TO KNOW THE FATHER

 

TO KNOW THE FATHER - AUDIO

To be still with the Lord not only in heart, but in mind is producing a trust that is not based on something palpable or concrete.  Rather this trust is from an inner knowing.  That I know that I know, that I know.  Learning to wait in silence of mind.  It is actually one of the things I thought quite profound, the fact that He says we are to take ALL our thoughts captive and that we have conveniently only thought to take the thoughts the enemy sends our way captive.  The reality is that even our own thoughts cannot be trusted, as it comes from our wicked hearts.  Hence the reason why we are not to lean on our own understanding.  This trust is not about your ability to control self.  Although this is a fruit of the Spirit, self can and has and will learn how to do exactly that.  We see it out in the world.  There are unsaved people that have more self-control than Christians have.  It really is a matter of motivation and determination.  So the sad reality is that within all our nice fruit we see, this self still plays a role.  Just when we thought we got a hold on issues.  But such is God’s wisdom to bring us to utter dependence on Him, which includes to not trust our spirituality as well.

Trust is not just a choice we have to make, but in essence it is a disposition.  A state of mind born from out of a relationship. “I trust you”, does not come easily.  I will confess that it took me over 30 years to authentically say that to Father.  Oh how we can lie to ourselves.  It truly is amazing.  In Psalm 78 we read this telling verse.

Psalm 78: 22

²² Because they believed not in God, and trusted not in his salvation:

This 78^th chapter is about how Father led them out of Egypt and did so many miracles for them.  And even so, they believed not in God and trusted not in his salvation.  Isn’t that so much like us?  He takes us out of Egypt and we can testify of so many miracles, and yet at times we find ourselves exactly where they were at…they did not trust.  He slew them after that and they started calling out to Him again. But it says that they only flattered Him with their tongue.  See how deceitful our hearts are?

³⁷ For their heart was not right with him, neither were they steadfast in his covenant.

Strange how we look down on those Israelites forgetting the type and shadow that they are of us?

It further goes on to say how He had compassion on them, remembering that they were only flesh.  Then it says something in verse 52 that touched my heart.

⁵² But made his own people to go forth like sheep, and guided them in the wilderness like a flock.

This theme of shepherd made me go to the familiar scripture of John 10 where Jesus talks about being the Good Shepherd.  He mentions something I thought strange in verse 15.

¹⁵ As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father: and I lay down my life for the sheep.

He was talking about how the sheep recognize the shepherd’s voice and will not follow another, but then He says, "as the Father knows me, even so I know the Father".  That is like saying as a shepherd knows the sheep, so the sheep knows the Shepherd.  I’ll give you a moment.  Think about it…do you know how dumb sheep are?  I mean, like really stupid.  They truly do follow one that goes astray.  They are so scared of the slightest noise and they huddle together in little groups, almost void of individual identity.  And yet, they know the shepherd?  They may know the shepherd’s voice, but the shepherd himself?  The reality is that this knowing, is actually the basis of trust.  What He is saying is, My Father trusts me, because He knows me.  And I trust Him, because I know Him.  For that reason I will lay My life down, because even though it will cost me everything, I trust Him.  I know He sent Me to die on a cross and He has given me the power to take up My life, but also to lay it down.  But I choose to lay it down, because I know how He loves the sheep, and I trust Him and know that He will raise Me up. Nothing is hidden about Me or about Him between us.  Of course, Jesus as we know, saw this through by actually doing it, and not just paying lip service to it. 

Meditating on these words, I just started thinking about how the Father knows the Son and I could of course only relate on a human level with regard to how an earthly parent knows their child.  Well, being a parent, I can truly say I know my daughter.  Even more so because of her disorders and having to be on the ball, so to speak.  I mean that I really know her.  I know why she thinks a certain way and reacts a certain way.  I know what puts her off, what scares her, what motivates her, what breaks her down.  And I of course know that most parents will say, “we do too”.  But I can tell you for a fact, that the same is not true about her.  Although we have gone over some very troubled waters, she still does not know me to the degree that I know her.  Which is obviously logical, but I think you see my point.  It is all about transparency and therefore the love and trust.  So Jesus is telling us, the relationship of trust I have with the Father is based on My knowing the Father.  Not just about Him knowing Me, but an actual relationship of transparency.

This brings me to the theme of the fast I am in, which is to BE STILL AND KNOW THAT I AM GOD.  It is not just for the sake of being still, but being still is for the purpose of knowing.  Knowing who?  The Father.  Here we have the prerequisite of truly knowing the Father.  Going from knowing about Him, to knowing Him from that place of trust that is birthed out of stillness.  Can we say that we know as we ought and are we willing to do whatsoever it takes?  The outcome will be obedience of another kind, where you will be willing to lay your life down, due to absolute trust.  Do we trust Him 10%? 50/50 or 80%?  What constitute 100% trust and just how are we to get to that point?  As the Father knows Me, so I know the Father and lay My life down for the sheep.  The laying down His life was solely based on knowing the Father.  And God does not call us to an obedience that we can perform in our own strength, but brings us to the end of ourselves so that in our weakness, He can be strong.  So Jesus was willing in His humanity to be brought unto complete weakness.  He laid His life down as one weak, not strong.  Because should there have been any self-confidence that He as the Son of Man relied on, the Father would not have received the glory, even if they are one.  The issue was Jesus being sent as a man, so that He could be the forerunner and Patterned Son for us to emulate.  So there could have been no confidence in the flesh.  He was brought to nothing and He did it willingly.  His obedience was one that He could not perform out of His own strength.  Father reminded me of something He said to me last year.

“Just like I saved you without your help, so I will raise you without your help.”

Absolute trust.

Father is calling us to such a relationship with Him.  What then is the requirement for us to enter into this fully?  To know on an intimate level His likes and dislikes, joys and sadness, to know His heart.  And why should He extend this to us with our adulterous hearts?  Why should He want to share His pure and perfect heart with us?  And yet, this is His desire – BE STILL AND KNOW THAT I AM GOD. 

He could have been called by other impersonal names, but He desired us to know Him as Father.   And to know Him as Father, is to trust Him.  And to trust Him is to obey Him.  We who have given our lives to the Father are all children of God.  Therefore, He knows us by name and also calls us by name.  Each and every one of us.  But He wants to bring us from children to sons, because sons speak of maturity that has been wrought through obediences and experiences in the wilderness.  Therefore He sent the Son of God to show us the Father, not the child of God, even though He came in the form of a child at first.  It is the Son we are to emulate and not the child.  Yes, childlike faith, but in the form of the Son.   This is also why He said to Phillip, “When you have seen Me, you have seen the Father”.  One can only represent the Father to the degree that you have come into sonship.  This has nothing to do with your physical age or even how long you have been born again.  Rather, sonship is a state of maturity where you have come to know that He is God, directly proportional to the degree that you have become still in all your categories.  He came to show us the Father by His knowing the Father.  And if it is required of us to be still to know Him, then as the Son of Man it was required of Him too to know Him as Father and be still.  Let that sink in. 

And so our concept of God as Father is not just disfigured by our past and various abuse that the enemy used, but also it is distorted by our own internal dialogue, perception and traditions, or as I like to call it “filters”.  The writer of Hebrews states the following:

Hebrews 5: 13 - 14

¹³ For every one that useth milk is unskilful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe.

¹⁴ But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.

There is a requirement of us not to stagnate, not to think that we are doing dandy, to think that we pass the exam or no real need for more.  Jesus said in John 17 that to KNOW the Father and the Son whom He sent is eternal life, which is resurrection life.  Eternal life is not just about longevity, but quality of life.  God desires many sons and daughters and even so does creation groan for their manifestation.  Not just for that which constitute resurrection of the body, but resurrection life in us now!  Even the manifestation of the sons and daughters now on earth.  This is so that many more would come into sonship, as they see the Father in those who have matured.  And as Jesus said to Phillip, they can authentically say, when you see me, you see Jesus, which is the true express image of the Father!

Many people cannot relate to God as Father.  They speak through Jesus to the Father, which is what we are to do.  But His intention was never that we are to not speak to Him at all.  I know many people like that and I do have compassion on that disposition, because as I said, there is a reason for that.  Many also can call Him Father, but calling Him Father and relating to Him as Father, is two different things.  And as I said, trust is the issue.  He is calling us as children of God to come into sonship that we may know Him.  There are those in the Body that need to address this issue.  Some may have to allow Him to heal past hurts and stop sweeping it under the rug.  Because even that which transpired in you about how a father is, evidently has you still not calling Him “Father” from an authentic place.  Calling Him Father is a good beginning, but His desire is that we will truly know Him as Father.  What a privilege!

Everything suffers loss because we do not know Him as we ought.  Not truly recognizing Him as Father, in adversely cause us not to truly recognize ourselves as His sons and daughters.  We may pay homage to the idea, but saying something and being something is not the same.  And so this is why Paul said to the Corinthians, “Why do you walk as mere men?”  What a strange thing to say. As if to say that we are actually more than just mere men?  Our own deficiency with regard to this truth, shows in the degree that we trust Him.  And this is exactly His provision for us to know Him, which is stillness.  This is why great faith is liken to childlike faith, because children trust their Father, at least in a perfect world.  But how can we when the enemy has made sure that we would be disjointed and broken arrows in His quiver? 

He is desiring to set us straight, even if it means that He has to break the legs of the sheep and carry it on His shoulder.  The issue is never just correction, the issue is ultimately trust.  And just because some of us may have not had derelict fathers, does not constitute that we truly know Him as Father, at least the way He intends.  It does not exclude us from pressing into this, because though you may love Him, the issue still remains trust.  Therefore, He invites circumstances to prove you and correct you that you may know Him.  And though many of us can say “I know the Father”, it is somehow so easy to generalize.  If you are still living from out of the life in you, which is self, you have yet to enter into the resurrection life He intended for you.  We have to ask ourselves the questions we think somehow is not applicable to us, which is, “Do I know the Father as He knows me?”  And, “Am I willing to lay my life down?”  At the heart of it all will always be the cross.  For the cross is where the Father showed the extent of His wrath, the extent of our sin, but also the extent of His mercy and love.  It is only at the cross where we meet God, because without the blood, we cannot stand before Him.  Even so, Jesus did not say He knew the Father as the Father knew Him, based from their pre-incarnate relationship.  He emptied Himself it says in Phillipians 2. But He said this as a declaration of the relationship He has with the Father, as a man.  The message is, as man you can have a relationship with the Father to know Him as He knows you, even though He is very God!

It takes a tremendous paradigm shift in us to come to the full revelation of this.  Because subconsciously we do not believe that we can have this type of relationship with the Father.  But this is exactly why He came.  To show us as man that we can.  And once the penny drops, everything changes.  Because knowing the Father is to be like the Son.

If we miss the Father, how can we truly see ourselves as sons?  It is not just a title, He is a person, although God is Spirit.  But a person that wants to be known.  Hence the invitation. 

Jeremiah 29:13

¹³ And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.

Once all of our heart is invested in this seeking, we find Him.  And only He can bring us to that place.  We can only go that far and fall short every time.  And yet, we are to seek.  And for that, He has to deal with our hearts.  This is not for what we can get out of it, although we will benefit immensely.  It is what the Father desires!  To have many sons and daughters!  To have communion with us of an intimate kind, transparency, to return to the garden.  Not only that we can trust Him, but that He has brought us to such a place that He can trust us.  We are to return with all our hearts.  The Father wants to love you.  He wants to love you.  This is His desire.  This is His heart’s cry and this desire He places in us so that with cords of love He may draw us to Him.  This is eternal life that we may know the Father and Jesus Christ His Son. 

BE STILL AND KNOW THAT I AM GOD. – Psalm 46: 10. 

Enoch who walked with God, knew God.  God walks with us so that we may go from hearing to knowing.  And in between the hearing and the knowing, is stillness.  

At the heart of the Gospel is, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son…”

The motivation has never just been salvation, but relationship.

 I will end this post with some of the last words of Jesus' High Priestly prayer in John 17.

John 17: 23; 25 - 26

I in them, and Thou in Me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that Thou hast sent Me, and hast loved them, as Thou hast loved Me.

Oh righteous Father, the world hath not known thee; but I have known Thee, and these have known that thou has sent Me.

And I have declared unto them Thy Name, and will delcare it: that the love wherewith thou has loved Me may be in them, and I in them.

 

 

 

OPEN WINDOW

OPEN WINDOW - AUDIO

 

I had a dream on the 6th of March.  It was a long dream with a very clear message.  It will seem slightly confusing at first, but I will give you the interpretation that goes with it.  As I was meditating on this dream and the interpretation, I first and foremost took it for myself.  Father has been teaching me so much in this fast by being silent.  But equally in proportion to that which He is teaching me by His Spirit, He is also showing me the depth of my depraved and utterly wicked heart.  I have been mourning and have been in sackcloth so to speak for the last 13 days of this fast.  Every day He shows me the depth of the wickedness of my own heart, and I know there is no end to it.  Something only He can show us.  Not based on what we have done or still do in our lives, but what we are.  Who we are as man.  So this was the reason why I first took it for me.  And then He started to speak to me in my spirit.  I did not want Him to speak to me saying in my heart, "No, why are You speaking to me? You said you would not, and now you are!"  And then I reminded myself at that moment that He is God and can pretty much do what He wants.  After I wrote the word down, it was complete silence from there on again, stepping back into that space He is wanting to teach me without hearing Him.  Later on, I realized that the reason for this apparent "breach in the contract" with regard to no speaking, was that the word was not just for me, but for all those waiting on Him to take them home.  It is a sobering word and I pray that you hear what the Spirit is saying to His children.  But first the dream.

Dream:

I dreamt that I was in my room looking outside. It was at the time of dawn.  Outside it was still misty and slightly dark.  My window was open.  As I walked to the window, I saw that there was something stuck to my window, about the size of my hand.  It was a tortoise!  When I got closer, I saw that it was actually a massive bullfrog.  It jumped off the window to the ground.  Watching it there from my window, I noticed that somebody was coming in my direction from the field.  It was two men, wearing dark cloaks.  The closer they got, the more clearer I could see that these were not two men, but two skeletons!  I was not scared.  In fact, I took out my cellphone and started making a video of them.  It was as if they did not notice me or even cared about noticing me.  They were on their way to go somewhere.  The next moment I was looking over a massive grave sight, seeing all the grave stones.  There were hundreds of these skeletons that were walking around there, on their way out.  Immediatly I knew that the dead in Christ has risen!

Suddenly I was in a next scene.  I was trying to get dressed, franctically looking for a specific top.  I could not find it anywhere, my agitation growing by the second.  I knew that I had to go out and tell everybody.  I went out on the streets and showed people the video, warning them to repent because Jesus is coming any second!  Going to everybody I could find.  The weird thing was that those that I was warning, were not even aware of these "risen dead" walking in the midst of them.  The next moment the scene changed again.

This time I was at a friend's home.  I shall refrain from saying her name to protect her privacy.  She was having a hot, steamy bath.  I know, because I could see her legs and feet in the bath from her perspective.  You know like when the steam goes up from your skin as you lift it out of the bath water.  I came to her and told her everything, showing her the video and that the Lord is coming to get us.  She immediately dressed and wanted to go tell her husband.  She knew he was not ready to meet the Lord.  As it is almost always at their home, the house was full of people.  And her husband was entertaining them.  I told her in the dream that it was too late for her husband and that she needs to believe that the Lord will look after him in the time coming, just like He would do with my husband.  Then the scene changed again.

I was running a bath in my friends home.  The water was lukewarm and this would just not do.  So I went searching for the electricity switch to put it on for some warm water to add to the bath.  I remember that whilst I was looking for this switch, I still had not found my top I was looking for.

End of dream.

Interpretation:

In summary the dream is about how close we are to the coming of the Lord.  It is a warning for those who are alive in Christ to make ready for His return.  My friend and I do not represent ourselves in the dream, but rather the Church at large.  The time of day and the rising of the dead in Christ, is symbolic of a new beginning.  A new day.  It is also the time of day that many are still sleeping...that time when you actually sleep the deepest.  

My room represents our hearts and the open window that which is still a breach in our lives for the enemy to find entrance.  The bullfrog is an unclean spirit, but the reason why I first thought that it was a tortoise, is because the message is:  Our slowness in dealing with sin in our lives, which has always kept that one window open for the enemy to enter.  

So let's start with me in the dream.  I represent those of the church that evangelize.  That go out and tell people about His coming.  I can even show the proof (video).  However, not only am I not ready for Him to come, due to me not finding the right clothing, but I am lukewarm and I do not even know this.  And when He comes, a quick fix, the electrical switch, will not work.  I have to be fully clothed and warm in Christ.  So in essence, I did everything right concerning doing things for the Lord, but in my heart were secret sins that I have allowed, that was the very reason for not being rightly dressed for His coming and the lukewarmness.

My friend, being hot for the Lord, and being found clean, which refers to holy living, was however overtaken by sorrow and concern for her husband.  She was distraught to the point that this was all she could think about, and this caused her not to focus on the Lord, but to only be concerned about him.  She resembles those who are overtaken by the cares of this world, not just concerning our families and friends, but with what it going on at the moment in this world.

The people I was ministering to in the dream that did not react to my video proof or even the fact that the "risen dead" were walking among them, is showing the times we are in where people are in a daze, not recognizing the seriousness of the time.  I think this has a lot to do with a "crying wolf" syndrome.  How long have people heard, "The Lord is coming!"?  It has come to be like that where the emminency of His coming is completely vanished, and therefore no need to make right with God immediately.  "Tomorrow is another day", they think.

Word received:

I search the heart and see that which is done in secret.  I know the thoughts and intents of the heart of man.  And I know the wickedness of every heart.   For those who think they are pristinely clean, I see as white washed tombs, full of death and evil.  They are convinced of their own purity.  

What can wash away their sin?  Nothing but the Blood of Jesus.  What can make them whole again?  Nothing but the Blood of Jesus.  

So come and make ready.  Do not think you can stand before Me without being washed.  Not once, but every day.  For every day brings with it its temptations.  Every day the eyes lust, the flesh desires and pride goes rampant.  Every day an onslaught on your senses.  Nothing but the Blood, the Blood of My Son.  Many will say, "But Lord, did we not cast out devils in your Name?  Did we not do miracles in Your Name?  But they never built their lives in obedience to Me on the Rock.  

Therefore, they will be caught unawares in the storm coming. They will not stand, because they have not cut off the hand and plucked out the eye.  They have in secret held their hand to their bosom so that man could not see.  But I see.

All stand naked before Me.  All will have to stand before Me that sees everything.  I still seek those, my eye still goes to and fro across the earth in search for those who tremble at My word.  Those of old trembled, but this generation is stiff-necked, lusting after the flesh pots of Egypt.

Examine yourselves.  Examine yourselves whether you will be able to stand before the Son of Man.  Examine your wicked hearts and prepare to stand before Me.

The scripture that came to my spirit once I understood the dream, was Luke 21: 34 - 36

34 And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares.

35 For as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth.

36 Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man.

The word overcharged, means to be weighed down with a burden or a general sense of being weighted down.

The word surfeiting speaks of gluttony.  The Word says that many will make their belly their god.  But I want to submit to you that the frog in my dream speaks of an unclean spirit.  And gluttony speaks of a spirit of lust.  And there are many among the children of God that has a problem with food.  But in the same context lust takes on different forms.  It can be lust for recognition, lust for approval, lust for things in life, lust in what you are watching. Have you noticed how time flies by when you watch something on media, whatever form it takes? The question is to what degree are you overcharged by this lust?  

Drunkenness speaks for itself concerning the obvious.  It brings us back to where Jesus said that it will be as the days of Noah.  However, Jesus was speaking to His disciples, not to the world in this scripture of Luke 21.  And so it is very easy to be overtaken or overcharged with drunkness, that is to be intoxicated by something.  What is presently drawing you away from Him?  What has your mind so "locked down" that it is all you can think of?  Fear?  Anger? Lust?  

The time has come that we remove our leperous hand from our bosom and see it for what it is.  Giving Him the time now to allow Him to strips us, even if it means cutting off our hands and plucking out our eye.  Whatever it takes to be ready.  For He says those who are overcharged with these things, will be caught unawares. Just because you can pinpoint the season and the time, does not mean you are ready and will not be caught unaware.  There are those who knows the season, but has yet to still clean out the cupboard of their hearts.  They have yet to deal with that one thing that has always been their "Achiles heal".  They have yet to close the window of their bedroom, their heart.  They may see Him coming, but not be dressed appropriately, overcharged whether by lust or concerns.  It is time to get ready Bride.

Jeremiah 17: 9 - 10

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?

I the Lord search the heart, I try the reins even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings.

Mark 9: 43 - 48

43 And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched:

44 Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.

45 And if thy foot offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter halt into life, than having two feet to be cast into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched:

46 Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.

47 And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out: it is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire:

48 Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.

Proverbs 27: 20

Hell and destruction are never full, so the eyes of man are never satisfied.

Proverbs 30: 20

Such is the way of the adulterous woman, she eateth, and wipeth her mouth and saith, "I have done no wickedness.

Psalm 139: 23 - 24

Search me, O Lord, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts:

And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

KNOWING IN THE SILENCE

 KNOWING IN THE SILENCE - AUDIO

As you know, Father has asked me to go on a fast.  Normally I would not tell anyone when I go on a fast, but when it is for so long and with no communication with the outside, it is best to let people know you did not vanish off the earth. Unlike the normal fasting of food, the “food” I was required to fast from has been from words.  No communication.  

Originally when He showed me that He wanted me to fast with communication, I thought that it only meant that I was to fast from speaking to others.  However, He showed me later that it was more than that.  It was no communication between the Lord and I as well!  This seems contrary to His words to the enemy that man shall not live from bread alone, but from every word that proceeds from the mouth of God - that living relationship where the Spirit daily speaks to you in all things. The mere thought truly overwhelmed me!   Not speaking to my Lord for 40 days... crazy, I know.  That took me to a serious level of, “What?  I would rather fast from literal food for 40 days than from not speaking to Him!” That’s it.  No ifs or buts about it.  Just total shutdown.  

The reason for the silence, not only between Him and I, but as well with others, was vital for what He was about to teach me.  When I finally found the nerve to contemplate this, His wisdom as usual just amazed me.  You see, I have grown very sufficient in my spirituality.  I am not talking about a religious spirit.  Rather, these gifts and talents and even all that I have become have been for His glory and honor.  They are part of who I am, but not who I am.  Like clothes.  You dress a certain way and that is in some degree part of your personality or character.  Only part, not the whole.  But remove that, and you are left naked.  He was not showing me that my spirituality was wrong or religious, He was drawing me to a greater death in Him.  Which was a greater dependence on Him.  Think about Jesus.  Everything about Him was both human and spiritual when He walked this earth.  At the cross He was stripped from everything and left naked.  And His disciples were scattered with only a few that stood at the cross.  They were heartbroken, because they thought that He would be the One to save them from this cruel world.  A more pathetic and broken person on a cross you cannot imagine!  Quite the opposite of how they imagined His victory.  The Lion of Judah reduced to a slain lamb and dying. 

The wisdom of Father in this silence was that He was teaching me not to depend on what I have learned through all the years.  That though what I have learned through the years were right, there was in fact something that I needed to understand about them.  You may recall a word He gave me a while ago in which He asked me whether I am willing that He strips me of everything, especially the spiritual, to stand before Him alone.   He was teaching me to walk by faith, but in a whole new way.  This all was at the heart of the fast of silence.  He told me in my previous 40 day fast last year that in order for me to hear His voice, I have to silence all other voices.  And in order for Him to speak through me I have to silence my voice.  And as you know He has been talking about sackcloth and ashes, because He needed to reduce me to ashes…to nothing, so that He could speak and I would hear.  Ashes do not speak.

Isaiah 50: 3 – 6

³ I clothe the heavens with blackness, and I make sackcloth their covering.

⁴ The Lord God hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary: he wakens morning by morning, he wakens mine ear to hear as the learned.

⁵ The Lord God hath opened mine ear, and I was not rebellious, neither turned away back.

⁶ I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair: I hid not my face from shame and spitting.

Just before the fast He said, “Be still and know that I am God” – Ps. 46.10.  He was teaching me to be still, but not just physically still, but still in my very being.  For that, everything else had to become still itself.  My doing, and my being.  BE still.  I cannot begin to tell you how difficult it was in the beginning.  Waking up every morning for me is to greet Him with a smile and say, “Good morning Lord!” No good mornings.  Or just thanking Him for the good meal I was about to eat.  Not to mention the way I just speak to Him right through my day.  He is my best friend.  Or when I saw a need, wanting to pray for someone.  Or my daughter with tears in her eyes about the next “major” outfall with her best friend, knowing that she needs my prayers.  Not to mention when she goes into her panic attacks.  Or when I discover something amazing that I just want to lift up my hands and worship Him, but “no can do”.  So in intimate and stressfull times, I was to be silent.  He is my morning, noon and night and everything in between.  

At the end of the first week, someone contacted me wanting to know if I was available and willing to do something that is time sensitive.  They needed an answer, and my answer was, “I will have to pray about this first”.  Well, there was no praying.  This was what you would call a “catch 22” situation where I had no real way of knowing what to do.  But is was also the very provision of me understanding to what He is calling me to in this fast.  I needed to know whether it was His will that I should do this, but most importantly I needed to know whether this would derail that which He has done in me thus far in the fast, being very jealous for Him to have His way with me.  How was I going to get the answer I so desperately needed and so quickly?   Somehow I knew that He was not going to talk to me.  He made that clear.  He was not going to give me something palpable and factual and undeniable.  And yet I had to come up with an answer. 

I decided to listen to a sermon of one of my mentors, Art Katz called Hearing God’s Voice.  I have listened to it many times before, but somehow found myself drawn to listen again.  He started out with the following words that arrested my attention immediately.  In fact, this devotional is birthed out of the first 5 minutes of that sermon, because Father was speaking directly to me through this wonderful man.

He said, “What was profound of Jesus was His silence in His thinking", quoting P T Forsyth.  He said the reason we do not hear, is because of our lack of simplicity, our own agitation, fears and insecurities.”  Well, that brought me right back to the sleepless night I had before with regard to the answer I needed to give.  He said that our noise is the opposite of simplicity.  You will remember that I spoke in my previous devotionals of three words, SIMPLICITY, SOLITUDE and SILENCE.  I mentioned that these three are intertwined and influence one another.  So in this one sentence, Art Katz used the words simplicity and silence and I knew I was on the right track.

This reminded me of the scripture of Isaiah 50 where He says that He gives me the tongue of the learned and morning by morning He awakens my ear to hear as the learned.  I knew in that instance that this fast was about learning to hear from God.  Now, I have learned to hear from Him through the years, but this was something new.  Art further says, “Any demands from me, even subconsciously, impedes in my hearing the way I should.  That which I have already presupposed or logically thought out, that which constitute fear or even a sense of duty, impedes on my ability to hear from Him as I should.  These are the noise that He was addressing and therefore the need for silence and solitude in simplicity.  These noises dismiss the still small voice of God. 

And that is just it.  He was teaching me how to listen to His still small voice.  It is still.  Now, most of us see this as a whisper.  That still is the Strong’s word H1826, which means:

to be silent, be still, wait, be dumb, grow dumb

How do you hear that?  This is what He was teaching me in saying to me “Be still and know that I am God”. This still is another type of still that is required of me.  It is the number H7503 in the Strong’s Concordance and it means:

to sink, relax, sink down, let drop, be disheartened

This is where the part of the fast comes in.  To get myself in sackcloth and ashes.  To sink low and down and see myself as the nothing I am.  Because let’s face it…what are we without Him and everything He has given us?  He was not asking me to just stop doing things, but stop in my being.  To put on sackcloth and see myself as I truly am and that He required of me to stop doing all the wonderful things I have been doing for Him so that I once again I can be stripped bare before Him in order to hear Him speak.  Because unless I am “still” the way He intended, how will I know?  Still and know goes together.  You cannot have the one without the other, not in the degree He intends for us.  This stillness is an essential condition in the absence of any determination from my part for anything.  In other words, my will must be given over to Him even at great cost, even if it means rejection by those I love.  The absence of self-awareness, or self-preservation.  No agenda of my own, completely free from my ends. 

This made me think of Lazarus and how he was completely shut up in the grave, with no hope, dead to all, until He heard the Lord say His name.  Can you believe that this is the extent that He is willing to go with you should you want to hear the still small voice of God?  That there is a death needed for you to have the ear of the learned? 

P. T. Forsyth, one of my favorite writers of the early 1900’s said the following of Jesus in the emptying of Himself referring to Philippians 2. 

“Jesus was silent in the agony of knowing only the Father’s will and not even the Father’s way.  His self-emptying meant self-limitation and the limitation of knowledge.”

In other words, not a clear directive.  Similar to what He said to Abraham in following Him and THEN He will show him the land.  “Leave everything, and follow Me”.  Not because you know the Bible or doctrine so well, but out of a lifetime of obediences, that causes you to know the will of the Father in a given situation.  Without having to hear His voice in a situation that demands that you have to have the answer and clear directives.  Jesus emptied Himself not only of knowing, but the principle of knowing.  Why is this important for us to know?  Because to be still, means to empty yourself of all your preconceived ideas of how God should speak to you and when, even your past experiences.  To forgo the “right” in this relationship that He should and must speak to you as He has done thus far, and to trust Him.  This was exactly what I needed to do when I got up and were not allowed to just say “Good morning Father”.  I had to know that He knows that I love Him and that He knows that He is the first thing on my mind.  When my daughter needed prayer, I had to know in that moment that prayer was not to be given, but trust to be had, that He loves her and will look after her, even if I did not ask a single thing.  I had to know that He knows and trust that He will do what needs to be done.  I had to do this every day and I am still doing it. It has been both scary and liberating to say the least. 

And this is also what lies so close to the essence of self.  Self, the “I” wants to know.  Eve wanted to know what the fruit of that tree tasted like.  We like to be in control.  We want to know what is expected of us, when and how.  We want to know what our odds are, our future and what others think.  We want to know that we know and therefore all the boxes are checked and nothing can go wrong. Because we made sure we did that we knew what to do.  We want the security of knowing.  This is our safeguard against disappointment, even disappointment towards God.  And so, if we can say, “God has said”, who then can argue that we acted in obedience, because He has spoken.  But what if He is silent and He requires of us to act?  What will you then say to others when they require of you a reason for your actions?  We want hard facts, or at least something close enough for ourselves and others.  We want to know. Only He can bring you to this place of hearing.  And it will be through the cross.  The cross is at the heart of hearing, at the cost of silencing all the noise.  But, in knowledge do we trust.  In knowing the outcome, even if it is just a fair guess.  

The tree of the knowledge of Good and evil is something that has puzzled me.  We know it was not an actual fruit.  I like fruit, but I do not desire it.  The part that came to my mind was the fact that in this act, their eyes would open and they would know the difference between good and evil.  Well, I don’t know about you, but isn’t that a good thing?  Why would Father want to protect them from this knowledge?  My suspicion is that it had to do with the “seed” of independence that was sown in that moment into their hearts.  For this independence is nothing short of rebellion and witchcraft that cries out against God that I will trust in my own understanding and knowledge.  I will in fact not need Him to make it through life.  I myself know now and therefore nothing will be impossible for me.  I will be my own god.  Who needs God when you can be god?  Well, you may think that this does not apply to you, but I submit to you that the word says clearly that the flesh, that animal nature in you that exists without God, is in enmity with the Spirit.  This seed of independence knows how to grow and form deep roots into our being and from birth it grows within us producing the self-same fruit they saw in the garden.  In fact, your heart is the garden.  And this is the reason He came.  To lay the ax to the root of the tree – Luke 3: 9. 

This is why Paul said, “I am determined to know nothing among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified”.  Let us consider Paul.  A man with his credentials has all his proverbial ducks in a row.  All his files in alphabetical order, knowing what is required according to the law and experience.  But he says he is determined not to know anything among them, save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Which is to say that he is determined to “To walk by faith”.  He had to restrain from leaning on his own knowledge, for at the heart of self and the depravity and sinfulness of sin, lies the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  The ability to make decisions from out of yourself, your own self-dependency, which is self-idolatry.  God wants us to have no confidence in the flesh.  He wants to deal with all our categories, especially our spiritual categories, because “self” hides in the spiritual.  He has to show us our dependency on self.  

His desire is to lay the ax to the root, so that we no longer live by the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but from the Tree of Life.  From that incorruptible seed of life of the Word of God, not living by our life, the self, but by His life. 

“The need to know has to be crucified.  There has to be a willingness to proceed with the absence of knowing.  Trust without knowing is at the heart of the moral personality.” – Art Katz

We do not sufficiently understand the depths of our desire to know.  We do not see how it is rooted in that horrible tree called self.  Self wants to know what the fruit tastes like.  The will to know is what drives the rebellion to not relinquish control in God’s hands.  And Jesus gave up that will to know by emptying himself and that in itself was His provision to walk by  great faith.  At the heart of it, we want to be in control.  And “self” desires to rule no matter the cost, even if it is through religious means.  There it will hide and from there it will rule, looking moral and ever so poised, but still in control.  This is why all our righteous deeds are as filthy rags, because “self”, the very heart of hell, resides in the fiber of those rags. 

I am not advocating that we should all throw caution to the wind and not ask Father for confirmations or scriptural ‘back up” in our decision making.  With all things in the spirit there are degrees.  What I am saying is that we are all at different levels in the spirit, but that this is the place He desires to bring us all to.  A place of knowing.  Whilst we still need to be told, we are still maturing in our hearing, and there is nothing wrong with that.  But matured sons know.  Not by hearing, but by being silent, by being still so that you may hear the still small voice and therefore have the ear of the learned.

And maybe this is part of being a eunuch for God, being cut off from that which are your crutches, even the voice of God.  We, as children of God, live by what we hear from Him.  How would you like that mode of being, that life support to be cut off?  We live by voices, whether it be our own, the enemy’s, the Lord’s or other people.  We live by these voices.  And too many voices drown out the still small voice of God.  The reality is that once we become silent, His still small voice will be heard, but not in the way we have always known.  It will not be mixed with all the other voices.  It will not have the clutter of other voices, even our own, because we have been cut off.  So that like little Samuel we may hear him call us, when we rest.  From out of this rest, the stillness of the voices and a life of obedience comes a walking in knowing.  This is the true rest of God.  This faith that works not by the hearing, but by the knowing.  That like Jesus we can say, “I only say what the Father tells me to say, and the works I do, He does through me”.  And how can we fully obey if we do not first let go and crucify the need to know, the reliance on our own understanding. Especially our spiritual understanding.

Trusting the Father with all your heart lies at the very nexus of walking by faith, which is a knowing in silence.  Knowing Him who knows.  A confidence and a trust that does not require a knowing of what needs to be done or the outcome of our obedience.  Not just for a moment in time, but a moment by moment way of life.  This is the faith He is calling us to and also working in us.  This faith is childlike faith, because at the heart of it is trust. 

John 16: 13 - 16 

13 Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come.

14 He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you.

15 All things that the Father hath are mine: therefore said I, that he shall take of mine, and shall shew it unto you.

16 A little while, and ye shall not see me: and again, a little while, and ye shall see me, because I go to the Father.

There are times when He has to "go away from us" as we have come to know Him, so that He may reveal Himself to us afresh.  These are the times when He does not speak, but shows us by His Spirit.  Silence is a gift of immeasurable value, and the gift is Him.

For those who are going through this season, or who will one day go through this season, I would like to leave with you a word that He gave me 5 months ago, in which I now see and experience the fulfillment.  May you be richly blessed by learning to walk in the "knowing of silence".

Word received 18th September 2020

My child, you are in a new season.  This season will require of you to trust me inextricably without boundaries.  More than ever to be as a child.  To not doubt, but always believe.  Do not concern yourself with this world, but as I have said, 'Look unto Me".  Stay focused, stay committed to the way I have chosen for you.  You may not understand, and this is good.  For I do not desire for you to understand, but to trust.  Trust and obey.

I have said that I will guide you with My eye upon you.  Not with My mouth, not with reasoning, but with My eye.  Though you may not understand, you may know this.  I love you.  I know you love Me.  Never doubt these two facts.  For love is the fulfillment of the law.  Draw near to Me, stay near to Me.  Not by doing, but by a disposition of love.  For love conquers all.  Love endures all, hopes all and believes all.  So come and do not fear.  I am always with you.

There will be times where you will feel that you can no longer endure, but as I said, "Love endures all".  Nothing more is required but love.  Not your love, but Mine.  I will pour out My love into your heart at the right time.  Will it be as you expect?  No.  For you cannot put Me into a box.  Faith has no limits, neither does love.  So come, come in the ensurance that I will never leave you and remain in the posture of hope, faith and love, of which the greatest is love.  

Hope does not disappoint, faith has no boundaries and love endures forever.

I am your rewared.  Not a crown, not souls, nor anything else.  I am.  Have I not said that I am able to do super abundantly above all that you could ask or think?  Know then that I am your all in all.  That I fill all and so I will fill you.  This is your reward.  I AM your reward. 

I love you My child, I love you. 

PLEASE READ:

Psalm 32

Proverbs 3: 5 – 8

Isaiah 50: 3 – 11

Jeremiah 17: 5 – 10