HE SPEAKS WHEN WE ARE SURRENDERED

The day that you surrendered your life, and considered yourself dead, the day that you let Me live My life through you, birthed the power to overcome.

And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death. (Rev 12:11 NKJV)

The quickest way to hear the Lord speak, is to totally surrender your life to Jesus Christ.  Give Him everything you are, everything you want, everything you have, everything you pursue, everyone you love, every part of who you are:  BODY, SOUL AND SPIRIT.  Surrendering to God is trusting that He is your Good, loving Heavenly Father Who brings everything together for good.  It is trusting that even if all you give up is tested and tried by the enemy, that the Lord said yes for His good purpose.  It is trusting Him that even in death, His good purpose reigns.  It is trusting that in every death, there is multiplied life. 

Many strongholds fall by the wayside when you are in total surrender to the Lord.  This takes away veils that keep you from hearing Him in the many ways He speaks.   

2 Cor 3:16-18  NLT

But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, then the veil is taken away. Now, the Lord is the Spirit, and wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, he gives freedom. And all of us have had that veil removed so that we can be mirrors that brightly reflect the glory of the Lord. And as the Spirit of the Lord works within us, we become more and more like him and reflect his glory even more.

The various aspects in this lesson are about how to surrender to God.  This character trait is important in hearing God speak to you.  It is about having a heart that bows low to listen to the One you love.  It is giving Him first place and giving honor to His voice in your life.  When you are surrendered, yielded, letting Him lead, and no longer striving with Him, something precious begins to form within you.  It is the nature of Jesus Christ, Who did nothing of Himself.  He only did what He heard and saw His beloved Father doing.

John 5:19-20 NKJV

Then Jesus answered and said to them, "Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner.  For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself does; and He will show Him greater works than these, that you may marvel.

 HE SPEAKS when we let him LEAD

Rom 8:14 NKJV

For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.

I have a pastor friend who saw a wet spaghetti noodle and a large hand come down and push it across some glass.  The noodle only piled up instead of moving forward.  Then he heard the Lord say, “My people are like wet noodles, you just can’t push them.  You have to draw them.”  Then he saw the same hand take hold of the noodle and pull it.  The noodle became straight again. 

God uses our personalities to lead us.  When it comes to our making a decision, He initiates it, draws us, gets our attention, then says, “It’s yours, you decide!”  The Lord is not a controller.  He does not force us to do something we do not want to do.  He leaves the decision of whether we will follow, up to us.  He wants our personalities, our own heart, to want what He wants.  That’s why He draws us, He does not want to push or control us into doing what’s right.

SUCH A GREAT COST TO GIVE FREE WILL
God made Adam free and give him a voice
He laid down His power to grant free choice.
God walked with Adam and gave him access
Talking, sharing, waiting for Adam’s “yes.”
Through His great power, by force He could take.
With His great love, He yielded for their sake.
In the garden, He would not interfere.
He gave free choice for willing volunteers.

Through out these years of mankind’s history
God’s heart travails an enflamed mystery.
He pursues our lives with such passionate love.
Yet waits for entrance as the gentle Dove.
Bowing His ear low, He’s so sensitive
Hearing our desires, if we’re receptive.
He yearns as He waits for our permission.
With circled groaning for our decision.

His intense love is constrained persuasion
Lest He overtake us by invasion.
With great restraint He will not use His force
To rule our life with pressuring coerce.
God knows the cost of honoring free will
Continued this day, He suffers it still.
One third of His creatures fell to the earth
Refused His love, dishonored what he birthed.

He may seek us and be inquisitive.
But only wants what were willing to give.
He makes sure we really know He is there.
So we will receive what He has to share.
He suffers long, through wavering so-so’s.
Til He’s convinced that we really mean no.
God’s deepest travail is that He does wait
For mutual desire to relate.

John 17:21 NKJV
... that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us...

HE SPEAKS when we yielD

“Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain.  He who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.  If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also.  If anyone serves Me, him My Father will honor.”  (John 12:24-26 NKJV)

I received an insight about God’s multiplication factor while looking at some scriptures.  The Bible says, “For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.”  (Romans 8:29 NKJV)  That means that our destination is to become like Jesus.  And Jesus’ destination before His resurrection was death to His own will by yielding His life to the Father’s will.

Jesus said the only way a plant lives forever is to continue to produce fruit.  The way it produces fruit is for the grown plant to die after harvest, and allow its seeds to be planted back into the ground.  The single seed, and thus the plant, is multiplied many times over.  He said, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me.  For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it.”   (Luke 9:23-24 NKJV)  This kind of death to self is a decision to yield our own personal desire over a circumstance and say, “Lord, if this is Your will, then I accept that You know best.”  “Not my will, but thine be done.” (Luke 22:42)

This is a painful place to be, but it has glorious rewards of a multiplied life.  Jesus chose to yield His own will and lay His life down as a righteous seed for the sake of multiplying that seed to all who would believe on Him.  His death multiplied righteousness for an entire world.  The Bible says that only the Father brings forth the multiplied life:   “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase.  So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase.  Now he who plants and he who waters are one, and each one will receive his own reward according to his own labor.  For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field.”  (1 Corinthians 3:6-9 NASB)

The Father chose that Jesus’ physical death would be increased beyond the grave, by bearing the fruit of eternal salvation for anyone who would partake of that fruit.  Like Jesus, when we go through death to self, the Father chooses what fruit our yieldedness will produce.  Every person is different, therefore every person will have a different harvest of the fruit of their decisions. 

Not everyone who is a Christian will go through death to self-will.  The fact is, we can be as close to God as we want to be.  “And He was saying to them, take care what you listen to.  By your standard of measure it shall be measured to you.”  (Mark 4:24 NASB)  “Draw near to God,  and He will draw near to you.”  (James 4:8 NASB)  Because we have a choice, death to self will not be chosen by everyone.  But those who want God above everything else are willing to follow Jesus Christ even to the cross.  As a result, those people will hear God on earth, in the greatest measure available to mankind.

BEYOND THE GRAVE

When you’re persecuted for My sake
Remember My tomb after the wake.
When you’re betrayed, forgotten, denied
I raise up all that was crucified.

Whatever you have lost, give to Me.
Wherever you have died, I’ll set you free.
I count every tear, I measure your groans
I feel your heartache over what you owned.

When you count all things but for lost
Forsaking all, having paid the cost…
Knowing My sufferings were not in vain
My power is in you, past the pain.

Collect now My multiplied benefit
Only if you’ve yielded all that was ripped.
Disappointed in yourself, men and Me.
Release, forgive, and set it all free.

The time is NOW to hope and believe
Rise up and fly away from the sieve.
Threshed, sifted and yielded you fell through.
Now watch and see what I do with you.

The pieces of your life where you were rent,
I will piece together and I will mend.
Your tapestry will be a gem mosaic
Of all you’ve been through for My sake.

Yes you have suffered because you love Me.
With passion I repay what you have spent on My tree.
I bring balance to the scales of justice
I repay good for evil, with interest plus.

I want you healed, no longer broken
You are My banner, My holy token.
Be My light, bear good news that I redeem.
I AM not Who the devil makes Me seem.

I will empower it all, as you share your story
I will heal and make well, for My glory.
Look past your past and beyond the grave
The Lord Jesus Christ is here to save.

John 11:25-26 NKJV
Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?"

Phil 3:7-11 NKJV
But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord,  for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith;  that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection , and the fellowship of His sufferings,  being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.

HE SPEAKS WHEN WE DO NOT STRIVE

“...But indeed O man, who art you to reply against God?  Will the thing that is formed say to him who formed it, “Why have you made me like this?  Does not the potter  have power over the clay...Woe to him who strives with his Maker... Shall the clay say to Him who forms it, What are you making?...The Lord spoke to Job: “Shall he that contends with the Almighty instruct him?  He that reproves God, let him answer it.” One classic phrase quoted so often from Job: Job said “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him: but I will maintain mine own ways before him.” 

The word maintain  in Job 13:15 =  Reprove: to be right, argue, decide, justify, defend, rebuke, etc.  [3198 Heb Strong’s]
 

Rom 9:19-21  NKJV

You will say to me then, "Why does He still find fault? For who has resisted His will?" But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, "Why have you made me like this?" Does not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor?

 

Isa 45:9  NKJV

"Woe to him who strives with his Maker!  Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth! Shall the clay say to him who forms it, 'What are you making?' Or shall your handiwork say, 'He has no hands'?

 

Job 40:1-2  NKJV

Moreover the LORD answered Job, and said: "Shall the one who contends with the Almighty correct Him? He who rebukes God, let him answer it."

I read a testimony of a gal who received visions and talked to the Lord face to face. The way she came into His Presence was through worship.  I really wanted to talk to Him face to face!  I thought if she can do it, so can I.  So I tried.  And I tried again.  Nothing.  I tried harder. 

Still nothing.  Then I launched a campaign and decided to stay up all night if I had to, worshipping Him and seeking Him.  I was very tired, and still I kept on.  Finally exhaustion set in, I gave up and went to bed.  That night I received a vision.  This is what I saw!  A vision of me trying to jump to heaven.  The Lord said nothing to coincide with the vision.  He didn’t have to.  I figured it out all by myself.  Heaven’s too far to jump.

When I heard the voice of the Lord for the first time, it was such an eventful milestone in my life, in analyzing it later, I thought that my hoarse voice and the exhaustion made a difference.  After all, what else could it be, since He had never spoken to me before?  In truth, I wasn’t striving with Him at all, I was just thoroughly caught up in Him, and enjoying His Presence for hours.   Without my noticing, I became tired and lost my voice.

However, if I’d had a purpose in the worship, song and prayer, in which I went on and on, and on and on, (you know what I mean) for a specific reason, how do you think it would make Him feel?  Think how you’d feel if someone wanted something from you, and wouldn’t let up until you said yes!  That is striving. There is a place for persistence.  But it is not meant to be with the attitude of butting our heads against Him. 

[A Pastor friend said something cute in a sermon:  the difference between a sheep and a goat is that the goat is always saying, “but, but, but.”]

Demanding Him to give answers and guidance is an example of striving.  Our attitude needs to be humble, yielded and willing when we approach Him.  The lust for knowledge is a wrong motive for seeking answers from Him.  It is commonly manifested by pushiness - a push and drive to zealously gain answers.  He desires us to pursue Him, but not for the wrong motive.  We do not have the rights, arguments, decisions, or justifications to demand God to answer.  In seeking His guidance, we cannot demand understanding, we can merely ask.  When we strive with God for any reason, we EXPECT Him to act a certain way, and do not give Him room to be Himself.  May we yield our wills and let go of our striving.  If we love Him, we will yield and give Him space to make His own choices.

Job is a perfect example of striving with God.  In standing against his enemies, he insisted on maintaining his belief system.  He insisted he was right, argued, decided, justified, and defended his stand.  Yet even though Job’s belief system was accurate about Him, when the trial was over God rebuked Job for maintaining his own way before Him.  (Job 13:15) What does that mean?  Job’s belief system did not allow God to have freedom of choice.  God said He was God, and could do anything.  Job did not understand why he was being tried when he knew his belief system was accurate.  Job’s downfall was his expectations of God - he did not give God room to be Himself and freely choose His own will. 

In having a relationship with Him, we need to be willing to let God be God, and choose the way He desires His Word to be applied.  This is especially true in waiting for His promises.  We strive against God when we inaccurately hold His promise — for instance, having a written note of promise from someone, going before him and demanding he perform, because he gave us the note.  I have seen many who have continued to strive against God about His Word and how it should apply in their lives.  I have watched them go around the same track for years, simply because they refused to release their will to His plan. 

The way we can hear more from the Lord and have a living joyful relationship with Him is to let go of our striving expectations and let Him be God.

HE SPEAKS when we limit FLEECES

Judg 6:36-40  NLT

Then Gideon said to God, "If you are truly going to use me to rescue Israel as you promised, prove it to me in this way. I will put some wool on the threshing floor tonight. If the fleece is wet with dew in the morning but the ground is dry, then I will know that you are going to help me rescue Israel as you promised." And it happened just that way. When Gideon got up the next morning, he squeezed the fleece and wrung out a whole bowlful of water.  Then Gideon said to God, "Please don't be angry with me, but let me make one more request. This time let the fleece remain dry while the ground around it is wet with dew." So that night God did as Gideon asked. The fleece was dry in the morning, but the ground was covered with dew.

Using a fleece is a comforting way to please the soul and personality, but it is not recommended as a pattern of relationship with the Lord.  Most people use fleeces by stating a certain need for guidance: “Lord, if You do such n’ such, then I know I’m supposed to do such n’ such.”  Notice the if-then clause.  This clause suggests making a contract with God on YOUR TERMS.  When a person lays a fleece before the Lord, he is putting God into a position to answer according to his way, not God’s.  It is controlling the limits of circumstances and asking God to fit that mold. 

There are those who lust for signs.  (The Pharisees wanted signs, rather than Jesus.  They did not see HE WAS the sign.) People who look for signs are also vulnerable to falling into a snare.  They are ones who lay fleeces before the Lord on a continuing basis.  One satanic realm of influence is the lust for signs. 

God knows the heart, and may answer a fleece, as recorded in Gideon’s plight.  Notice the awe and respect of Gideon’s heart in approaching God in this manner.  Placing the fleece before the Lord was with great caution as unto the fear and respect of the Lord: “And Gideon said unto God, Let not thine anger be hot against me, and I will speak but this once: let me prove, I pray thee, but this once with the fleece, let it now be dry only upon the fleece and upon all the ground let there be dew.” (Judges 6:39-40 KJ)

The fleece was a request to God, and God  answered as  His  gift.  This was not without consequences.  God wanted Gideon’s army cut down to 300 men.  It was not that God was angry so Gideon had to make up for the use of the fleece by cutting his army; but that the fleece and answer were very much like a contract.  Gideon suggested a contract on Gideon’s terms.  God answered.  Then God gave Gideon God’s terms: 300 men.

The scriptures suggest God is reasonable, listens to the will of man, and is willing to be flexible and work with him.  He is our Good Father.  However, we should not test Him to see how far He is willing to bend.  This whole concept is something to be approached with reverence, respect and awe.  He’s not Someone to bargain with in the market place.  Those who use fleeces on a regular basis are asking for trouble. 

Fleeces suggests a flexible part of God’s nature, but when we draw the line of flexibility it is best WE BE THE FLEXIBLE ONE.  If one has the wrong motive: a lust for signs, lust for knowledge, demanding (striving with) or testing and proving Him, one day the Lord will thresh out that leaven in the heart through a sifting process.

There is one other reason God would cut this weed out.  There are people who have been accustomed to using fleeces with a pure desire to find out His will.  He knows the heart, and perhaps will even answer for a season on their terms.  Yet there will come a day when He wants them to grow and come out of this type of relationship with Him.  Fleeces put God in a box, He is not cheerfully willing to stay there for very long! There are many of ways to hear from Him without putting Him in a box.  He desires to bring His own up and out, seeking Him on His territory.

WHAT IT MEANS TO SURRENDER
AND LET GO

“If you love something, you will set it free.
If it comes back to you, it was meant to be.”

As I was thinking about the parable of what it means to surrender to God and let go, I saw a vision of an open palm with a tiny bird sitting there.  Love is letting go and honoring someone enough to give them free will.  That is what we to do with God when we surrender to His will.  And that is what God does with us in giving us free will.

A friend sent me a vision:

"I saw a bird, and it flew back a bit to a tree where it felt safe and continued talking, though more relaxed. I listened, could not understand, and asked the Lord to tell me what the bird was saying. Then I saw myself holding a small bird in my hands. The bird was not afraid. It wanted to be with me and the bird knew it was safe there.  I knew how fragile the bird was and that I had the ability to crush the bird in my hands. I just sat there with this knowledge and quite content to leave my hands open so it could fly away and return as it desired.   The bird is not mine; it is the Lord’s. I must be careful to remember that.”
 

“There are 2 lasting gifts we can give our children.
One is roots the other is wings.”