This rarely heard truth: Knowing God is required of us

Though you’d never know it in most of the church today, knowing God intimately—as a wife knows her husband—is the plan. This is what God wants for you. This is what He expects from you. This is His glorious plan for His bride—and that is who we are.

It is really sad, but we have heard countless people tell us they are afraid to tell anyone in the church that they hear from the Lord or that God does indeed speak to Them. They may have had a vision, or received a Prophecy. But they fear that they might be considered crazy. In fact, in modern American society it is very risky to tell anyone you hear from God. “Yeh, right, of course you do. That’ll be all right. You’ll get over it…” You know the drill. If you know the Lord at all, you’ve heard things like that directed at you or other believers you know.

Hearing from God

In Pentecostal, Charismatic, and non-denominational churches, you’ll hear quite a bit about hearing from God. That is certainly a large part of what we are talking about in this book. But often it is taught that you hear from God by listening to the Sunday sermon or conference teaching.

This is a good thing—if the speaker is anointed by the Holy Spirit and is diligently seeking to be used by God to speak to everyone in the congregation. But it is a very limited source of knowledge from the Lord. You need daily input from the Lord—in fact you need minute by minute help.

You cannot come to know anyone well without talking with him or her constantly. Not talking at him—but with Him. You have to hear Him to have a conversation with Him.

But hearing from God is just a part of knowing the Lord. It is an essential part, but it misses the point. You hear from your boss, but there is rarely love or intimate knowledge there. The same can be said for most pastoral relationships in denominational churches. Intimate knowledge goes far beyond the norm—it is outside the box, as it were.

Knowing scripture

If you do not have knowledge of scripture (and even if you do), you are dependent upon constant prayers for the guidance and protection of the Holy Spirit.

However, I have a basic assumption: your knowledge and experience with scripture. I have to assume that you have read and studied the Bible extensively. Without that knowledge of the only objective standard we have, you can easily be led astray.

Verse by verse study is best, My Easily Understanding Scripture series will help you if you need it. But you simply need to read scripture daily. Think on what you read. Meditate on the content looking for relevancy to your life today.