The Big Error (1 of 2)

Everybody wants to hear from God. But that's just the first step. What do you do after you get the revelation? There are 4 phases to hearing from God: Revelation, Interpretation, Application/Wisdom, and Timing.

The Big Error many of us make is throwing out the whole process because of a mistake in one phase.

Suppose your friend says they have a God experience or supernatural revelation that makes you really uncomfortable. Suppose it's way outside your box that God would talk to somebody that way. But your friend is convinced that it's God.

Then, based on their experience, they go off an do something that really is stupid. It's very easy to use their obvious mistake to throw out their whole experience: “See, I told you God doesn't talk to people that way.”

Well, maybe He does, but they just messed up the interpretation or the application and did something stupid. That's not God's fault, and it doesn't mean their initial experience/revelation wasn't God.

That unique revelation, that spiritual baby, is precious. We need to be uber-careful not to throw it out with the spiritual bathwater.

Hearing from God (4 of 4): Timing

Everybody wants to hear from God. But that's just the first step. What do you do after you get the revelation? There are 4 phases to hearing from God: Revelation, Interpretation, Application/Wisdom, and Timing.

Timing is the most forgotten phase. Sometimes we know the right thing to do, but do it at the wrong time. “My Pastor agrees the word I got is from God to the church, he says he knows the interpretation and the application/wisdom – so why isn’t he doing anything about it?!?!?” Well, just cool your jets – it may be a good word, but it may not be for right now.

David was anointed king at least 15 years before he began his rule (1 Samuel 16 & 2 Samuel 5:4). Joseph’s dream about his brothers bowing down to him was given to him by God at least 18 years before it happened (Genesis 37:2 & 41:46, 41:53). Abraham and Sarah were promised a son 25 years before it happened (Genesis 12:2, 12:4, & 21:5).

So God's timing is not necessarily our timing. But intimacy with him, time spent, will reveal it.

Hearing from God (3 of 4): Application/Wisdom

Everybody wants to hear from God. But that's just the first step. What do you do after you get the revelation? There are 4 phases to hearing from God: Revelation, Interpretation, Application/Wisdom, and Timing.

The application/wisdom phase answers the question, “What am I going to do about it?”

Say you have a dream, and after some prayer you just know in your spirit that the Lord is showing you that a certain person at work, who's been really difficult lately, is being used by the enemy against you. From the dream you know this person really hates you, and it's going to get much worse. The person is going to be promoted to be your supervisor, running your whole department, and is going to intentionally make life miserable for you. Just suppose.

Ok, so that's the interpretation; the Lord has given you this knowledge. Now, what are you going to do about it? That's the application/wisdom.

In this example, you have several options:

• Start looking for a new job.
• Go to management and try to keep the person from being promoted.
• Buckle down for a rough road ahead.
• Find some way to serve and bless the person. Not to brown-nose, but to show God's love and honestly bless them.

After much prayer and intimacy with the Lord, he will tell you, either overtly or you'll just feel in your spirit what's the right thing to do. Intimacy with him reveals his strategy for the situation, not ours, and applying his strategy is always wisdom.

Hearing from God (2 of 4): Interpretation

Everybody wants to hear from God. But that's just the first step. What do you do after you get the revelation? There are 4 phases to hearing from God: Revelation, Interpretation, Application/Wisdom, and Timing.

Interpretation answers the question, “What does it mean?” Often, revelation from God comes packaged as a mystery. Dreams are a great example of this. It's not enough to hear from God; you need to understand and intentionally seek out what he's saying. Tune into his frequency, ask him, and wait.

Proverbs 25:2 says, “It is the glory of God to conceal a matter; to search a matter out is the glory of kings.” (NIV) Every do a treasure hunt with your kids? God loves it.

Ezekiel saw a crazy vision in Ezekiel 37:1-10. This valley of dry bones reassembles itself and comes to life, bone by bone, sinew by sinew, and becomes a mighty army. God interprets the vision himself in Ezekiel 37:11-14. Israel is currently in bondage to Babylon and discouraged because they think their nation is destroyed forever. But God gave them this powerful illustration that, no matter how hopeless it seems to them, he will restore them. It's a great picture of hope for us even today, but only if you know the interpretation.

Revelation without interpretation is just cool special-effects.

Hearing from God (1 of 4): Revelation

Everybody wants to hear from God. But that's just the first step. What do you do after you get the revelation? There are 4 phases to hearing from God: Revelation, Interpretation, Application/Wisdom, and Timing.

Revelation's the “easy” part; only we just can't make it happen. Believe me, God wants that communication with you more than you do. So the trick is to tune-in to his frequency.

You can hear all sorts of voices with your radio. But to hear any particular one, your radio has to be on and tuned to the right frequency. And each side has a part to play. You can't force the station to transmit, but when they do you can't hear it unless you're already tuned in.

So how do we tune-in to God's frequency? Intimacy with him. Worship. Prayer. Reading his word. Practicing solitude – time alone, unplugged – no Internet, no phone, no distractions. And just waiting. He will talk to you eventually, and usually it doesn't take that long.

And living a life-style of holiness. We all sin, but if you're willingly living a life-style of sin, a life-style that you know God doesn't accept, for example, sleeping with your girlfriend or boyfriend, drugs, greed, etc, then your radio's not even on. It doesn't matter if you do all the things above (worship, prayer, etc). Being tuned in to the station won't help if the radio's off.

What broadcast does God have for you today? Tune in your radio to his station and find out.

The Risk of Experience

Experience is risky. It can shatter your world-view. It can even kill you in some cases. And sometimes it's that possibility that makes it worthwhile.

Now I'm not advocating bungee-jumping here. But imagine the idiocy of buying a boat and never sailing it. “But I can't take it away from the dock, it might sink!” Yes, it might and many have. But if we weren't actually going to sail the boat, why'd we buy it?

We'd have been smarter to just buy a picture of a boat, if we didn't want the actual experience of sailing. But any sailor will tell you looking at the picture isn't the same thing as being on the boat. It's a whole different experience.

Imagine some guy who thought he was a great sailor because he owned 70 pictures of boats, versus an old salt who'd been on the water 70 years? Which do you want as the captain on your next voyage?

So what about our churches? Do we just hang pictures of Jesus, or do we actually experience him? It's a risky deal – he might sink our theology. But the adventure of experiencing God should never be avoided because of the risk of experiencing God.

The God of Our Emotions

Intimate, emotional experience with God is necessary, not for salvation, but to know the fullness of all God has for us. God wants our whole person, not just the safe parts we're willing to give him.

In the West we're often OK with him being the God of our mind and our will, but our emotions? Not so much. But we need to let him be the Lord of our emotions, too. It doesn't have to be a big, hairy deal. It's not always deep battlefield surgery; sometimes it's a gentle butterfly touch. But he decides which and when, not us.

If we want to know the fullness of all God has for us, then we need to experience him with our full being, including our emotions.

Head Knowledge vs Heart Knowledge

Christianity is not about intellectual ascent to certain truths (although it includes that). It's about relationship. It's important to know the Bible well – it's the Word of God after all. But we can't stop there. The Pharisees knew the Bible (the Old Testament at least) better than we ever will, and they missed their Messiah because they knew all about God but didn't know God.

We might know about something (head knowledge), but we really don't know something (heart knowledge) until we've experienced it. Until our experience, it isn't real to us.

The same is true with Jesus. At some point, we have to experience intimacy with him. We can't say we know someone with whom we have no common experiences.