When you finally meet me face to face you’ll realise you’ve been hearing me all along.
AND….
How to have a conversation with me in the midst of a hectic life.)
God lots of people find that when they talk to you they DON’T hear you speak back.
Actually everyone hears me Mark, they just don’t realise they do.
Are you sure God??
I’m sure.
Then why don’t people recognise that they’re hearing you?
Because Religion has taught them that they don’t. He teaches you that hearing me speak is dependent on your morality – that if you’re not good enough you won’t hear my voice. It’s his key lie. He says it in a voice that he pretends is mine. He tells you that the Holy Spirit convicts you when your behaviour is poor and yet in the same liar’s breath he tells you that the Holy Spirit has to run from you when your behaviour is poor. Which is it Mark? Do I speak to you or run from you?
And Mark no one teaches what I sound like. Everyone teaches that I’m cross and won’t talk until you behave yourselves. But that’s a lie. I’m already talking and encouraging. I’m a father not a judge.
Everyone hears me. It’s not hard to hear my voice – the hard bit is realising that you do. Not what I sound like in church, but rather what I sound like in your everyday life. When people finally meet me face to face they are always astonished. Suddenly they realise they have been hearing me all their lives. ‘YOU!’ they shout, ‘It was really YOU!’ They realise that so many things they heard that they wished were me, really were me. And then they run to me.
Really? They run to you? The picture we get taught is bowing low before the master, hoping our effort has been sufficient.
Mark??? Is that what your kids do when they see you? Do they bow low?
Of course not! But God who are your kids?
You tell me Mark. I am the father of all mankind, so who are my kids?
God you always seem to answer me with another question, why do you do that? Why can’t I get the answer to my question first pop?
Because I’m not a ‘Question Answering Machine’ Mark. I’m me. And I want you to learn to converse with me, to keep pressing me, demanding an answer. It strengthens your faith. And on the subject of kids - your kids don’t scrape low when they see you, and neither do mine. They run to me! When they see me face to face they are no longer afraid of me. No longer afraid that they’re not good enough. When they see me, Religion is finally silenced - and without his dark lies there is no fear. Love casts out fear. Religion is NOT love, I AM love Mark.
Can you imagine that day Mark? They see me at last and suddenly they realise that all their lives they’ve been hearing me speak – that I’ve been on their side all along. Not condemning, not judging, not unhappy with them the way Religion says I am. But actually all their life I’ve been right there on their side – encouraging them, cheering them up. All their lives they have thought that the enemy’s condemning, judging voice was my voice. That cross, stern voice he pretends is me saying – ‘Do this! Pray that! Read this! Get this right in your life or you’ll never please God!’ But when they see me they realise for the first time that it wasn’t me at all. How could it be? How could the Jesus of the bible speak with such a distant, judging, ‘if-only-you-were-a-better-person’ sort of voice?
JOHN 3:17 ‘For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.’
When at last they see me face to face they realise that the voice that told them that they were acceptable no matter what really was me and then in an instant everything makes sense. They realise I haven’t been against them, haven’t been judging them, haven’t been pushing them to achieve impossible goals of purity - that actually I’ve been whispering encouragement and friendship. They see that I’ve always been just there ready to embrace them, and still am and suddenly they forget their fear of me and they run to me. Home at last! Shocked when they realise that everything Religion told them was a lie.
God is this really you? I’ve heard this view of you. Some people like it, some people hate it. Some people back it with scripture, some attack it with scripture. I’m hearing you say more and more of this sort of thing, but really God?? Really this picture of coming face to face with you after death and receiving full acceptance? All of us God?? Is that really you? It sounds like a new doctrine to me God and I don’t want to be responsible for starting it.
It’s not new Mark. It’s an old doctrine. Older than the hills. This is our doctrine, the doctrine of The Three. The doctrine of the God who made himself lower than the angels to redeem you from the angel who tried to make himself higher than God. This is a doctrine too difficult for angels to understand, a doctrine that has escaped the knowledge of much of the Church for millennia and yet it is a doctrine that even a child can understand. I told you clearly that you must think as a child to understand this doctrine. This is a doctrine that was our doctrine even before we decided that the hero of heroes must die so that all men could become heroes.
Heroes God?
Heroes. All men can escape the clutches of the master of lies Mark. All of you can. And yet everyone who does so becomes an instant hero. It’s an act only possible with the love and humility of The One. Not your love and humility, mine. It is not a matter of trying suddenly to live the perfect life. Everyone pretends they are working toward that, but you all know that you’re not. Even Paul admitted that he did the very things he didn’t want to, that his own efforts to be better and better were futile. And yet Religion tells you that it’s what I want. It’s ok Mark, it really is ok! Conduct doesn’t make your life perfect, conversation with me makes you perfect. I am perfect and when you are with me my perfection covers you. It’s not your conduct, but your being with me that makes you perfect. A conversation with the one who comes bleeding. The one who comes saving. The ones who comes loving. The one who comes to talk and listen. That’s who I am and that’s all I want. A conversation. A conversation that never ends. So Mark just keep expecting it to happen and asking me how to make it happen, all the time.
Ok. How do I make it happen?
Listen.
Ok why do I feel like this? A bit of a longing to hear your voice.
You’re missing me.
What? We’ve just been talking?
Yes. But you’re missing me because you’re not hearing me as much as you’d like to.
Is that honestly you speaking God?
It’s me.
Ok, why am I not hearing you as much as I’d like?
Because you’re not listening as much as you’d like.
You’re right God I’m not. But it’s difficult. I can’t just stop and talk with you when I’d like, there are others to consider now. When I first learned to have a conversation with you I lived on my own. In those days most of the time it was just you and me. But you’ve put others back in my life now.
That’s the secret right there Mark. You used to just stop and talk. The secret is to stop and talk.
But God how?? Sometimes I can’t just stop and talk. There are others to consider.
Actually you can.
What?? How on earth??
Easy. You stop and talk WITHOUT stopping. Of course there are times you really can stop. You need to learn to organise those so they don’t make others feel uncomfortable. But I have designed life to be filled with people, I have made you social beings, and I want to come to the party with you. I don’t want just to have to talk to you on your own. I want to be right there in the thick of your conversations with others too. With you. With them.
God how do I stop and talk without stopping?
You learn to have the conversation with me while you are talking with and in the company of others. WITHOUT making them feel uncomfortable.
Really God?
Really. I want you to learn to do it on the go too. Just to learn to be talking with me, back and forward with me, all the time.
But how God?
Learn it.
How?
How do you think?
Practise?
Absolutely. Practise. That’s all it takes. Practise. All the time.
What do you mean by all the time?
I mean as often as you want to talk with me you’ll hear me speak back.
How do I do that when I’m working and socialising. I’m always around people during those times and often talking to them. How can I listen constantly to you during those times?
Try it. Keep trying it. It takes practise. Every time you remember it, try it. It’s what life is actually about. It’s hard but it’s not hard. I make it a little difficult so that you have to work at it.
Why do you do that?
So that you don’t have to do it unless you want to.
Why?
I don’t want you to feel compelled to converse with me. It will never be as satisfying for you if you have to do it. It’s only completely fulfilling if you want to.
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How to Hear God’s Voice
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