as You are led by your closest friend – The Holy Spirit!
Remember, we are one in Christ Jesus – Only in unity we can have lasting and far reaching impact – Engage!
Ephesians 4:4-6 Amplified Bible, Classic Edition (AMPC) 4 [ There is ] one body and one Spirit—just as there is also one hope [that belongs] to the calling you received—5 [ There is ] one Lord, one faith, one baptism,6 One God and Father of [ us ] all, Who is above all [ Sovereign over all ], pervading all and [ living ] in [us] all.
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Shalom!
Monday Ogwuojo Ogbe
e-discipleship at Otakada.org
+13022686313; +2348032835348; info@otakada.org
Originally posted on April 4, 2020 @ 7:27 pm
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