By Francis Frangipane
The Voice of the Holy Spirit
God speaks to His followers through the Holy Spirit, and our ability to hear His voice is evidence of our humility. Don't miss that important truth: our humility is measured by our capacity to hear His voice. And the way to hear God's voice, the process of coming into that, is acknowledging our need, repenting, and becoming pure in heart. As you continue to embrace that cleansing process, you will become more and more sensitive to the voice of the Holy Spirit.
True humility brings joy when we listen to His voice. His voice may not be audible. The fruit of meekness and humility allows a greater ability to hear the Spirit speaking. Jesus told His followers, "My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow Me" (John 10:27, NIV). In Psalm 95:7–8 (NIV), David warned the people, "Today, if only you would hear His voice, ‘Do not harden your hearts as you did…in the wilderness.'" He is speaking the same words to us: "Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts" (Heb. 4:7, NIV). A person characterized by humility hears and responds to
the voice of the Holy Spirit.
The opposite is also true: if we don't hear the voice of God, it is evidence that we have not embraced the changes God called us into. Eventually we become hypocrites or phony Christians. If we're not changing and going on in the things of God, then we're living with two faces. God wants us to have one face—the face of Christ. He wants us to have one heart—the heart of Christ. He doesn't want us to have duplicity. He wants us to have sincerity of heart, which is one focus, one heart.
A Matter of the Heart
The work of God in this stage of training is to break down areas of resistance. The end of that breaking will result in the characteristic of humility wherein we tremble when God speaks. Through Isaiah the Lord says this:
These are the ones I look on with favor: those who are humble and contrite in spirit, and who tremble at My word. —Isaiah 66:2, NIV
We need hearts that tremble when God speaks, where, when He shows us an area of need, we don't attempt to fight with Him about it or turn away from His voice. In the example of Job, we see a godly man who feared the Lord and was turning away from evil. Of him the Lord said, "Have you considered My servant Job? For there is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, fearing God and turning away from evil" (Job 2:3).
Just as surely as Job turned away from evil, we can turn away from the voice of the Lord. When the Lord shows us an area of need, our carnal inner man can still turn away, move out of direct communication with God, and choose to do something that prevents us from responding. That's called hardening the heart. Solomon counseled us, "Watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flow the springs of life" (Prov. 4:23).
God wants to purify our hearts so we can see Him and hear Him speaking to us. He seeks to get to our hearts so that the reality of His presence within can lead us, and He can be the eternal I Am through us. When God's glory returned to the temple in the day of Ezekiel, God spoke to the prophet and said, "Son of man, this is the place of My throne and the place for the soles of My feet" (Ezek. 43:7, NIV). Since the completed work of His Son, Jesus, God is able to dwell within the hearts and souls of man. But just as the Israelites hardened their hearts and turned away from His presence in the temple, we can harden our hearts toward God's voice. When you harden your heart toward God, you soften your heart toward the enemy. When you harden your heart to the voice of God, you are softening your heart to the wicked one.
The Trembling Heart of Humility
When God speaks today, He is looking for humility that trembles at the sound of His voice. When we hear His voice, we need to "in humility receive the word implanted, which is able to save your souls" (Jas. 1:21).
When the Word of God comes to us, we don't always immediately obey it. In the second stage of our training—"Blessed are those who mourn"—we learned that we are to work out what God is working in us. Remember, "it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill His good purpose" (Phil. 2:13, NIV). There's a time when the word is working in you to will. You haven't attained the goal or fulfilled the work yet, but it's working in you now to will. The enemy sometimes comes to condemn you because you are not fulfilling that word yet. That's when you need humility and to maintain your trembling before God. If we back up one verse, we see that the Word tells us to "continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling" (Phil. 2:12, NIV). This trembling is humility before the living God, not trembling before men.
Here is where you pray, "Dear Lord, help me to love my enemies, to be pure in spirit, to live free from fear, and in other areas work in me to be willing."
Humility is the initiation of every virtue, every glory, and every increase of Christ in you. You will never get into the future of God's promises without having the humility of God's provision and preparation today.
My friend, I believe with all my heart that you can be equipped. Everyone can pass through these changes to where we carry revival in our souls because God has done the work inside us. None of us is disqualified if we simply believe God and embrace the process of knowing our need, mourning over it, keeping those attitudes of heart, and becoming humble by choice.
Do Not Harden Your Heart
It is imperative that you do not harden your hearts at any point along this stairway to Christlikeness. Today you may hear His voice, but if you respond with hardness of heart, it will be harder to hear His voice from this day forward. At first, His voice sounds like one shouting in the wilderness, but if you continue to harden your heart, that voice will be just a whisper in the night until you no longer have the capacity even to hear Him speaking.
Don't harden your heart. God wants to lead you into His presence. The process of training may seem long and daunting, but the only way to Christlikeness is to take each step, one after another.
Think for a moment about the example of David. Samuel anointed David to be the king of Israel when he was just a young shepherd boy. He knew the promise of God for his future, but he was forced to live in the wilderness for years before it came to pass.
Many Christians live in a wilderness where the predators of fear, sin, and futility keep them in caves of darkness until they can embrace their destiny in God. Each of us begins our journey to Christlikeness from a point in the wilderness. As we climb the steps of our training in spiritual maturity, we start the journey from the cave of darkness to the glory of the presence of God. We must embrace this process of change from the inside out.
But until you give yourself over to God's process of change, you will continue to live in a cave of darkness on mountains meant for the presence of God that have been inhabited by the enemy. Guard against hardening your heart so you can progress to Christlikeness. On this third step of your training, God wants you to live a life of humility. You might pray, "O Lord, humble me"—and He can arrange that—but you must choose an attitude of humility through which He can work. These familiar words tell us:
If My people, who are called by My name, will humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land. —2 Chronicles 7:14, NIV
You must choose to humble yourself when the voice of God speaks, when the stirring of God is in your inner man, and when He has His finger on some sin from which He wants you to repent. Humble your- self to His voice when you sense some prayer you are supposed to pray, some prophecy you are supposed to give, some dream you are supposed to share. Choose to humble yourself whenever you are supposed to do something.
Make a transition from just humbling yourself during times of adversity and difficulty to becoming a person humble by choice, one who walks with God and hears the voice of God speaking. "Be strong and very courageous.…Do not turn…to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go" (Josh 1:7, NIV).
The humility of heart that you choose now will awaken a hunger and thirst for the righteousness of Christ to be evident within you. Choose humility today.
Father God, work in me the meekness that trembles when You speak. Give me a trembling heart, a soft heart, a breaking heart. Train me to be sensitive to Your Spirit and to walk in humility before You.
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Adapted from Francis Frangipane's newest book, The Heart That Sees God available at www.arrowbookstore.com.